2 . Reading the wiki brings up phytohaemagglutinin . Do I have to worry about this with pinto beans ? If so , what is the method for preparing them prior to dumping them in the slow cooker ? All beans contain that toxin to a varying degree , and it seems like people have varying levels of sensitivity to it . Red kidney beans are the worst offenders , and must be boiled in water for at least 10 minutes to destroy enough of the toxin for the beans to be safe to eat . Boiling any bean for at least 10 minutes prior to slow cooking will ensure that you don ' t have any issues , even with other types of beans , if you want to play it safe . Aside from that the beans are pretty foolproof . Almost all of the dogmatic historical bean cooking rules are a load of crap . You can add salt , acid , sugar , whatever pretty much whenever you want in the cooking process though I would suggest early is better for most flavour development , and the beans will turn out fine . 3 . Is there any prep for white rice as well ? Or are they safe to go straight into the slow cooker ? Don ' t cook rice in a slow cooker , it will be mushy unless you add it near the end of cooking and time it perfectly . As others have suggested , get a cheap rice cooker or a heavy sauce pan with a tight fitting lid and you ' re good to go for rice , which only takes 20 minutes . Cooking questions 5 . After the cooking is complete , what are my storage options ? Do I let it cool off for a bit before storing in a tupperware container in the fridge ? How long will it be good for in storage ? Large batches should be divided into smaller containers and cooled as quickly as possible . If you use plastic sealed containers you can simply float them in a sink full of cold water for 3060 minutes before placing in the fridge . This will cool the food down rapidly through the entire mass , ensuring that nothing bad has time to grow . Using a single large container and sticking it straight into the fridge can cause issues because 1 The food at the center of the container may spend hours in the Danger Zone for bacterial growth , which could cause food poisoning . 2 The heat from the large mass of food can warm up other foods nearby , causing a loss of quality , freshness and longevity and potentially placing that food in the danger zone for an unacceptable length of time . Also , try not to reheat and recool food over and over . It ' s generally best practice to never rerefrigerate cooked food that has been reheated . Hope that helps .