{"id":25239,"date":"2025-08-12T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=25239"},"modified":"2025-07-25T09:20:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T13:20:43","slug":"food-economics-canned-beans-versus-cooked-dried-beans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2025\/08\/12\/food-economics-canned-beans-versus-cooked-dried-beans\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Economics: Canned Beans versus Cooked Dried Beans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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photo from Freepik<\/p><\/div>\n

by Reed Mangels, PhD, RD<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no question \u2013 food costs are going up. Every time I go to the grocery store, my total seems to be higher than the week before. Despite price increases, black beans, lentils, pinto beans, kidney beans, chickpeas, and other beans are still a relatively low-cost source of protein, iron, and other nutrients. Many articles on reducing food costs call for cooking dried beans from scratch. Is that really a lower cost option compared to canned beans?<\/p>\n

With the help of several interns and volunteers, we determined the price of 14-15.5-ounce cans of several kinds of legumes (beans\/peas\/lentils) and the price of a 1-pound bag of dried legumes. We looked for the lowest cost products, which were usually store brands. We did not use sale prices. We checked prices at major supermarkets in Maryland, New Jersey, Texas, Alabama, and California in June and July 2025. On average, a \u00bd cup of legumes cooked from dry cost about 40% less than a \u00bd cup of canned beans. In real numbers, this was a difference of between 16 and 30 cents less per \u00bd cup serving. Not a fortune, but, if you\u2019re eating beans daily, cost savings could be significant over a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
 <\/td>\nAverage price per \u00bd cup of canned legumes<\/td>\nAverage price per \u00bd cup of legumes, cooked from dry<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Black beans<\/td>\n.33<\/td>\n.15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Black-eyed peas<\/td>\n.36<\/td>\n.17<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chickpeas<\/td>\n.32<\/td>\n.14<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Kidney beans<\/td>\n.32<\/td>\n.16<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Lentils<\/td>\n.45<\/td>\n.15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying that you have to start cooking dried beans. There are costs in terms of time and energy use that were not factored into the costs I mentioned. It\u2019s convenient to open a can of chickpeas and quickly make hummus or to use canned beans for chili and not to have to remember to soak and cook dried beans ahead of time. That convenience may be worth the extra cost. On the other hand, if you cook a big batch of plain dried beans, they can be portioned into containers and frozen, ready to be thawed when you need the equivalent of a can of beans. A 14-15.5-ounce can of beans has about 1-3\/4 cups of beans, after draining off the canning liquid.<\/p>\n

In any case, eating beans often can offer health benefits and help to reduce food costs.<\/p>\n

Thank you to Chaltu Watkins, Ellie Meyerstein, Neha Vivek, and Aileen Zhang for their work on this project.<\/p>\n

To read about beans see:<\/p>\n

What are Beans, Legumes and Pulses?<\/a><\/p>\n

The Cost of Beans vs Meat<\/a><\/p>\n

Quick Ideas for Using Canned Beans or Leftover Cooked Beans<\/a><\/p>\n

Using the Ol\u2019 Bean<\/a> and many more recipe ideas on our website<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Reed Mangels, PhD, RD There\u2019s no question \u2013 food costs are going up. Every time I go to the grocery store, my total seems to be higher than the week before. Despite price increases, black beans, lentils, pinto beans, kidney beans, chickpeas, and other beans are still a relatively low-cost source of protein, iron, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25241,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25239\/revisions\/25241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}