![\"Slow](\"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SlowCookerBeansTortilla.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIf you aren’t using your slow cooker at least once a week, you may want to take a step back and evaluate the choices you’ve made in your life. <\/p>\n
Seriously, slow cookers are a lifesaver. They are one of the easiest ways to create super-delicious, healthy, “one ingredient” meals with almost no work. Soups, stews, sauces, dips, even desserts (slow-cooker molten chocolate cake, anyone?) come together better in a slow cooker than through any other cooking method.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the best use for a slow cooker, however, is to cook your own beans. Canned black and pinto beans taste fine… until you make them yourself in a slow cooker. I first tried this about a month ago and the difference is so shocking, I can hardly eat the canned beans anymore. Not to mention, slow-cooking your own beans is more economical and less processed. It’s a win-win-win. The way the garlic and onions mingle with the starchy beans, it almost taste like a delicious stew that is good enough to be eaten all by itself. Add them to a corn tortilla with some lettuce and it is the perfect meal. <\/p>\n
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Makes about 5 cups of beans<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Loosely dice the onion and garlic and add them to your slow cooker with the dried beans and enough water to cover the beans by about 3 inches. It seems like a lot of water now, but the beans absorb tons of water as they cook. If this is your first time, it would be a good idea to keep an eye on the water level to make sure the beans haven’t run dry (not a good thing).<\/p>\n Go take an 8-hour break. These beans start to come together after about 5 hours and really hit their stride between the 7-8 hour mark. At this point, the onions & garlic are completely broken down and the beans become starchy and magical and delicious. <\/p>\n As I mentioned, these beans are good enough to be eaten all by themselves, but one of my favorite ways to serve them is, like pictured, on corn tortillas with lettuce. <\/p>\n NOTE:<\/strong> As a reader mentioned in the comments on this post, it may be dangerous to use a slow cooker with kidney beans. These particular beans (but not pinto or black) need to reach high temperatures to deactivate a toxin that is naturally present. See this article on Wikipedia<\/a> for more, and please take care when cooking kidney beans!<\/em> <\/p>\n If you aren’t using your slow cooker at least once a week, you may want to take a step back and evaluate the choices you’ve made in your life. Seriously,… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[33,26,27],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\nIngredients:<\/h4>\n
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![\"Slow](\"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/SlowCookerBeans.jpg\")
<\/p>\nStep One<\/h4>\n
Step Two<\/h4>\n
![\"Slow](\"https:\/\/oneingredientchef.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/SlowCookerBeansClose.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"