Knowledge Base > Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

This event was on Tuesday, March 12, 2024 at 2:00 pm Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to cours… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

When planning on using the cooked beans the same day, is it better to drain immediately after cooking or let sit in the water until use, then drain? And, when planning on using a day or several later, drain and store or store in cooking liquid?

— Mitch Miglis

Answer:

So that's a great question. Now, typically, um, I'm actually going to drain the beans pretty much immediately, uh, after having them cooked. Um, like there are certain recipes that you'll actually want to have some of the, the liquid that you actually cook the beans in to be able to either thicken up a soup or something like that to get that, like nice proteins that are in the water to be able to interact with, um, maybe a sauce or a soup or something like that. And that's great. You can use the water for something like that, uh, or the stock that you've been cooking in. Now, if I'm storing them at all, I'm definitely going to drain them off. Um, you know, if if it's for longer periods, they'll dry out a little bit, but, um, you know, storing 'em the liquid will keep them moist, but they're actually start to kind of break down a little bit faster. You, you know, probably a day earlier, depending on how, um, you know, how short you're gonna use 'em, if you're just gonna do 'em the next day, that's fine to keep 'em the liquid. But I personally will typically drain off, uh, any of the liquids on beans if I'm storing them in the fridge. And like I said, more than likely if I'm gonna be using them in a recipe, I'm gonna drain them off pretty much as soon as I have cooked them unless I'm using the liquid for part of a recipe.
Dan Marek

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

rouxbe.com