Home made pinto beans

My husband loves my pinto beans! It's a super cheap meal, and super easy! I prefer cooking it with the crockpot, but I also have a quick stove top version for a last minute meal. I recently created a good seasoning to give the beans a lot of flavor, I've included that recipe at the bottom!

Ingredients:

1 bag(small) dried pinto beans

Bean seasoning mix (recipe below)

1 package of bacon, cooked and diced into bits(optional)

Directions:

Wash and soak your beans overnight

Rinse your beans, place in your crockpot.

add seasoning mix(all of it, recipe below)cover beans with water.

Cook on low 6-8hours, add additional water if beans start drying out (you want to keep them completely covered in liquid)

Now about the bacon. I've made it without and it tastes great! But it also tastes great with the bacon and my husband prefers it that way. You can cook your bacon bits in a pan and add it to the beans from the start(grease and all if you want) but the bacon will get pretty mushy by the end of the day. So I like to add it about 1 hour before we are ready to eat. So it's up to you, and either way tastes good! You can also use leftover ham instead of bacon, or we have even used turkey sausage and it also tastes good! Just add it about 1hour before your ready to eat and make sure it's cooked Before adding it. We serve our beans with cornbread and home made sweet potato fries! 

See prior post for my sweet cornbread recipe. It's pretty tasty! 

Enjoy!

Directions for bean seasoning mix

2 Teaspoons onion powder

1 Teaspoons paprika

1 Teaspoons ground cumin

2 Teaspoons sea salt

1 Teaspoons ground black pepper

1 Teaspoons oregano

1 Teaspoons minced garlic

Mix together and store in a air tight container or use right away. This equals 1 packet of season and you want to use all this in one pot of beans. I will work the measurements out to make a batch in bulk and update you with those measurements. you can add extra to taste if you want, but this measurement was plenty for us :)

If you do not want to use the crockpot, and you forgot to soak your beans(I do this all the time) then I do have a quick stove top recipe. It's all the same ingredients and measurements.

Rinse your beans and add to a pot, cover with Plenty of water. Boil beans on Med-high heat for a good 30minutes, watch beans so they don't dry out and add more water as the beans absorb a lot of the water. Reduce heat to Med-low heat and simmer. Add more water if necessary, add seasoning and cooked bacon bits. Simmer until beans are cooked (about a hour or so) serve!