Multi-Bean Soup: Dried and Ready To Go

I’ve been wanting to make some convenience foods lately.  Something I can quickly throw together but is still healthy for my family.  I am also a bit limited on freezer space, so I’ve been looking into dried convenience foods.  So I made this multi-bean soup.

I know you’ve been saving all of your glass jars after you use up the products from the store.  We have a lot of them from nut butters and coconut oil.  Pro-tip, clean the labels off before you fill the jars.  You could package these in canning jars, but you might as well use these recycled jars and save the canning jars for actual canning.

Convenient Multi-Bean Soup

*makes aprox 7 jars

1 bag pinto beans

1 bag black beans

1 bag navy beans

1 bag split peas

1 bag other beans (lentils, garbanzo beans, black-eyed peas, ect.)

aprox 1/3 cup dried chopped carrots

aprox 1/3 cup dried celery

aprox 1 cup dried leeks

black pepper

Grind up the leeks and celery in a food processor.  Divide the ground leeks and celery and carrots evenly between jars.
On top of that, layer the beans in any order you like.  Pop the lid on and make a label with these instructions.

Soak overnight in 8 cups of water.  Simmer in 6 cups of water for 1 1/2 – 2 hours.

OR

Cook in slow cooker.  Cover with water and then an additional 2 inches.  Cook 8 – 10 hours on low.

My original plan with this was to use kidney beans as my fifth bean but at the last minute, learned that kidney beans have to be cooked differently than the others, so I had to fill it out with the various little bits of other beans we had.

This can be eaten as a soup as the recipe says.  You could also add meat into the slow cooker with them.  Or you could serve the whole thing over rice.  Or you could mix it with pasta sauce.  Can you think of any other ways to use this convenience food?