Sue, I am no expert but I would try to drain the beans and rinse with fresh water. If you have other sauce which I'm assuming you do just pour off into a separate container and then rinse the beans and add the liquid back in. I hope I don't sound too simplistic. Good luck and beans to you!!!!!!!!!!!

Duane

Thank you Duane and glenda I will try both of your ideas.

Thanks,

Sue

There is actually no way to remove salt once it has been added.

And the potato trick is actually just an old wives tale. A potato cooked in salted water will absorb just a small amount of salt. No more than any other vegetable added to salted water. It will not remove excess salt from an over salted pot of beans, soup, stew, etc...

If it was me I would cook another pot of beans, minus the salt and then add them to the pot of beans, that is over salted. Make sure you include the liquid from the fresh pot of beans. This should balance out the salt.

Ann

You could try reverse brining. Suppose you have 2 quarts of salty beans, remove 3-4 cups of beans and enough fresh water to cover them by 3 inches. Let them sit, drain, repeat. Salt creates a higher density wherever it is concentrated. Ingredients always try to even out the density so if you have a high concentration of salt in the beans, adding fresh water will leech it out. Eventually you can add the desalted beans back to the pot, let them sit and the salt in the remaining beans will migrate into the rinsed beans.

The best solution is to add more beans to the too salty ones. Nothing you can do will remove salt....
Listen to Ann....she knows....as do I!! LOL!

I agree with Ann and LindaC, I'd make more beans and mix the unsalted beans with the too salty ones. Nothing is going to remove the salt now that it's in there, I think dilution is the only real choice.

Annie

Yeah, beans are cheap. Either add extra or just pitch them and start over. I still think rinsing them would help but I kindly bow to the more knowledgeable people here. I have also heard the potato thing doesn't work very well. Hope you can salvage the beans...if not....at least it's not like a ruined standing rib roast or filet mignon!

Duane

The Lady is right on about the potato...that is white potato. You can wash and add a whole potato. It is easier to remove from pot without leaving unwanted salty potato pieces in the beans...or ever you are cooking.

I vastly over-salted my beans last night, too, to the point that they were inedible. But after adding and simmering potatoes--twice--the beans are delicious.

Made a I gladly attempted to make a pot of New Orleans style red beans to please my significant other because it's their favorite dish .. WAY TOO MUCH TONY'S seasoning got in the pot .. so I used the potatoe trick, two white russet potatoes cut in half soaked up that salt & just to be safe a sprinkled a tad bit of sugar .. beans are amazing!

The potato thing mentioned above, absolutely DOES work. Drain the beans then add more water and recook with a potato sliced in half. U may need 2 or a very big potato. Afterward, you take the potato out and either eat it or throw away

My mother used the potato in chili and in beans back in the 40s and swore by it. I'm going to try it tomorrow in my beans.

I just over salted my green beans-livable, but not what I like. I did pour out the remaining liquid, added a cleaned, quartered, unpeeled potato and within a few minutes the green beans were fine--it does work

You don’t think it just went in the fresh water?

A potato is incapable of reverse osmosis...it will absorb some of the liquid, but not reduce the sodium content. Can't happen....it's science.

I just did this yesterday! I added maple syrup to my beans and they were delicious.