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It's weird how nearly every recipe that  
[0:05] I see involving canned or cartoned beans 
tells you to rinse and drain them to remove  
[0:12] the canning liquid. That makes sense for 
a lot of recipes but not for all of them.
 
[0:17] For example, here's a stew that 
I made with the canning liquid,  
[0:21] and here's the same stew made without the 
canning liquid. Gross. Now, I've chosen a  
[0:26] deliberately extreme example to help me make 
my point as clearly as possible. Your results  
[0:31] will vary depending on what exactly you're 
cooking, and we're going to get into that.
 
[0:35] But first, what exactly is the bean 
goo? For plain unflavored beans,  
[0:40] that goo starts off as just plain old water. The 
thickener that you're seeing at work is just the  
[0:46] natural starches and pectins that come out of 
the beans themselves. The packer soaks the beans,  
[0:52] they blanche the beans to cook them most of the 
way through, and then they put them into the can,  
[0:57] they fill it up with water and then they finish 
cooking it the rest of the way in the can or the  
[1:01] carton that's part of the sterilizing process.
Now the water that they put in the beans usually  
[1:06] does have some additives in it. If the packer is 
working with soft water, they may need to add some  
[1:12] minerals like calcium back into the water. That'll 
have the effect of strengthening the bean skins,  
[1:18] make them less likely to pop open. The canner 
might also add a chelating agent, specifically  
[1:26] ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid, EDTA, EDTA, 
to bond with metal ions that are inside the can,  
[1:35] either coming from the can itself or more likely 
from the beans themselves. Beans are full of  
[1:40] valuable metal nutrients like iron and copper. 
That's part of what makes them so healthy. But  
[1:46] over time, in the can or the carton, some of those 
loose ions can react with other stuff in there and  
[1:52] cause discoloration. The chelating agent bonds 
with the metals to effectively neutralize them.
 
[1:58] But the number one additive in bean goo is usually 
just salt. Salt makes the beans taste better. It  
[2:06] also strengthens them chemically, and it extends 
their shelf life. One of the most common arguments  
[2:11] in favor of draining the beans is to get 
rid of what they call the excess sodium,  
[2:17] and that makes little sense to me. Unless 
you're on a special diet for your blood  
[2:21] pressure or something, you're probably going to 
season your food to taste, and that's probably  
[2:26] going to require even more salt than what 
is already in here. If I were to just dump  
[2:30] the beans in the pan with all of their liquid, 
that salt is not only seasoning the beans, but  
[2:37] all of the other stuff that's in the pan, which 
also needs salt. I ended up needing additional  
[2:42] salt on top of what was already in the bean goo.
So for most things, the excess sodium is fine as  
[2:49] long as you account for it in your recipe. Though 
I do have one minor health related footnote,  
[2:55] chemical food additives like the EDTA that we 
were just talking about are often unstable,  
[3:00] reactive. That's why we're putting them in 
the food, to react with stuff. And so to  
[3:05] stabilize the chemical for storage and for 
shipping and such, they will often bond it  
[3:09] to a sodium ion to make a stable salt.
MSG is an example of that. A glutamate  
[3:14] anion bonded to a sodium cation. It's nice and 
stable now, but those ions will dissolve apart  
[3:21] in water once we add it to the food and we'll 
get the reactions or the taste sensations that  
[3:26] we're looking for. The hitch is that there's no 
chloride. Table salt is sodium plus chloride,  
[3:33] right, and you need both in rough balance in 
order to be healthy. If you're getting all of your  
[3:38] sodium in the form of food additives, that could 
potentially throw off your electrolyte balance.
 
[3:44] So look at the ingredients on the label. If 
you see salt, that means you're getting both  
[3:48] sodium and chloride. But if all you see is stuff 
like disodium EDTA, then you'd be getting less  
[3:56] chloride. And I can't imagine it would matter very 
much, but if you ate the same brand of cheap beans  
[4:02] every single day your entire life, maybe that 
could make a difference. I don't know. But that  
[4:06] would be a reason to drain those beans, so that 
you can replace the perhaps less healthy sodium  
[4:11] compounds with plain old salt. But this brand only 
uses normal salt anyway, so we're good there.
 
[4:17] You might want to drain and then rinse for 
textural reasons if you want nice, clean,  
[4:22] separate beans to drop onto a salad or something 
like that. But if you're making beans in sauce  
[4:27] as we so often are, that liquid might actually be 
beneficial to your sauce. And here is my example.
 
[4:34] This is beans ala moutarde, French style creamy 
beans flavored with mustard. It's dynamite.  
[4:40] I'll chop up a shallot, and then this part isn't 
traditional, but I'm going to add a big handful  
[4:45] of green beans just to make this a more complete 
meal. Broccoli would be awesome too. Olive oil  
[4:50] in the pan, give the shallots a little head 
start, and then I'll put in the green beans,  
[4:55] give them a couple minute head start. Maybe add 
some butter if the pan is looking dry or just add  
[5:00] it because it tastes good and then deglaze with 
some white wine. Reduce that down a little bit.
 
[5:06] For demonstration purposes, I will put 
in my drained and rinsed butter beans.  
[5:11] Enough milk to almost submerge everything, bring 
to a boil, reduce to a spirited simmer. That  
[5:18] liquid is very thin as you can see. The way we 
thicken it into a sauce is that we just cook the  
[5:24] beans until more of their starches and pectins and 
such leak out. That's how beans thicken a stew.
 
[5:32] The problem is these beans already gave up a lot 
of their natural thickeners to the canning liquid.  
[5:39] We now have to overcook them to get more 
thickeners out of them. I can see the beans  
[5:44] starting to break apart more than I would 
like. This is probably thick enough though.  
[5:49] It'll thicken a lot as it cools and our remaining 
ingredients are also thickeners. A huge spoonful  
[5:55] of whole grain mustard. I love how those 
little seeds pop between your teeth. And  
[6:00] then I'll finish with just a little cream. You 
could certainly skip that. Taste for seasoning,  
[6:05] give it pepper and a lot of salt. Remember 
that we drained away all that salty liquid.
 
[6:10] Here is our final texture. It doesn't look very 
nice, because we had to overcook and bust up the  
[6:17] beans to thicken the sauce. Plus the acid in 
the wine may have curdled the milk a little  
[6:23] bit. It tastes fine, but the texture could 
be better, if we start all over again and  
[6:28] this time we add the beans with their liquid, or 
some of their liquid. Normally when I make this,  
[6:35] I drain one carton of beans and then I don't drain 
the other ones. But you could drain everything  
[6:40] into a separate container and then you can just 
add that back into the dish by eye, depending  
[6:46] on how much thickening it seems like it needs.
But, this time I'm going to go full bean goo. I  
[6:51] only need a little milk to bring that liquid 
all the way up. Time to simmer until it's  
[6:56] thick and that happens much faster because we 
already have natural thickeners in our sauce.  
[7:01] We don't have to overcook the beans. That 
goo may seem unappetizing on its own, but  
[7:07] in a sauce it is silky, smooth, and delicious.
And yes, the bean goo is going to add to your  
[7:12] total load of oligosaccharides and other things 
that are found in beans that can be kind of hard  
[7:18] to digest. So that could be a reason to drain 
away the liquid if you're having trouble with  
[7:23] your beans. But my advice for that is just 
to eat more beans. The more beans you eat,  
[7:28] the more your microbiome in your gut adjusts, 
and you just stop having problems. I eat lots  
[7:33] of beans these days. I have no digestive 
problems with beans anymore at all.
 
[7:37] That'll be thick enough once it cools 
and we add our mustard and cream,  
[7:42] which also function as thickeners. The starch in 
the bean goo also gets between the milk proteins  
[7:48] and the acids from the wine, thus preventing 
curdling, which is a nice added bonus. Season,  
[7:54] but remember that we're going to need less 
salt because the bean goo was already salty.
 
[7:58] Maybe finish with some fresh parsley, and there we 
are. Vastly superior texture. The taste is maybe  
[8:04] slightly less milky because we use less milk, but 
it does taste more beanie. It's all about getting  
[8:11] the balance that you want for the particular dish 
that you're cooking, which is why I normally drain  
[8:15] one package and I don't drain the other one.
And even if you do drain all of your liquid off,  
[8:20] consider saving it. You can use it to thicken 
something else. You can also use it as a vegan  
[8:25] substitute for eggs in baked goods. It serves as 
a binder. You can even whip it up into a foam to  
[8:32] replace meringue in something. In that context, 
it's usually known as aquafaba, although that term  
[8:37] can sometimes refer exclusively to the bean goo 
from chickpeas, but all bean goo can function as  
[8:43] aquafaba. The point is the bean goo is good.
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[9:48] canned beans. All things considered, you 
may be the perfect semi-prepared food.