Sheree's Homemade Cooking Made Easy

I love making homemade great northern beans as they taste so much better than the store-bought ones in the cans, in my opinion. They are really simple to make and a filling protein to have when you do not want to cook meat. You will need the following:

Great Northern BeansPhoto bySheree

Recipe:

1 1/2 cups of dried great northern beans

3 tablespoons of butter

salt and pepper to taste

The first step you need to do is wash and sort the beans. This simply means to look at them and make sure the dried beans are good and that there is not any other debris in them. I have found rocks before that were the same size as beans.

Then place the beans in a bowl and cover them with at least 4 inches of water and leave them to soak overnight, either on the countertop or in the refrigerator. This will allow the beans to swell and the cooking process is quicker and tastier.

Drain the water and place the beans in a large pot or a slow cooker and cover them with 2 inches of water and let them cook until they are tender. In a pot on the stove this will take 3 – 4 hours. In a slow cooker on high this will take 4 – 6 hours, low 6 – 8 hours.

Great Northern BeansPhoto bySheree

I do not season my beans until they are fully cooked. When they are cooked I add some butter and salt and pepper. Tip: The beans will take more salt than you usually would add to a recipe. Enjoy!

Great Northern BeansPhoto bySheree

Note: You can add ham to the beans while they are cooking and I will do this sometimes but I planned on making enough so that I could make some chicken chili and I do not like the taste of ham in that recipe.

I like to serve these beans with some fried potatoes, cornbread and sliced vidalia onions.