I finally figured out why my beans kept tasting bland

I was just boiling them plain for years, but a friend from Tucson told me to always cook them in the water I soaked them in. That starchy water has so much flavor, and now my pintos taste like they came from a restaurant. Anyone else have a simple trick that totally changed a basic ingredient?

3 comments

3 Comments

harper_owens2mo agoTop Commenter

My grandma from New Mexico taught me to add a dried chile pepper to the pot while they simmer. It doesn't make them spicy, just gives this deep, smoky flavor that's amazing.

jesse_craig261mo ago

It's just beans, not a science project. People get so worked up about soaking water and special tricks. Boil them with some salt, they taste fine. The whole point of simple food is that it's simple. You can overthink anything if you try hard enough.

holly_green822mo ago

That thing about the starchy water is so true. It's like we're trained to throw away the best part. I see this everywhere now, like rinsing pasta after cooking it and washing off all the sauce-grabbing starch. We follow these basic rules without asking why, and it strips all the character out of simple food.