Learning to Love Legumes

If you’re like me, your stockpile contains an assortment of dried beans. It’s easy to see why, they are cheap, easy to store and nutritious. Trouble is, they’ll go to waste if you don’t actually eat them!

Which is a timely reminder of the number one rule of stockpiling: Only store what you normally eat. There’s no point in stockpiling either dried beans or tins of baked beans if you don’t like them and/or don’t normally eat them.

So, if you’re new to legumes (beans) then now is a great time to learn to love them. Start small and work your way up. Don’t try to get your family to eat beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner right from the start. Try adding small amounts of beans to meals you already make, then as your family becomes accustomed to them, you can get a little more adventurous.

Beans are the friend of the frugalista because they are also a great filler for a variety of dishes, for example, you can super charge a basic vegetable soup by adding beans or you can flesh out a meat dish like lasagne by adding red lentils to the meat sauce. These are frugal ways of increasing the volume of the dish for very little cost.

Are beans a big part of your diet? Do you have a favourite bean based recipe?