How Many Dried Beans Equal a Can?
Your recipe says two cans of black beans. You've got a four pound bag in the pantry and no idea how much to scoop. This converter answers that, and then tells you the part nobody mentions: what each version actually costs. Every price below is from our July 2026 grocery study, not a guess.
Swap the cans for the bag
The answer
1 can of black beans = 123 g of dry black beans
That's about 0.61 US cups measured dry, and it carries the same 26 g of protein the can does.
- Canned cost
- $0.88
- Dry cost
- $0.33
- You keep
- $0.55 (63%)
Link to this result — the numbers travel in the URL.
Cups are figured at 200 g of dry beans per US cup, which holds across these varieties. Weigh them if you want to be exact, because bean size moves the volume around more than you'd think.
Every can, every bean, already worked out
One 15.5 oz can replaced by each dry legume we've priced. Grams are what you measure out dry before soaking. The cost columns are what that quantity costs you at the register, which is where dried beans stop being a lifestyle choice and start being a rounding error on the grocery bill.
Source: Daily Life Hacks grocery price study. Prices observed July 2026 at US national grocery prices; nutrition values from USDA FoodData Central. Method described on the methodology page. Free to reuse with credit and a link.
1 can of black beans (15.5 oz can, $0.88) becomes
| Dry legume | Grams dry | Cups dry | Dry cost | Canned cost | Saved |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pinto beans | 124 g | 0.62 | $0.27 | $0.88 | $0.61 (69%) |
| Black beans | 123 g | 0.61 | $0.33 | $0.88 | $0.55 (63%) |
| Brown lentils | 107 g | 0.54 | $0.34 | $0.88 | $0.54 (61%) |
| Navy beans | 119 g | 0.59 | $0.35 | $0.88 | $0.53 (60%) |
| Green split peas | 114 g | 0.57 | $0.36 | $0.88 | $0.52 (59%) |
| Chickpeas | 129 g | 0.65 | $0.47 | $0.88 | $0.41 (47%) |
| Red lentils | 111 g | 0.55 | $0.47 | $0.88 | $0.41 (46%) |
1 can of kidney beans (15.5 oz can, $0.98) becomes
| Dry legume | Grams dry | Cups dry | Dry cost | Canned cost | Saved |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pinto beans | 107 g | 0.53 | $0.23 | $0.98 | $0.75 (76%) |
| Black beans | 106 g | 0.53 | $0.28 | $0.98 | $0.70 (71%) |
| Brown lentils | 93 g | 0.47 | $0.29 | $0.98 | $0.69 (70%) |
| Navy beans | 103 g | 0.51 | $0.30 | $0.98 | $0.68 (69%) |
| Green split peas | 99 g | 0.5 | $0.31 | $0.98 | $0.67 (68%) |
| Chickpeas | 112 g | 0.56 | $0.40 | $0.98 | $0.58 (59%) |
| Red lentils | 96 g | 0.48 | $0.41 | $0.98 | $0.57 (58%) |
1 can of chickpeas (15.5 oz can, $0.98) becomes
| Dry legume | Grams dry | Cups dry | Dry cost | Canned cost | Saved |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pinto beans | 101 g | 0.5 | $0.22 | $0.98 | $0.76 (77%) |
| Black beans | 100 g | 0.5 | $0.27 | $0.98 | $0.71 (73%) |
| Brown lentils | 88 g | 0.44 | $0.28 | $0.98 | $0.70 (72%) |
| Navy beans | 97 g | 0.48 | $0.28 | $0.98 | $0.70 (71%) |
| Green split peas | 93 g | 0.47 | $0.29 | $0.98 | $0.69 (70%) |
| Chickpeas | 106 g | 0.53 | $0.38 | $0.98 | $0.60 (61%) |
| Red lentils | 90 g | 0.45 | $0.39 | $0.98 | $0.59 (61%) |
What these numbers actually mean
Why we match on protein instead of guessing a ratio
Most bean conversion charts hand you a number with no explanation. Half a cup dry equals a can, roughly, probably. We went a different way. Protein doesn't disappear when you soak, boil or can a bean, so it works as a tracer. One 15.5 oz can of black beans carries 26 g of protein. Dry black beans run 21.6 g of protein per 100 g. Divide one by the other and you get 123 g of dry beans, which is the number in the box above. No folklore involved.
The honest wobble in that number
Run the same math on fiber instead of protein and you'd get 195 g rather than 123 g. That gap isn't a mistake, it's USDA measuring fiber in canned and dry legumes with different methods. So treat the answer as a solid working figure, not a lab result. For cooking it makes no difference. A pot of chili has never once cared about fifteen grams of dry bean.
Where the prices come from
Both sides are priced from the same audited study: 15.5 oz can of black beans at $0.88, and dry black beans at $2.42 for the 2 lb bag. Prices are US national grocery observations from July 2026, nutrition is USDA FoodData Central, and the whole method is written up on the methodology page. When we re-run the price study this page changes by itself, because it reads the same CSV you can download below.
So should you just buy dry?
On price it isn't close, and the table says so. What the table can't price is the soak and the ninety minutes of simmering, and some nights that's the whole ballgame. A reasonable middle: cook a big pot of dry beans when you're home anyway, freeze them in can-sized portions, and keep a few actual cans for the nights when dinner needs to happen in twenty minutes. You can also see how beans stack up against everything else in the fiber and protein per dollar calculator.