re: #182 sattv4u2

From Cooks Illustrated: Published March 1, 2008.
Is it necessary to rinse canned beans?
Canned beans are made by pressure-cooking dried beans directly in the can with water, salt, and preservatives. As the beans cook, starches and proteins leach into the liquid, thickening it. To find out if rinsing the beans is really necessary, we used canned beans in two recipes: chickpeas for hummus and red kidney beans for Simple Beef Chili. Tasters found no difference in the chili; there are so many bold flavors and contrasting textures in this dish that rinsing the beans didn’t matter.

We detected notable differences in the hummus. Most tasters thought the version with rinsed beans was brighter in flavor and less pasty than the version with unrinsed beans. So while rinsing the beans may not be necessary for a robust dish like chili, a thick, salty bean liquid does have the potential to throw a simpler recipe off-kilter. As rinsing beans only takes a few seconds, we recommend doing so.