Bean Recipes: How to Incorporate Beans Into Your Cooking

Beans are the edible seeds from various plants of the Leguminosae family. They come in different shapes, sizes, and colors and are available for purchase canned, dried, or ground into flour. Rich in protein and fiber, the most widely recognized legume family members include peas, soybeans, and peanuts.

There is a reason beans are one of the ultimate pantry ingredients: Whether fresh, canned, or dried, there are endless ways to incorporate them into your mealtime routine.

1. 1. In salads: Drained whole beans—especially when combined with grains like quinoa, vegetables like corn and diced red onion, a handful of greens or fresh herbs like fennel, and a drizzle of Chef Thomas Keller’s red pepper vinaigrette—make for a highly nutritious side dish with a creamy, appealing texture. From Mediterranean chickpea salad to white bean salad, there are many different bean salad recipes, and many of them pair particularly well with a thick slice of sourdough toast.
2. 2. In soups and stews: There’s a spectrum to cooked beans, with light, brothy soups on one end and thick, hearty stews on the other. Each approach typically combines the beans with water or broth, plus aromatics like garlic, dried chilies, oregano, and onion.
3. 3. Mash into dips, burgers, and condiments: Beans make effortlessly smooth dips for crudité platters due to their velvety interiors. Roughly mashed or puréed red beans make a sweet filling for Asian desserts like Chinese red bean buns and Japanese daifuku mochi. Smashed black beans come together with warm spices like cumin to make the ultimate vegetarian main dish: black bean burgers.

Beans are a highly forgiving food: They play well with just about everything, or you can leave them alone for a few hours in a slow cooker and make a big batch to freeze for future meals. Here’s what to know about cooking beans:

1. 1. To soak or not to soak. Soaking beans is a matter of preference: You can soak any beans—either overnight or by using the quick-soak method—but it may be most helpful for thicker-skinned varieties, like kidney beans, chickpeas, or lentils, or older batches of stale dried beans, which can take longer to cook than fresh, dried beans. You don’t need to soak thin-skinned beans, like pinto beans, black beans, black-eyed peas, or cranberry beans, because the heat can more easily penetrate their skin. Drain the soaked beans and cook as directed.
2. 2. Use a multi-cooker. To speed up the cooking process of dried beans, use a multi-cooker, which softens beans to a perfectly tender texture in a fraction of the usual time, sparing you from a crunchy result.
3. 3. Taste often. Beans absorb lots of liquid as they cook, and depending on the recipe, you may end up topping off the pot with more water or stock as required. Throughout the cooking process, the seasoning ratios of the broth will change constantly, so adjust with salt and pepper as needed.

If you have a bag of leftover dried beans or a surplus of summer pole beans from the farmers market, you can put them to work in one of these bean recipes:

1. 1. Baked beans: Baked beans, in which you cook the beans low and slow in a sweet and savory sauce, are a staple at BBQ joints, picnic potlucks, and summer gatherings, where they often accompany barbecue, hot dogs, and potato salad. There are many global variations on the baked bean format, including French cassoulet, English beans on toast, and Mexican frijoles charros (pinto beans stewed with onion, bacon, jalapeño, and garlic).
2. 2. Bean chili: A variety of beans, such as black beans, kidney beans, Navy beans, pinto beans, chickpeas, and Tuscan white beans, add texture and richness to a meat or vegetarian chili recipe. You can use cans of beans or cook the beans yourself on the stovetop or in a slow cooker. Learn how to make vegan chili.
3. 3. Black bean hummus: This garlicky, spicy bean dip in the style of traditional hummus is a gluten-free appetizer that you can serve alongside crudités, pita chips, bread, and tortilla chips. Typically, zesty black bean hummus contains garlic, japaleño peppers, tahini, lemon juice, spices, and black beans (instead of chickpeas, like its Middle Eastern counterpart).
4. 4. Fried green beans: Fried green beans, or green bean fries, are green beans that you can bread or coat in batter and then air-fry, pan-fry, or deep-fry until they’re golden-brown and crispy and top with grated Parmesan or feta cheese crumbles. Serve fried green beans as a side dish or with ranch dressing as an appetizer.
5. 5. Ful medames: Ful medames (sometimes spelled foul mudammas), or fūl, is an Egyptian dish made with fava beans that you can soak overnight before boiling and simmering them on the stovetop until they’re tender and soupy. Mix and mash the beans with oil or samneh (a clarified butter similar to ghee) before serving. Learn how to make fava bean stew.
6. 6. Frijoles de la olla: Frijoles de la olla feature rehydrated dried beans that you can simmer with onion and garlic over many hours. Easily transformed into many other dishes, you can make frijoles de la olla at the beginning of each week and use them in a variety of recipes. Tuck them into tacos, burritos, or enchiladas, or enjoy them on their own with a bit of fresh cheese or sour cream, salsa, a squeeze of lime juice, and fresh cilantro.
7. 7. Green bean casserole: This classic oven-baked side dish combines cut green beans with a creamy sauce, onions, and crispy golden top crust. Cooks often serve green bean casserole alongside comfort foods like steak, roasted chicken, or sweet potatoes.
8. 8. One-pot bean stew: Bean stews are thick and hearty soups made with various types of beans, broth, and vegetables like carrots, potatoes, and bell peppers. Canned beans or dried beans both work well in bean stews, although dry beans require more planning since they take longer to cook.
9. 9. Pasta e fagioli: This traditional dish is an Italian white bean soup featuring a humble list of ingredients—cannellini beans, Italian soffritto, stewed tomatoes, short pasta, olive oil, and garlic. While minestrone, another hearty soup with Italian roots, may feature additional ingredients like Italian sausage, or veggies like zucchini, pasta e fagioli is a little more minimalist.
10. 10. Red bean paste: You can make red bean paste (anko) from cooked and sweetened adzuki beans. Adzuki beans—also known as azuki beans or red mung beans—are small Chinese beans with the same deep-maroon hue as kidney beans. Red bean paste is the star ingredient in many Chinese and Japanese sweets.

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