I love cooking beans from scratch. YET getting them SOFT LIKE IN THE CANS...AAARRRGGGG!!!!!!!! HELP

I come from South America— we cook beans everyday for lunch and dinner...we used to soak it overnight but since I moved to the states and I don’t have the time to cook I bought a pressure cooker and I don’t need to soak beans anymore—- I use Goya beans .. wash it well, sort it out .. I fry an onion and garlic in the cooker till soft, then add beans and a bay leaf and water half way to cover beans — no salt yet ... when pressure cooker starts buzzing set cook time for 20min ... let steam out and open the pot carefully... if the water is mostly gone add more, at this point add salt and cook till your desired softness...

My mother always told me to cook the beans in UNsalted water until they get soft (about 1 1/2-2 hours), then add the salt and/or salted meat like bacon or ham hocks. She said the salt would make the beans hard. I don't know if it's true, but that's the way I cook mine.

I have been buying dried beans from Rancho Gordo, and they know beans! Their site lists lots of methods and recipes. So worth it as they are always fresh and have a great assortment of the heirloom varieties.

I agree that soaking them overnight (or at least for 12 hours), and cooking them long enough in fresh water (not the water in which the beans soaked), should result in sufficiently soft beans.

Just yesterday I cooked a batch of red beans that I had soaked overnight: in fresh water covering the beans by about 2 inches, I brought them to a boil, then reduced to a simmer and cooked for 2 hours. All the beans were nice and soft.

Here is a link to the U.S. Dry Bean Council's webpage on cooking dry beans: https://www.usdrybeans.com/health-nutrition/cooking-with-beans/

I rinse them, remove any split ones, then soak them in salted water overnight. I drain and cook in more salted water with a bay leaf and onion the next day. Also, I try to purchase good quality beans that are not too old.

+1 for baking soda, about 1tsp per cup of dry beans
Rinse the beans after cooking to avoid that flavor in the finished beans

A pinch of baking soda helps with making chickpeas soft. I haven't tried it on other beans.

Hmm- I don't know, usually they get pretty soft if you cook them long enough, though some canned beans are overcooked into much. There is a widespread belief that salting them or cooking them with acid can make them come out tough, but I don't believe there's much real evidence of this. You might consider a pressure cooker.