Slow Cooker Bean and Bacon Soup Recipe-Butter Your Biscuit (2024)

FAQs

How long should you cook beans in a slow cooker? ›

Place soaked beans in crock pot. Add any seasonings: salt and pepper, garlic, jalapenos, onions (to taste). Cover with water by about 2 inches. Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 6 hours.

You can thicken the soup by adding a roux of flour and butter, or a slurry of cornstarch and water. Cook while stirring until thickened. This won't change the flavour much. You can add some mashed potatoes, or instant potato flakes.

Put the bacon into the slow cooker and pour the liquid over. Cook on low heat for 8 hours. (I did mine overnight).

Take a can of beans with a cup of hot stock from the soup and blend together until smooth, then add back to pot. Or cook beans with soup and puree the entire soup, beans included.

Cook low and slow—patience is key. To cook on the stove, bring the pot of beans (soaked or unsoaked, with olive oil, salt, and any seasonings plus 2 to 3 inches of liquid covering them) to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat so that your beans are barely but steadily simmering and cover with the lid.

Turns out cooking dried red kidney beans and cannellini beans in your slow cooker can make you sick. Find out how to eliminate the toxin that can make you ill and how to safely prepare and cook these commonly used legumes.

Add plain instant mashed potatoes (which are essentially just dehydrated potatoes) to the finished soup recipe as a thickening agent. Simple? Yes.

Sometimes soup just needs to simmer longer to reach the perfect consistency. Check to see if the vegetables are tender, and then taste the broth. If the soup tastes a bit watery, give it more time.

Cornstarch is a great option as it is a natural thickening agent, but you'll want to be careful about how much you use. Start with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch whisked together with cold water to create a slurry. Then, gradually add the slurry to the soup, letting it boil for one to two minutes before adding more.

Is 4 hours in slow cooker enough? ›

If a dish usually takes: 15-30 mins, cook it for 1-2 hours on High or 4-6 hours on Low. 30 mins – 1 hour, cook it for 2-3 hours on High or 5-7 hours on Low. 1-2 hours, cook it for 3-4 hours on High or 6-8 hours on Low.

Put frozen or thawed bacon in a crock pot – as much as you can fit. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours.

A bit of fat, usually in the form of butter and olive oil, is essential to making a robust soup. Fat is also a vehicle for flavor, and helps to brown vegetables.

In fact, red beans & rice fans have spoken when it comes to their secret ingredients, and quite a few swear by the addition of butter – throughout the cooking process, as well as at the end. The exact amount varies from cook to cook, but when in doubt, you can't go wrong by adding a little more.

Baking soda can help significantly since it increases the pH of the water, disintegrating that pectin and allowing beans to soften quicker. Baking soda also removes minerals from hard water, which can prevent beans from hydrating as quickly.

Depending upon the variety, dried beans will cook quickly (about 15 minutes for red lentils) or slowly (up to 3 to 4 hours for unsoaked chickpeas or lima beans).

Bake beans in the preheated oven until tender, about 1 hour and 10 minutes, checking after 30 minutes to ensure beans are still covered with water. If necessary, add just enough water to cover.

Stovetop Instructions

Place soaked beans in a large pot; cover with fresh water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer gently until beans are tender but firm. Most beans will cook in 45 minutes to 2 hours depending on the variety.