Grind dried beans into flour to eat healthier and save money!

My mother and law loaned me her amazing wheat grinder, the Blendtec Kitchen Mill! The most fabulous, despite being the noisiest, grinder I’ve tried.  So I decided to throw some of my dried pinto beans into the grinder and made bean flour.  I added it to my homemade bread (only about 1/2 cup of bean flour).  The bread turned out great. My oldest son was standing by the oven, waiting for it to come out so he could have it warm.   After the pinto beans was such a success, I started grinding all sorts of beans! 

Bean flour can make an excellent nutrition boost to any of your cooking.  1/4 cup of bean flour averages 8 grams of protein, while all-purpose flour gives you 4 grams or less.   Also, the fiber!!  All-purpose flour has 1 gram of fiber, while bean flour has 6-8 grams of fiber!  Adding a nutrient boost like this is similar to “hiding veggies” in my book, but your kids can still eat their

Another benefit to making your own bean flour is the price! At less than $1 per bag of dried beans.

How is bean flour made?

There are a few ways to make bean flour, and they all involve grinding up dried beans until they becomes powdery.   You can do this either in a blender, or a grain mill.  While either works, the grain mill makes your flour finer and smoother, and the flour from a  blender can be more course.  I LOVE the Blendtec Kitchen Mill for this job! I know 100% that I’ll get the best flour from working with it.

The Kitchen Mill produces double the flour to bean ratio.   I put 1 cup of dried beans into the mill, and I get almost 2 cups of flour out.

What can you use bean flour for?

You can use the flour for a variety of recipes.  A few we’ve tried include:

• Replacing a portion of our all-purpose flour for a bit of the legume flour (in cookies, muffins, pancakes, etc.)
• Replacing the full amount of all-purpose flour, but adding some Xantham gum to keep the texture.
• Making a white cheesy sauce.  Heat 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup butter in a small sauce pan. Once thick, slowly pour milk in until desired consistency. This works great!
• Making gravy.
• Homemade gluten free pasta- with bean flour replacing the all-purpose flour.

How to preserve bean flour?

Ideally, you want to grind fresh flour every time you use it. However, since that’s not always realistic, storing in an airtight container, sealed bag, or actually in the container of the grain mill itself is sufficient.  You can store it in the fridge, but bean flour is less likely to go rancid than flours with a higher fat content.

So, what do you think? Let us know if you try making your own alternative flour!

For some amazing flour recipes, 

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Keywords: Super Healthy Kids, Health/Wellness