This beans calculator provides measurement conversions between cooked vs dried beans. You can toggle between volume (cups, cans) or weight (pounds, ounces, grams). 23 different types of legumes are available for converting. Data is checked against USDA FoodData Central to ensure accuracy and consistency.
As you can see from the image above, members of the legume family vary drastically in size. So when you’re converting between volume to weight, or between dried to cooked, there are bound to be differences between different types of beans.
For many bean recipes, it is not necessary to measure out a precise quantity of beans. A chili recipe would likely be just as good whether made with 1 cup of beans, or 3/4 cup, or even 1 ½ cup. The same lentil soup recipe could be made with either 80g, 100g, or 130g of lentils and all you need to adjust is the salt level. For imprecise recipes like these, you can use the following quick-and-dirty rules of thumb for beans conversion:
However, for some recipes such as black bean brownies or homemade soy milk, it is important to be more accurate when measuring. Particularly when you are scaling a recipe up or down, the effects of using an imprecise conversion ratio will be magnified. That’s when I would use this calculator instead.
Simply enter a number into the “Quantity of beans” box, select the type of bean and the measurement you want to convert from, and the program will automatically calculate converted values.
So far, conversions for 23 different varieties of legumes are supported:
When cooking from dried, I recommend a 1:4 ratio of beans to water (by volume) for cooking on the stove-top, and a 1:2 ratio for cooking in the Instant Pot.
Example: Cook 1 cup (190g) of chickpeas in 4 cups (960g) of water on the stove, or in 2 cups (480g) of water in the Instant Pot.
Rule of thumb for cooking most dried beans in the Instant Pot:
Up to this point I have mainly cooked beans using the Instant Pot but I am slowly testing out cooking beans using the Dutch oven. I will update this post with stovetop and oven cooking instructions when I finish testing.
1 15oz can of canned beans is roughly equivalent to 1 ½ cups or 10oz of drained cooked beans, or 1/2 cup of dried uncooked beans. The exact conversion depends on the type of bean, as beans come in different shapes and sizes. Refer to the Beans Conversion Calculator, which allows you to choose between 27 different types of beans, for more precise conversions.
How many cans of beans equal 1 lb dry?Depending on the type of bean, 1 pound of dry beans is equivalent to 4 to 5 cans of beans. This assumes that the canned beans are in standard 15-oz cans. However, the exact conversion also depends on the brand, as different brands of canned beans may vary slightly in their solids-to-liquids ratio.
How much does 1 cup of beans yield?1 cup of dried beans yields 2 ½ to 3 ½ cups of cooked beans, which is equivalent to 2 15oz cans.
How do I convert dry beans to canned beans?A rough rule of thumb you can use is that every 1/2 cup of dried beans equals 1 can of beans. Or use the conversion calculator above for a more precise conversion.
