Bean Flour--Do You Really Want to Go There?

Back when I presented a monthly food storage and emergency preparedness class, one of the topics was beans. It was a pretty fundamental class as many are new to food storage, so we covered the basics--what to store, how to store, how to prepare, etc. However, even though the class was for beginners, as the presenter I had to prepare and learn a whole lot more to be equipped to answer questions and address any concerns. And one topic that kept coming up in my research, and with which I had no experience, was bean flour.

So it was time to jump into this strange world and give it a try. And to give it a try in recipes, you first have to produce or purchase the flour. As commercially produced bean flours are ridiculously expensive, milling them at home just makes sense.

I really questioned whether a home grain grinder could mill dry beans into a fine flour. In case you wonder about that too, I can assure you that beans can indeed be ground into a very nice flour. I used my five-year-old Nutrimill that I use every week for grinding wheat to do the job. I started off with the same settings I use for wheat because I wanted really fine flour. Of course, the white beans were too big to feed through, so nothing happened at first. I gradually adjusted the knobs, and eventually, at the midway point, the beans started flowing through. And the white bean flour was indeed very fine.

I then decided to mill some pinto beans and black beans, separately, but at the fastest feed rate so that I would end up with some larger bits of beans. I was hoping to make some of the much-hyped instant refried beans, and I wanted them to still have some texture. The result was still pretty flour-y, but there were some little bean chunks, though I couldn't really see them until I cooked them.

The bean flour experts share a whole lot of info, hoping to suck you into their camp and turn you into a bean flour convert as well. Here are the most pertinent facts:

1. One cup of dry beans yields about 1 1/8 cups of flour.
2. Dry beans can be ground into a fine flour using a hand grinder or an electric mill.
3. Bean flour is ideal for making instant soups, sauces, dips, gravy, and sandwich fillings.
4. Bean flours thicken in just one minute in boiling water and are completely cooked in three minutes.
5. This is definitely the quickest way to cook dried beans.
6. Bean flour may be substituted for up to 1/4 of the wheat flour in baked goods. It increases the vitamin and mineral content of baked goods and helps make a complete protein.
7. Kept cool, dry, and air-tight, bean flours have a shelf life of three months.

Regarding the claims made above, #1 is a fact, and #2 is definitely true, at least as far as an electric grinder is concerned. Which brings us to #3. For the class I prepared the following recipe:

Cream of Bean Soup
3 cups boiling water
½ cup white bean flour
1-2 teaspoons salt or bouillon

In a saucepan, whisk bean flour into boiling water and bouillon or salt. Stir and cook 3 minutes. Puree in blender for a creamier texture. Serve over pasta or stir in cooked wheat or beans. Use as a gravy over cooked rice. Soup thickens as it cools. Use in place of canned soup.

The class as a whole thought it was quite acceptable, and as a soup I would agree. However, I wouldn't really want to use it as a gravy, like the bean flour cult suggests. For gravy, I still want to use wheat flour, butter, milk, and pan drippings (or bouillon if I have to). It might work as a sauce. And I thought it was nuts to suggest it as a sandwich filling, but one of the older ladies in the class could recall having beans in her sandwiches when she was a child, so I guess it was a thing long ago and could become a thing again. But not in my house.

Now for the last item mentioned in #3 above, the dips. No, no, no. Bean flour when cooked actually behaves a lot more like wheat flour in my opinion than it does like beans. It's kind of glue-y or starchy. And any dips you make from it are the same way. This is the recipe I shared with the class:

Black Bean Dip
2 ½ cups water
3/4 cup black bean flour
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup salsa
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons sour cream

Boil the water in a saucepan on medium heat. Mix all the dry ingredients. Whisk dry ingredients into the water. Stir one minute, cooking over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover saucepan and cook an additional 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. The mixture should have the consistency of pudding. If it doesn’t, cook longer. Cool a bit before adding the salsa, sour cream, and lime juice.

The flavor was fine, if a little bland. I would add more cumin and chili powder or use hotter salsa myself. But the texture was just kinda yuck. And the color was a bit off-putting as well; it looked more like the color you get from blue corn, kinda purplish. I think the dip would be fine if spiced up a bit and if cooked black beans were used instead.

Point #4: Yes, bean flours really do cook up that quickly, so if you're wanting to make a quick soup with a bean flour base, this works. Like flour, it will have little lumps if you don't whisk it in really well. Also, if you refrigerate it after cooking, it's somewhat lumpy when you re-warm it, like regular homemade gravy.

Point #5. I will concede this point to the bean flour cult. Yes, this is definitely the quickest way to cook dry beans. If you add 1/2 cup of pinto bean flour to 1 1/2 cups of boiling water, boil for three minutes, and then reduce heat and cook for 3 more minutes, you will have cooked pinto beans in five minutes. That no one wants to eat. Again, they were starchy, like wheat flour had been added, the color wasn't right, and the texture wasn't right. And no, it just wouldn't work for a camping trip or an emergency. It was just kinda gross. Well, maybe if you're one of those health food nut jobs it might be ok.

Point #6. So based on the above recipe fails, I am a bit skeptical about replacing up to one-fourth of the wheat flour with bean flour in my bread. I normally use about eight cups of flour to make three loaves of bread. I'm nervous about substituting even one cup, so I started with one-half cup.

The results were acceptable, but the extra effort of grinding beans isn't worth it to me right now. If I were concerned about getting more protein into our diet, then it would be a no-brainer and I'd definitely do it.

Point #7. I'll let the cult have this one, too, even though I'm not sure about it. I don't plan on storing bean flour on my shelves to find out. It's easier to store it as beans and grind when I need it.

Links to related posts:
Baking with Beans
Beans in Food Storage
Refried Beans
Bean Flour   
Pinto Bean Fudge  

 17 may 2019