Dried beans: to salt or not to salt?
To salt or not to salt?
Traditional wisdom warns against adding salt to dried beans at the start of cooking. At the molecular level, salt reinforces the already tough cell walls making the beans harder to eat. However, cooking them slightly longer will eventually cause the cell walls to break down in the same way as non-salted water. Either way, the beans should be seasoned at the end of cooking to bring out their full flavour.