Slow cooked beans are very inexpensive, and very easy to make. All you need is a couple of pounds of dry beans and a slow cooker. You can typically find cheap slow cookers relatively easily, for anywhere from $15-60. We love this recipe so much that we basically have a constant rotation of beans either in the refrigerator waiting to be eaten, or we have a couple pounds of them in the slow cooker.

You will need
• 1-2 lbs of dry beans
• Water
• Salt (Anywhere from .75-2 Tbsp per 2 lbs of beans, though you will need to experiment a bit to find out what you like best. Less salt is ideal)
• Pepper
• Other seasonings (cumin, garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, savory, cayenne pepper, etc)
• A Slow cooker

Slow Cooked Bake Beans Recipe
This recipe can be applied to just about any kind of this type of legume out there; black, northern, kidney, pinto, etc. The exact amount of each ingredient that you use is largely going to depend on the size of your slow cooker and the flavor that you want.

Soak the dry legumes
They will need to soak for at least 8 hours, or overnight. Pour them into the crock pot and fill it with cold water, well over the level of the beans (they swell to at least twice the original fill level). The best way to do this is to start soaking them just before you go to bed for the night.

Cooking instructions
Eight hours later, you can start cooking. Once they have soaked, drain the water and rinse the beans thoroughly. Add roughly 8 cups of water to your presoaked beans (or at least make sure that they are completely submersed in water), and then turn your slow cooker on high. This is when you should add salt and pepper, or any other spices you like. If you are a meat lover, you can also add different raw meats to make for a heartier meal.

If you haven't noticed yet, we are big on beans in our house. I know that a couple of diets that are popular at the moment have put a lot of effort into categorizing beans as uneatable but they are one of the main staples in our diet and despite the (rather thin) arguments we have read in the opposite direction (always good to read the other side's point of any argument), they will remain a mainstay until the point if/when we see evidence that actually sways our current opinion - none of it has thus far. I digress, but the point is that we love beans and they make it very easy, convenient, and inexpensive for us to have a clean diet that is high in vitamins, antioxidants, minerals, fiber, and even protein. There. Now I have officially "stood up for" beans.

For our first cooking video ever, we started off with a very simple recipe. In future cooking videos, we are excited to be able to show you how we prepare our food and how we keep a healthy diet interesting and tasting great.

Did you enjoy our very first cooking video? Would you like more like this? Let us know!