23 Outstanding Ways to Cook Beans

This simple side dish from reader Trisha Kruse, of Eagle, Idaho, is a great way to add some texture and brightness to versatile green beans.

Sometimes the simplest of recipes are the most delicious. Plenty of garlic, some thyme, and really fresh green beans add up to more than the sum of their parts.

These zingy pickles take only about an hour to prepare, but provide many months’ worth of snacking. Serve them alongside burgers, add to Bloody Marys, or just eat them straight from the jar.

Using the full amount of chili suggested in this recipe will give you some delicious but very hot green beans. So be sure to adjust it to meet your spice preferences.

Chanterelle mushrooms and cipollini onions are worth the splurge, but you can substitute halved cremini mushrooms and frozen pearl onions and the results will still be very tasty.

Instead of—or in addition to—a classic gravy, consider this bright, intensely flavorful South American sauce to top your favorite protein. We’ve adapted the recipe from one in Rich Table by Sarah and Evan Rich.

Your vegetarian and vegan friends will rejoice at this flavorful meat-free dish. Feel free to riff on this recipe by adding whatever you have on hand, like lettuce, halved cherry tomatoes, or chopped cucumber.

Pan-searing sliced tofu gives it a meatiness that’s deliciously offset by crunchy vegetables and a drizzle of black bean sauce (pour on a little less if you’re salt-sensitive). The Asian ingredients can be found in any large grocery store.

We left the soup chunky with a clear broth, but you could easily purée it to create a smooth soup. Just don’t skip the avocado mixture, as it makes a refreshing contrast to the beans and spice.

Serve this delicious vegetarian chili recipe for your next low-key gathering. Filled with tons of black beans and hearty tomatoes, this chili will make great chili mac the next day.

This fruity salsa is good served with tortilla chips; spooned over grilled fish such as swordfish, sea bass, or halibut; or simply as a salad of its own.

Santa Maria-style tri-tip is traditionally served with little red pinquito beans. We came up with this fancy bean dish for our fancier tri-tip, but it’s great with the other roasts or on its own too.

Reader Jeffrey Lehane of Lone Jack, Missouri, likes his beans blazingly hot: He adds as much as 1/4 cup chipotle chile powder and 4 fresh jalapeño chiles to a batch. We’ve toned it down a little (and it’s still quite spicy), but feel free to follow Lehane’s path of fire if you like. Serve with warm cornbread–and a cold bottle of Fat Tire.

Here we combine the classic ossobuco alla Milanese–braised veal shanks garnished with gremolata, a mixture of chopped parsley, garlic, and lemon peel–with a bean ragout.

Take a shortcut and start with a can of Boston-style baked beans and add smoked bacon, onion, ketchup, brown sugar, and mustard for an easy bean side dish.

These tiny light-red beans are grown only in the Santa Maria Valley, as far as anyone knows. They create their own rich sauce when cooked long and slow. Regular pinto beans can be used as a substitute to achieve an equally delish side.

Simple and nourishing, these beans (frijoles) are served straight from the pot (olla) to the plate, says cookbook author Marcela Valladolid. She loves them lifted out of their broth and into a warm tortilla too, with a drizzle of Mexican crema or sour cream.

This simple approach to cooking beans will soon become a household favorite. Serve these alongside homemade tortillas for sopping up the delicious broth these beans leave behind.

In many parts of Mexico, enfrijoladas are often just fresh tortillas dipped in a bean sauce and folded over. Lupe Romero Vidal and her friend Chabela Cortés García of Hidalgo filled theirs with chorizo or leftover barbecued chicken and served them for brunch when we visited, but just about any leftover meat would be delicious–or even scrambled eggs. 

Becca Steinkamp gives her mother credit for this vegetable-loaded rice-and-bean salad, which she calls “ensalada de colores.” On warm summer evenings, she doubles the recipe to feed a crowd without heating up the kitchen. You can also make the salad up to 1 day ahead of time; chill airtight.

In Jamaica, where dried beans are called peas, a pot of them cooked with rice, coconut milk, and allspice is a given at most meals. This recipe from Shani Jones-Taye makes a generous amount; any leftovers reheat well in the microwave. Jones-Taye is co-owner of Peaches Patties, a Jamaican food kiosk in San Francisco.

This Indian-inspired curried bean dish makes for a hearty vegetarian meal, especially when served with a helping of brown rice.  The red kidney beans boast a host of nutritional benefits; the ginger helps your body make the most of those benefits.

There’s just enough creamy rice to hold together the generous tumble of favas and their greens, which taste similar to spinach.