SAEDNEWS: Cooking legumes is very time-consuming, so to make cooking easier and faster, you can partially cook them and store them in the freezer.
According to SAEDNEWS, These days, due to busy schedules and working outside the home, people often do not have enough time to cook. Therefore, to reduce cooking time, they use frozen foods.
Legumes are among the foods that take a long time to cook.
For quicker cooking, you can boil legumes and store them in the freezer. In this section, we have explained how to freeze legumes.
Wash the legumes
To freeze legumes such as chickpeas and beans, which take a long time to cook, first sort them and wash them thoroughly about three times with water.
Soak the legumes
Soaking legumes before cooking helps reduce digestive discomfort during digestion. To reduce bloating caused by eating legumes, soak chickpeas and beans in cold water for about 12 hours, then change and discard the water. Soaking legumes before cooking removes a large amount of indigestible sugars and substances that cause gas and bloating.
A faster method is to boil the legumes for two minutes, then remove them from the heat and let them soak in the same water for one hour. Lentils and split peas do not need soaking.
Cook the legumes
Cook the legumes separately with water, and to remove their strong smell, it is better to add an onion as well. Do not add salt to the legumes, because this can make them hard and increase their cooking time.
Freeze the semi-cooked legumes
Do not let the legumes become too soft or fully cooked. After they are partially cooked, drain them and allow them to cool.
Then place the legumes in vacuum bags or zip-lock bags and store them in the freezer. If you use regular plastic bags for freezing legumes, the smell of other foods may be absorbed into them.
