How many cups of dry beans is one can?

How to Measure and Use Dried Beans

Inexpensive dried beans belong in any pantry, where you can store them for years. Using them in place of canned beans cuts down on recyclables in the garage and frees up food storage space in the kitchen. They also cost considerably less per pound than canned beans and give you control over the amount of salt in your dish. Though dried beans admittedly take much longer to prepare, requiring a soak and extended cooking time, they easily sub for canned in most recipes. Figuring out how many beans you need to swap dried for canned in a recipe is simple when you know the basic measurement equivalents. Keep in mind that beans vary widely in size, so if you want to swap a different dried bean for the variety called for in the recipe, you may need to adjust the amount to compensate.

Use these helpful average conversions and general rules of thumb to measure dried beans:

  • 2 cups of dried beans = 1 pound of dried beans
  • 1 pound of dried beans = About 6 cups of cooked beans
  • 1 part dry beans = 3 parts cooked beans
  • 1 cup dried beans = 3 cups of cooked beans
  • 1/3 cup dried beans = 1 cup of cooked beans

While they provide you with a great starting point, these rules of thumb vary based on the size of the bean. Larger varieties such as pinto and lima beans yield a bit less when cooked, while smaller ones such as garbanzo and navy beans yield more. Keep in mind that dried beans more than double in both volume and weight when you cook them, and you should be able to estimate the amount you need in most cases.

Conversions and Equivalents

Remember these tips for bean equivalents:

  • A heaping 1/2 cup of dried beans = one 15-ounce can of beans
  • 1 1/2 cups of cooked beans, drained = one 15-ounce can of beans
  • 1 1/2 pounds dried beans = one #10 can of cooked beans (109 ounces)

Canned beans equate to cooked beans, so cooking dried beans before you measure them for a recipe written with canned beans usually results in a more accurate conversion.

For recipes requiring precise proportions, you should always cook and drain the dried beans before you measure them, using the average equivalents as a rough guide to estimate the amount of dried beans you need to prepare. Many bean recipes are fairly forgiving and adjustable. But for just the right balance in a three-bean salad or in a pot of mixed bean soup, you might need to make some adjustments when you convert from canned to dried ingredient amounts so one bean doesn't dominate the dish.

Substitutions

You might need to increase the amount of salt you add during cooking when you use dried beans in place of canned. You can purchase canned beans with no added salt, but many contain sodium chloride, which is added both for flavor and as a preservative. Rinsing canned beans does wash away some of this added salt, but recipes written for canned beans generally compensate with less or no salt added during cooking. Since dried beans contain no salt, you need to add it for flavor when you cook the beans or increase the amount of salt in the recipe to taste.

Interchanging beans in a recipe usually works fine. For example, you can substitute kidney beans for pinto beans in a chili recipe or a bean salad without much alteration to the appearance or overall flavor. In dishes with beans as the main ingredient, such as hummus or refried beans, you may or may not be happy with the result, however. Hummus, which typically calls for mildly nutty garbanzo beans (also called chickpeas), won't taste the same if you use dark red kidney beans, although you may ultimately really like the flavor.

Generally, versatile beans make it easy to experiment and use what you have on hand. As a tasty source of protein, they can also stand in for meat when you want to cook with pantry staples instead of making a run to the store.

"I tend to cook with dry beans, but most recipes call for canned. Is there a reliable ratio to convert between the two?"

"I see that you have a lot of recipes that involved canned beans, but I usually only have dried beans on hand. I'd love to cook them, but I'm wondering if there's a formula to help me convert from canned to dried? Does it vary by bean type?"

I have an admission: I'm a bean snob. More than anything else, that means I vastly prefer dried beans to canned ones, and I'm willing to take the time to soak and cook them for just about any recipe. Still, I understand the advantages of canned. They're almost always perfectly cooked (which, admittedly, isn't guaranteed to be the case when you start with dried), and, most importantly, they're incredibly fast and convenient. It's no surprise, then, that so many recipes call for canned—I mean, let's be honest, most people are way more likely to make a 25-minute recipe than one that takes 2 hours and 25 minutes plus an overnight soak.

But for those of us who do want to use dried beans, what do we do when a recipe calls for canned (or, in rarer cases, vice versa)? Is there any rule of thumb that holds for all types of beans?

The answer is ultimately pretty simple: once you recognize that canned beans are just cooked beans, you're really looking for a consistent, reliable ratio between dried beans and cooked ones.

"Most dried beans slightly more than double in both volume and weight once cooked."

To work out that ratio, I started by taking six different varieties of dried beans—cannellini beans, red kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, chickpeas, and black-eyed peas—and measured their volumes and weights both before and after cooking. (For more on how to cook dried beans, take a look at our step-by-step guide.) The good news is, while the conversions aren't perfectly consistent, they're close enough that we can come up with a handy rule of thumb: Most dried beans slightly more than double in both volume and weight once cooked.

One pound of dried cannellini beans, for instance, measured just about 3 cups; after they were cooked and drained, they weighed 2 pounds 8 ounces and measured 6 1/2 cups. That held true, give or take an ounce here or there, for red kidney beans, and pinto beans. Black beans was in line with these weight-wise, but filled 7 cups after they were cooked.

Chickpeas and black-eyed peas didn't work quite the same way. One pound of chickpeas more than tripled in weight, and had a more significant volume increase (going from a little under 3 cups dried to 7 cups once cooked). Black-eyed peas, meanwhile, went from 1 pound dried to 2 pounds 13 ounces once cooked and drained, though volume stayed consistent with the other beans, swelling from a little under 3 cups dried to 6 1/2 cups once cooked.

In practice, this means that if a recipe calls for cooked beans and you want to use dried, you should be safe using half the specified amount. You may end up with a little extra, but it's better that than to come up short (and frankly, in many recipes, you can just toss 'em in for good measure). I'd even apply that rule to the outliers like chickpeas and black-eyed peas, because heck, does it ever hurt to have extra of either?

Finally, to answer the part about the can: The most common can size for beans is about 15 ounces, which, once drained, contains approximately 1.5 cups or 9 ounces of beans (this holds across all bean types I tested). So for a recipe that calls for one 15-ounce can of beans, you can cook 3/4 cup (4.5 ounces) of the dried version and be in the ballpark. Conversely, if a recipe calls for 1 cup of dried beans, you'll need to buy two 15-ounce cans to have the 2+ cups worth of cooked beans the recipe will eventually yield.

Type of Bean  Weight Dried  Equivalent Cooked 
Cannellini  1 pound  2 lb. 8 oz. (6.5 cups) 
Chickpeas  1 pound  3 lb. 4 oz. (7 cups) 
Red Kidney  1 pound  2 lb. 7 oz. (6.5 cups) 
Pinto  1 pound  2 lb. 5 oz. (6.5 cups) 
Black  1 pound  2 lb. 5 oz. (7 cups) 
Black-Eyed Peas  1 pound  2 lb. 13 oz. (6.5 cups) 

Bonus Observation: Most of my beans looked pretty similar to their canned equivalents, but I was surprised to see how different my home-cooked red kidney beans were from the canned. Sadly for a bean snob like me, my beans don't look nearly as good—and I have a lot of experience cooking beans.

Canned red kidney beans, left, are brighter than the home-cooked ones at right.

I'm not sure what sorcery Goya used to make their canned red kidney beans retain so much beautiful color, but sorcery it was, indeed! For those of you noticing that my beans are also more broken, that's most likely because the dried beans I bought were old—the older they get, the less evenly they cook, and sometimes you have to overcook some to ensure the rest aren't still crunchy. Crunchy beans are definitely worse than overcooked beans, IMHO.

How much dried beans in a can?

Finally, to answer the part about the can: The most common can size for beans is about 15 ounces, which, once drained, contains approximately 1.5 cups or 9 ounces of beans (this holds across all bean types I tested).

How many dried kidney beans equal a 400g can?

A 400g can of kidney beans yields about 240g of drained beans, so you will need to use about 80g dried beans per can (so for 4 cans use 320g dried beans).

How many cups is 1 cup dry beans?

1 CUP DRY BEANS MAKES ABOUT 3 CUPS COOKED BEANS. 1.

How do I substitute dried beans for canned beans?

As they cook, dried beans increase (nearly doubling) in both weight and volume. Follow this tip: As a rule of thumb, substitute two (15-ounce) cans of beans for every cup of dried beans required in your recipe.