How to Safely Cook Kidney Beans & Cannellini Beans in a Slow Cooker (2024)

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How to Safely Cook Kidney Beans & Cannellini Beans in a Slow Cooker? ›

Place soaked beans in a slow cooker, filling the slow cooker with water and covering the beans with about 2 inches of water. Add aromatics and/or salt if using and cook the beans on low for 5-6 hours, or on high for 3-4 hours.

Whether you have cans of prepared beans or bags of the dried ones stacked (neatly, of course) in your pantry, red kidney beans and cannellini beans are always good to have on hand. However, both of these colors of kidney beans can be toxic when prepared in a slow cooker.

Put beans into the slow cooker and add enough water to cover beans by 2 inches. Turn cooker to HIGH and cook beans until they're tender and cooked through, about 5-6 hours for unsoaked beans. (You can also cook the unsoaked beans on low, which would take about twice as long.) Drain beans.

If you have a slow cooker recipe that calls for kidney beans, either cook them first or use canned beans, because they are pre-cooked before canning. This precaution is most important for red kidney beans, but also applies to white ones.

The haemagglutinin (lectin), which occurs naturally in the red kidney bean, is inactivated by thorough cooking of well soaked beans. In many of the outbreaks reported the implicated beans were consumed raw or following an inadequate heat process.

Cooking dried beans in a slow cooker is incredibly convenient. Just throw them in with a bit of a broth and several hours later you'll be rewarded with some creamy and tender legumes. But if you try this method with red kidney beans, you risk giving yourself a severe case of food poisoning.

The long cooking time means that those beans will definitely soften! However, I am a believer that soaking the beans removes some of the enzymes that causes intestinal discomfort, so I usually stick to the practice of soaking them overnight.

But research now suggests that one tough ingredient shouldn't be cooked in the slow cooker at all — beans. All beans contain a compound called “phytohaemagglutinin,” also called PHA, or kidney bean lectin.

Cook on high 12-14 hours or on low for 24 hrs., or until beans are soft, and juice is thick. Stir occasionally. Check water occasionally to make sure there is enough water in the beans, so they don't boil dry.

Dried beans typically have a moisture content of around 16%. However, as they age, moisture evaporates, giving pectin time to age and harden the skin. These beans can often take much longer to soften while soaking and cooking, up to twice the time!

What happens if you don't rinse kidney beans? ›

"If you rinse your beans thoroughly, you will have a consistently flavored product, but if you do not rinse them, different amounts of salt will remain in the dish each time you cook it, and it will be hard to cook consistently," he says.

Fully cooked or canned beans are always safe to eat. But undercooking can actually raise lectin activity. That's why it's best to use canned or fully pre-cooked kidney beans in crock pot recipes that call for beans.

According to the Food and Drug Administration's Bad Bug Book, dried red kidney beans and cannellini beans contain toxic levels of lectin—proteins that bind to carbohydrates—and can cause vomiting, diarrhea and gastrointestinal illness for several hours when not cooked properly.

The haemagglutinin (lectin), which occurs naturally in the red kidney bean, is inactivated by thorough cooking of well soaked beans. In many of the outbreaks reported the implicated beans were consumed raw or following an inadequate heat process.

The good news is that the toxin can be deactivated by simply boiling the raw beans for ten minutes. This temperature degrades the toxin without cooking the beans. The FDA also recommends soaking the beans for five hours to remove any residual toxins and then tossing the water out.

The reason that beans are safe to eat straight from the can is pretty simple: They're already cooked. According to Epicurious, beans are blanched before being canned with water, salt, and other additives — all of which help keep the shelf-stable beans fresh for long periods of time.

Place beans in a large colander, and rinse very well under running water. Transfer beans to slow cooker. Add water. Turn slow cooker on high and cook for at least 6 hours or up to 14 hours.

Drain and rinse your white beans and kidney beans add to the crockpot. Add the remaining ingredients and then stir well. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours or on high for 3 to 4 hours.