Easy Butter Beans

Butter beans are high-protein legumes that make the perfect side dish! This recipe is sparkling and super delicious.

They may be small but humble butter beans pack a punch! This legume has a deliciously buttery texture and is packed with protein, making it ideal for side dishes. This recipe is our favorite way to eat them: a Mediterranean take on this southern classic. Cook them in a broth of fire-roasted tomatoes, onions and garlic, with a sprinkling of smoked paprika for a hint of smoke. One bite and you’ll be singing her praises!

What are butter beans?

Butter beans are large, beige beans native to Peru. They are also called lima beans in honor of their origin in Lima, Peru. It’s true: butter and lima are one! The name depends on where you live: the term butter beans is used in the southern United States and the United Kingdom.

Small and green, baby lima beans are a young form of the bean that you may recognize in frozen vegetable mixes. Its mature form is the butter bean, which has a yellowish-beige exterior. Butter beans taste creamy and tender, with a mild aroma. You can buy them in a variety of forms at the grocery store, including:

• Driedthat takes about 2 hours to cook
• Frozenthat take 30 minutes to cook
• cansthat are pre-cooked

Ingredients for this butter bean recipe

Butter beans are common in southern US and UK cuisines. Typically, the recipes you’ll find in the south boil the dried beans and add bacon. But because butter beans are truly global, this recipe gets a Mediterranean twist! They cook them in a flavorful broth of tomatoes, onions and garlic until tender. They make a side dish of cooked beans that is irresistibly delicious. Here’s what you need:

• Frozen Kidney Beans: This recipe is optimized for frozen foods, so look for them in the grocery store freezer section (see below for a canned version)
• Salted butter or olive oil
• Garlic
• White Onion
• Roasted Tomatoes
• salt and pepper
• Bay leaf
• Fresh basil
• smoked paprika

How to cook frozen butter beans

Frozen butter beans are a unique product as there aren’t many other types of legumes that you can buy this way. Most frozen vegetables are blanched and only need to be cooked for a few minutes before they are served. But frozen beans aren’t pre-cooked: they need to simmer for 30 minutes before they’re done. No, it’s not like lima beans that you can microwave in 3 minutes! But they are much quicker than cooking dried beans, which takes hours. Here are the basic steps to cooking frozen butter beans (or continue with the recipe below):

Preheat: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. We like using the oven to simmer the beans because it’s completely hands-free.

blow : In an ovenproof pot or Dutch oven, sauté the onion and garlic, then add the beans, fire-roasted tomatoes, water and other seasonings.

Bake 30 minutes: Place the pan in the oven and cook until the beans are tender!

Variation: canned butter beans

This butter beans recipe is best made with frozen butter beans, but you can make it with canned ones too! We found large canned butter beans at our local grocery store that were much larger than the frozen variety. Here’s how you can use the can variety in this recipe (or jump to the recipe below):

• Use 2 cans of 15 ounce butter beansdrained and rinsed
• Reduce salt and water ¾ teaspoon salt and 1 cup water
• Bake 15 minutes

ways to serve them

Confession: This white bean recipe surprised me. When Alex developed it, I was a bit suspicious of the result. But our whole family fell in love! These cooked beans are the best side dish for incorporating protein and plant fiber into a meal. Be sure to serve them with a slotted spoon to avoid excess moisture. Here are some foods to pair with butter beans:

More bean recipes

Packed with nutrients, plant-based protein and fiber, beans make deliciously easy meals. Here are some tastier bean recipes to try:

This butter bean recipe is…

Vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, dairy-free and gluten-free.