How Much Sodium Is Removed by Rinsing Canned Beans?

Draining and rinsing canned beans typically removes roughly a third to 40 percent of the sodium, though the exact amount depends on the type of bean, the brand, and how long you rinse. That range comes from a handful of food-science studies spanning several decades, and the findings are less straightforward than the tidy “rinse your beans” advice suggests. Draining alone does most of the work, and whether rinsing adds much beyond that is a question the research answers in slightly different ways.

What the Studies Actually Found

The most widely cited figure in nutrition circles is that draining and rinsing canned beans can reduce sodium content by up to about 40 percent. A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Culinary Science & Technology specifically examined sodium reduction from draining and rinsing across multiple types of canned beans, confirming that the combination of these steps meaningfully lowers the salt you end up eating.¹

An earlier study from 1983 came at the question slightly differently and found that simply replacing the canning brine with plain water before heating lowered the salt content by about 33 percent. Interestingly, that same study reported that rinsing alone, without first draining the brine, had a minimal effect on sodium levels.² This makes intuitive sense: if you rinse beans while they are still sitting in their salty liquid, you are fighting the concentration gradient rather than working with it. Pouring off the brine first removes the biggest reservoir of dissolved salt in one step.

The gap between these studies is worth noting. A 33 percent reduction from one and roughly 40 percent from another is not a contradiction; it reflects differences in method, bean variety, and how thorough the rinsing was. The practical takeaway is that you should expect to eliminate somewhere in the range of a third of the sodium, with the possibility of a bit more if you rinse thoroughly under running water for 30 seconds or so after draining.

Draining Does the Heavy Lifting

People tend to lump draining and rinsing together as a single action, but they are two distinct steps, and draining is the one that matters most. The liquid in the can, often called brine or packing liquid, carries a concentrated load of dissolved sodium. When you tip the can into a colander and let that liquid run off, you are discarding the medium that holds the majority of the free sodium. That single step is responsible for the largest share of salt removal.

Rinsing under tap water afterward washes off residual brine clinging to the bean surfaces and lodged in any crevices. It helps, but incrementally. The 1983 study’s finding that rinsing without draining had minimal effect underscores why order matters.² If the beans are still submerged in or coated by brine, a quick rinse cannot overcome the salt concentration surrounding them. Drain first, then rinse. The whole process takes about 15 seconds and needs no special equipment beyond a colander and a faucet.

Some of the sodium in canned beans is not sitting on the surface at all. During the canning process, salt migrates into the bean tissue itself, absorbed during the high-temperature retort cycle. That absorbed sodium will not wash off no matter how long you rinse. This is part of why the reduction tops out around 40 percent rather than climbing to 80 or 90 percent. You are removing the free salt, not the salt that has become part of the bean.

What Else Gets Washed Away

Sodium is not the only thing that leaves when you drain and rinse. The packing liquid contains water-soluble nutrients that leached out of the beans during canning. A study comparing the nutritional profiles of canned beans in their liquid versus drained canned beans found that draining significantly increased the per-serving concentration of protein, fiber, iron, potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper, phosphorus, and folate, simply because you were removing water weight and retaining the denser bean solids.³ That sounds counterintuitive at first: how does draining add nutrients? The answer is that it does not add anything; it removes the diluting liquid, so the remaining portion is more nutrient-dense per gram.

Some of those water-soluble nutrients are in the liquid you pour down the drain. If you consume the liquid along with the beans, you get a higher absolute amount of certain minerals, but you also get all the sodium. For most people watching their salt intake, the trade-off favors draining and rinsing. The lost nutrients are easily recovered from the rest of the meal or from the beans themselves.

The Gas-Causing Sugars

One underappreciated benefit of draining and rinsing is the removal of oligosaccharides, the complex sugars responsible for the intestinal gas beans are famous for. These sugars are not digested in the small intestine and instead ferment in the colon, producing gas. Research examining diverse dry bean varieties found that the canning process itself already reduces oligosaccharide content by 30 to 69 percent through leaching into the packing liquid.⁴ When you discard that liquid, you are throwing away a significant share of the oligosaccharides that migrated out of the beans during processing. Rinsing removes more of whatever clings to the surface. This is why many people report less digestive discomfort from canned beans than from home-cooked dried beans, and why draining and rinsing amplifies that difference.

Why There Is Salt in the Can to Begin With

Salt in canned beans serves several purposes, and preservation is only one of them. Sodium chloride affects the texture of beans during the retort process. Research on the interaction between salt solutions and legume cell walls found that sodium ions displace calcium ions from the pectin network in the cell wall, which softens the tissue.⁵ In other words, the salt is not just for flavor. It is part of why canned beans have that characteristic soft, creamy texture that differs from a home-cooked batch prepared without salt in the soaking water.

Calcium chloride is sometimes added alongside sodium chloride to firm the beans back up, creating a texture that holds together in the can rather than turning to mush. If you read the ingredient list on certain brands, you will see “calcium chloride” listed for this reason. The interplay between sodium softening and calcium firming is a deliberate balancing act by manufacturers. Removing the salt after canning, through draining and rinsing, does not reverse the textural changes that already occurred during processing, so the beans do not suddenly become tough again.

Some brands now produce “no salt added” canned beans, which skip the sodium chloride entirely or replace it with a very small amount. These products start at a much lower sodium baseline, so draining and rinsing has less impact in absolute terms. If your primary goal is minimizing sodium, buying no-salt-added beans and then seasoning to taste gives you far more control than buying regular canned beans and trying to wash the salt off.

What About the Aquafaba

The starchy liquid in canned chickpeas has gained a second life as “aquafaba,” a vegan egg-white substitute used in meringues, mousses, and cocktails. Its foaming properties come from dissolved proteins and starches, but it also carries a mineral load. A study characterizing aquafaba from different sources found that sodium and potassium were the most abundant minerals across all samples, and that commercially canned chickpeas produced aquafaba with the highest sodium concentrations.⁶ Sodium levels varied enormously depending on the source, ranging from under 1 mg/L for home-cooked aquafaba to over 180 mg/L for some commercial products.

If you save aquafaba for cooking, keep in mind that it is essentially the brine you would otherwise drain away. That liquid carries the salt and oligosaccharides you were trying to remove. For baking applications where the aquafaba is whipped into a foam, the sodium typically ends up diluted across the full recipe. But for anyone monitoring salt intake closely, the sodium content of commercial aquafaba is not trivial and varies widely between brands.

How Canned Beans Compare to Cooking from Dry

Cooking dried beans from scratch, without adding salt, produces beans that are naturally very low in sodium. Research comparing the nutrient profiles of home-cooked and canned beans found that cooked dried beans contained significantly less sodium and more of most nutrients, including protein, fiber, iron, potassium, and folate, than their canned counterparts.³ This makes sense: canned beans sit in salted water for months, and even after draining, some absorbed sodium remains. A bean that never encountered added salt starts from essentially zero.

That said, the nutrient gap narrows considerably once you drain canned beans. The same study found that drained canned beans were much closer in nutritional quality to home-cooked beans than undrained canned beans. Draining brought the protein, fiber, and mineral density significantly closer to what you would get from a pot of dried beans prepared at home. For people who do not have the time or inclination to soak and simmer dried beans for an hour or more, canned beans that are drained and rinsed are a reasonable nutritional substitute.

The cost equation is also relevant. Dried beans are cheaper per serving, but canned beans are ready in seconds. If the barrier between you and eating more legumes is the effort of cooking from scratch, canned beans that you drain and rinse are still a nutritious and relatively low-sodium option.

Practical Tips for Maximizing Sodium Removal

A few small habits make a noticeable difference in how much salt you end up consuming from canned beans:

• Drain fully first: Open the can and pour the contents into a colander. Let the brine run off completely before you do anything else. This single step does the bulk of the sodium removal.
• Rinse under running water: Hold the colander under cool tap water for about 30 seconds, gently tossing the beans with your hand or a spoon. Running water is more effective than a static soak because it continuously replaces the salty water clinging to the beans with fresh water.
• Choose no-salt-added brands: These start with dramatically less sodium. Even without rinsing, they often contain less salt than a regular can that has been drained and rinsed.
• Check labels for calcium chloride: Beans canned with calcium chloride tend to be firmer and may hold slightly more sodium in their tissue. This is not a reason to avoid them, but it is worth knowing if you are comparing brands.

None of these steps will get canned beans to zero sodium. The salt that migrated into the bean tissue during processing stays put. But the combination of draining and rinsing reliably cuts the sodium you actually eat by a meaningful margin, and it takes almost no time.

When the Label Numbers Do Not Match Your Plate

Nutrition labels on canned beans present the sodium content “as packed,” meaning the beans plus the liquid as they come out of the can. If you drain and rinse before eating, you are consuming substantially less sodium than the label says. This creates a disconnect: someone tracking their daily sodium intake using label values will overestimate how much salt they are getting from beans, potentially by a third or more.

Some manufacturers have started including a “drained” nutrition panel alongside the standard one, but this is not universal, and the “drained” figures may or may not assume rinsing. If your can only shows one set of numbers, a reasonable estimate is to subtract about a third of the listed sodium after draining and rinsing. For a can that lists 400 mg of sodium per serving, you are likely consuming somewhere in the range of 240 to 270 mg per serving after a good drain and rinse. That is still not negligible, especially if you are on a sodium-restricted diet aiming for under 1,500 mg per day, but it is a meaningful reduction from the label figure.

For anyone who finds even those levels too high, no-salt-added canned beans or home-cooked dried beans are the clearest path to keeping bean-related sodium near zero. The rinsing approach works well as a middle ground for people who want convenience without taking on the full sodium load of eating beans straight from the can.