Slow Cooker Chipotle Tomato Beans With Prosciutto Crumb

All good and decent breakfast spreads deserve some slow-cooked beans. Nothing is more miraculous with toast and eggs, coffee, and a slab of avocado. It’s what slow weekends are made of. These also freeze very well should you find yourself with leftovers.

Note: I choose not to soak white beans overnight before cooking. Instead, I let the slow cooker do the breaking down for me. This is contentious because there is some concern around the possibility of food poisoning from beans, which contain the plant lectin phytohaemagglutinin. This protein can be toxic at high levels, so the usual advice is to soak your beans in cold water overnight and boil them briefly before using. However, the beans I have used in these recipes have the lowest rate of lectin across all bean varieties, and most of the newer generation of slow cookers run at higher temperatures, eliminating the risk of food poisoning. If you are concerned, I recommend boiling your dried legumes for 10 minutes before proceeding with the recipe.