Cooking Lentils and Beans While on the Road?
 

Hey! I'm going to be taking copious amounts of dried lentils and beans with me on my next tour, but I'm pretty unsure of how to cook them. I have a stove that can simmer (or simmer as best a white gas stove can), but everything I've read from cooking sites online says to soak the beans/lentils for a while before they cook.

So...how do you cook them on the road without time to let them soak? Do they need to soak?

Thanks!

PS- I'm planning on making a lot of dal type dishes since they're easy, hearty, and delicous.

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Depending on the specific beans or lentils IME you need between 30mins [some lentils] to 120mins to cook them on a stove when starting from a dry state. That's a lot of fuel so it is worth soaking them when possible.

If you soak them all day you can reduce that time considerably.

I have a small camping pressure cooker made by GSI that will also reduce the time to cook soaked or dry beans even further. It is heavy enough I probably wouldn't take it cycle touring, but I'm a bit of weight weenie. It probably would save enough fuel on a long tour to justify its weight if you plan to cook lots of beans/lentils.

Another option is to use an insulated pot cozy [they sell them for backpacking oven kits] over your pot. You can heat the pot with less fuel and then turn the stove off and the pot will stay warm for a long time cooking your beans without using as much fuel.

Depending where you are going touring you might be able to gather fire wood and cook on that. In that case fuel isn't too big a concern and you can let them simmer longer on a fire.

I'd try out some recipes at home on your kitchen stove or using your camp stove to get some idea how much time different beans need when soaked or not soaked. They are pretty easy to cook with and make some delicious meals.

I do it similar to Vik. At breakfast I bring the beans or lentils or rice and water to a boil , I let it cool for 10 mins and then put it in a plastic jar . At dinner usually 15-25 mins of boiling will finish them off. If you are also a carnivore , try putting some beef jerky in the soaking jar for flavoring

You are carrying the legumes and you carry water. Why not not carry some sort of secure Zip-lock or TupperWare container and let them soak while you ride along?

Use French lentils. They cook in about 30-40 minutes, even without soaking or pre-cooking.

The suggestions that Central Beans makes about bring the beans to a boil and letting them soak for about an hour greatly reduces the time I need to cook beans (I discovered it myself long ago;))

Since you will be touring, fantom1, and you may be changing altitude you'll want to take that into account. Beans are easy at sealevel or even up to a couple of thousand feet. But if you happen to be going somewhere higher, expect much more time than 2 hours to cook beans. I live at 5000 feet and it generally takes 3 to 4 hours...even with the Central Bean method...to cook a pound of beans. Even at 2 hours, that's a lot of fuel to use.

For improved heat transfer look at one of these from MSR.

What about sprouting some. Not sure about lentils, but there are options. 40 minute of cooking on the road is a lot of fuel. A good book worth at least borrowing on the subject is Sailing the Farm

I soak mine in a small Rubbermaid/Tupperware container. I also have the small pressure cooker, but have yet to take it on tour.

Aaron:)

Where do you plan to tour and for how long? Will you be at high altitude?

The following may be slightly off topic from your question, but...

We found that dried refried beans and instant rice worked well for us. They took way less time to cook than regular dried beans. That said at high altitude they still took longer to cook than I would have liked.

FWIW we also found that dried hummus reconstituted instantly and was great for lunch with tortillas or bread. It was even better if supplemented with some fresh veggies. We found that cabbage traveled particularly well and that shredded cabbage added a nice crunch to lunch sandwiches.

We tried to buy stuff for each day as we went when possible to avoid carrying too much, and to allow us to have fresh veggies. If that is an option where you will be I suggest you consider it rather than trying to take a lot along. We did find that it made sense to have at least a day's worth of "emergency food" in reserve when traveling in rural areas with only small or no towns. In more remote areas we carried more in reserve, but still tried to limit it.

At one point we were given a lot of food, mostly dried. It must have weighed 20 pounds! We broke it down into five lots and carried one while mailing the remaining four ahead to ourselves at various post offices via general delivery. When we got to a post office too soon, or on a Sunday when they were closed, we just asked that they send it ahead to another one farther down the road. We were never charged for the forwarding and we could make the arrangements from another post office without having to visit the one we had shipped to. We found that for heavy, but not bulky stuff like food that USPS flat rate boxes were a good deal.

I won't be at any elevations higher than about 3,500 feet. I'm going to head out to the Anza-Borrego desert from San Diego, then depending on how much time I have left maybe make a big loop.

It sounds like if I have a fairly flat day then soaking the beans in a ziploc bag is the way to go; I just don't want to be carrying around the extra weight in the hills. I mainly was thinking that carrying a bunch of dried legumes would save a lot of weight, but after hearing from everyone it seems like that's not the case. hmmm

My state starts at around that altitude so we have lots of experience in cooking at high altitude. Just be aware that it takes longer to cook stuff because the boiling point of water is lower. At 3500 feet, it's around 205 F. That's enough to increase cooking time significantly especially for tough stuff like beans. Pressure cookers work but you ain't gonna save any weight;)

If you want to have fun, take a guy who has cooked his entire life where pasta, rice, beans, etc takes much longer to cook and transplant him to 700 ft (Vermont). His pasta will be soup...Ick!

The longer you soak the beans the lesser intestinal distress they cause. Soaking encourages the germination to begin which releases enzymes that help with digestion.

We found that soaking beans overnight then cooking them first thing in the morning works well. Then, when you are starving at lunchtime all you need to do is reheat (if you can wait that long) and eat.

The seal top MSR Stowaway pot works well to keep the cooked beans and rice from spilling all over the place while cycling.

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Is the seal liquid tight?

It's a metal to metal seal, and if you turn the pot upside down with the lid clamped on liquid will seep out (I just tried it with mine). It is about as snug a seal as you're going to get with metal to metal contact, though. If you can find a way to keep the pot upright and wrap it with a plastic bag you might be all right, though.

I used to use lentils and rice as part of my backpacking menu, I would put the lentils and/or rice and water in a zip-lock bag and hang it in the sun in a spot where animals wouldn't reach it. After a full day of that treatment the lentils and rice would cook up pretty quickly. This only worked on days where I was leaving the tent and gear in one spot, like when i was going off to do a peak or having a rest day.

My experience cooking rice, beans and legumes is a lot like cyccocommute said. I live at 9000 feet and the only way I can cook that stuff is with a pressure cooker, or with the "soak in the sun" method I just outlined.

my lentils always cook in about 20 minutes or less. i set the stove on high and don't use a lot of water.

Man, after much camping on the desert (I lived down there), I avoid carrying food that requires water to reconstitute. Heck, might as well carry the weight in ready to heat up and eat food and leave the precious water to drink.

I soaked some bens and lentils in a water bottle(holder under the downtube) on my trip this summer, worked well enough, just threw them in when I made breakfast and come dinnertime they cooked pretty quick.

Was still easier to buy small packages of ready to serve beans and such.

If you're going to have to carry the water anyway, why not just go with canned beans? Would probably weigh less than dry + water, and they would cook much quicker.

Usually, you want to discard the soak water too, which just adds more weight (need both cooking and soak water).

Everybody in this thread say differently, so its not enough just to say 20 minutes. Please explain how you do it, and why it's just 20 minutes. Is your lentils small, medium, large.. ? What type do you use?

Kfir

I think but I'm not sure, that canned beans are more expensive, which on a week tour its absolutely nonsense, but on a long tour it can save you money and let you have more variety cooking your meals.

Yup, the main point is to tour as cheaply as possible.

A can of pintos or black beans is usually around 50 cents (sometimes cheaper), and they can keep you on your feet for a long time. They are also incredibly versatile. Given the logistics of cooking a larger dry bean on the road, it seems like a minor expense for a can.

Red lentils cook a bit faster, in my experience. They tend to break down quickly into a dal.

Red lentils will cook in a matter of minutes, in my experience, and they don't require pre-soaking. Just boil in salted water until they are tender and then drain. Green or brown lentils also don't require pre-soaking and they also cook quite fast, but not quite as quickly as red lentils.

With other dry beans, soaking is essential (or bypass the process by cooking them a long time, but that takes a lot more fuel.) Also, once the beans are cooked, drain them and then rinse them thoroughly. That way they don't cause gas. Lentils, for some reason, don't have the same effect.

fantom1,

If you're going to cook dry beans or lentils on the road for health reasons, I would do it. Combining healthy eating with lots of cycling is a great lifestyle. I'd use a recycled plastic peanut butter jar for soaking while petaling.

I'm not so sure about saving cash, however. Buying food along isn't too costly. But it's easy to eat a lot of crap along the way. I don't mind-- I love Top Ramen and Ho Hos! But I understand it's not totally healthy.

That's a good point! I don't particularly want to be eating a bunch of junk, and I'm a vegetarian, so fast food's usually no bueno.