My cooked Bean Soup beans aren't tender

[Spany]

I cooked 15 bean soup this weekend with lots of vegetables & meat. I’d boiled the beans for 5 minutes and soaked them for 3 hours before cooking. Cooked the soup for over 3 hours but some of the beans are still not tender. Recently read something about “old” beans not becoming tender and that is probably the case. Is it possible and does anyone have a method that will tenderize beans in cooked bean soup?

[sueatmo]

A factor to consider with a multi-bean dish is the different cooking times for different kinds of beans. Garbanzos for instance take forever to cook, but blackeye peas cook faster than most. If you consult a comprehensive cookbook, you might find cooking times for beans listed. From that you might deduce that your cooking time was not sufficient for some of the beans. Also, perhaps some of the different kinds of beans were older than they should have been.

With multi bean mixes, you usually get lentils (fast-cooking) and maybe garbanzos (slow cooking) and every other sort in between. I don't know how you could tenderize some of the beans, and not affect all the others.

[scubadoo97]

Not sure there is an easy fix here. The higher the pH the softer the beans will be. That's why you should not add any acidic agent to beans until they are cooked through. Salt is not the culprit that we were lead to believe. Old beans are a problem and I don't have an answer.

[Spany]

Thanks for your reply. The soup is good with the exception of some of the beans (not all of them). We have quite a bit left so I was hoping for a fix ~ I don't want to throw it away. I read something once about adding baking soda or powder but it wasn't clear whether it was to be added when soaking or would act as a fix after cooking.

[scubadoo97]

I would try not to use baking soda if possible. Can result in mushy beans. If you were to use it on suspected old beans, use it while cooking, not after.