Interesting! For years I drained and rinsed my beans when making chili, until a co-worker told me to just pour it in one day- it made good chili! I would have never imagined that liquid had any other use.
When I use canned beans for 5-bean salad, I include the liquid from a can of either ceci or kidney beans. It adds some viscosity to the liquid remaining after the salad has been consumed; I like that liquid as a dressing for tossed salad.
I happen to be making black bean dip on Friday for an affair on the weekend. I’m going to use some of the liquid in the dressing. Might keep the rest and add to a banana bread 
An interesting turn of events for canned bean juice, since up until now it’s been widely reviled by foodists as containing too much sodium to consume. I think that if anyone called it “Aquafaba” around me I would be forced to kick them in the shins.
Apparently there are lots of recipes for vegan uses for aquafaba as an egg substitute- which i would much rather use over something like EnerG egg replacer
I actually just read this on the vegan crunk blog i follow the other day- she made vegan marshmallow fluff! The photos are crazy. I’m debating if i am so brave to try it with my immersion blender…
Fascinating, thanks. I had not heard of this before and wondered if it could be made fresh. I just don’t like canned anything. And I would guess fresh has to be better, right?
http://www.foodhighs.com/2015/07/05/aquafaba-without-the-can/
I regularly cook dried beans. The liquid is never as dense as that in the cans. It’s been several years since I had occasion to cook them in a pressure cooker, which uses less water, but I don’t recall a thicker liquid. I might experiment with that. I have no objection to canned beans other than their added salt. I cook from dried to save money, and because I don’t have a lot of shelf space for cans, and to avoid the heavier grocery bags.
Somewhat surprisingly, recently, America’s Test Kitchen reversed its longstanding denigration of canned beans, declaring their flavor and texture superior to home-cooked.
The problem with using the liquid, rather than draining and rinsing the beans, is that you will end up with a lot more sodium than you may want. (One figure I’ve seen is that drain-and-rinse reduces the sodium by 40%.)
The Serious Eats link advises using lower-sodium canned beans.
I tried using bean water/aquafaba as an egg white substitute for cocktails a year or two ago. The taste of the chickpeas was overwhelming in a mostly offensive way. And the bean juice fermented in the GI system causing severe gas buildup, and the resultant release. The test subjects gave it a big thumbs down with a resounding thunder.
A chef/friend who I worked for told me that the liquid causes a lot of “gas”.
It makes sense that it would- it’s full of starch, which is carbohydrate that bacteria in the gut covert to sugar for energy. The conversion creates the release of gas in the gut which causes us to " fart."
A result of this, I’ve always dumped that wTer and rinsed my canned vegetables.
which is why you drain the soaking liquid and use fresh water to cook dried beans.
no worries about the bpa in the cans?
I can’t find the reference now, but I learned a few years ago that the soaking water contains some enzyme or other that interferes with the digestion of the natural sugars in legumes, and that’s what causes flatulence. Since I am borderline diabetic, I cook them in the soaking water in hopes that this results in more of the sugar passing through undigested. IME it is true that the more often you eat beans, the less gas they will cause.
soaking dried beans helps remove the lectins, which are indigestible by humans, and reduces the oligosaccharides (sugars). i know you’e very thrifty about water, but you shouldn’t be using this water to cook.
properly soaked and cooked beans DO have resistant starch, which helps feed beneficial gut bacteria and also passes through undigested. so, yes, in that respect, you’re only getting a portion of the carbs (sugars) in the beans. and yes, the more your gut biome gets used to beans the easier they are to digest, so, less gassy.
Hi! New here and reviving an old thread; I didn’t want to start another aquafaba thread.
I had a similar experience with aquafaba. I made meringue for a lemon meringue cake and while all my friends were polite to me and complimented my cake, the taste of chickpea water in the meringue was distracting and to me, ruined the cake. 
Still I bear no ill will towards aquafaba. It’s an interesting substance. I’ve tried and failed making macarons with aquafaba, but I like the challenge, so wondering if anyone has had any success with baking macarons with aquafaba?
Also, I found this aquafaba cookbook recently:
Does anyone have this book and would recommend it?
Thanks!!
My wife makes delicious desserts whipping the liquid from chickpeas. First time, I was amazed it was not egg whites.
She does use the liquid from the can, adds a bit of cream of tartar and sugar and some vanilla extract. The extract is key and whipping the liquid for quite a while very important. From there, the dessert possibilities are quite fantastic.
Here’s another version without the cream of t.
Thanks for the tip! I did not add vanilla extract, so maybe that would’ve improved the taste of my meringue. I will have to try that next time! I’ll report back my results when I do. Thanks again!
What ratio of raw chickpeas to water will yield aquafaba with the same characteristics as canned aquafaba? I cook chickpeas in my instapot with a water:chickpea ratio of 4:1, and can’t tell if my water ratio or technique is preventing my mayonnaise from emulsifying enough.
