16 Best Bean Recipes for Cheap, Filling Dinners

Beans are the cheapest dinner in my kitchen and the one nobody complains about. A tin costs about a dollar, it turns into a meal in twenty minutes, and it somehow manages to feel like comfort food rather than a compromise.

Here is every bean recipe on the site in one place, from big pots of chili down to a quick garlicky side of green beans. A cooked cup of black beans carries around 15 grams of fiber, which is why a bean dinner keeps you full for hours longer than the same plate of pasta. Keep four or five tins in the cupboard and you always have dinner.

Bean Soups and Chilis

This is the section that gets used most from October onwards. Beans thicken a pot as they simmer, so these soups come out rich without any cream, and every one of them tastes better reheated the next day.

Bean Skillet Dinners

One pan, one tin, dinner on the table. These are the recipes I fall back on when I have not planned anything and the shops are shut, and they are all built from things that live in the cupboard anyway.

Black Bean Favorites

Black beans get their own section because they behave differently. They hold their shape, they take smoky and spicy seasonings better than any other bean, and they are the highest in fiber of the common tins.

Green Beans and Quick Bean Sides

Different kind of bean, same cupboard. These are the fast sides that turn a plain piece of chicken or fish into an actual dinner, and none of them take more than ten minutes.

My Best Tips for Cooking Beans

Beans are hard to ruin, but these are the things that took me embarrassingly long to work out.

• Rinse tinned beans, mostly: A rinse in a colander washes off the starchy liquid and cuts the sodium by around a third. The exception is chili and thick soups, where that same starch does useful work thickening the pot. In those, tip the whole tin in.
• Mash a scoop for instant body: Before serving any bean soup or chili, take out about a cup, mash it with a fork, and stir it back in. The pot goes from watery to thick in about a minute, with no flour and no cream. This is the single best bean trick I know.
• Add acid at the end, always: Tomatoes, vinegar, and citrus all stop dried beans from softening. If you are cooking from dried, get them tender first, then add the crushed tomatoes and apple cider vinegar. Tinned beans are already cooked so this does not apply to them.
• Build a real base first: Beans on their own taste like very little. Soften an onion properly in olive oil, add garlic, then a spoon of tomato paste and a good pinch of cumin, and let it all darken in the pan for a minute before anything wet goes in. That minute is where most of the flavor comes from.
• Buy more than one kind: Keep black beans, white beans, and butter beans in the cupboard and you can cook almost anything on this page without a shop. They are not interchangeable though. Butter beans are creamy, black beans stay firm, white beans fall somewhere in between.
• Ease into it if beans are new to you: If you do not eat beans often, going from none to a big bowl of chili will make you uncomfortable, and it is not the beans' fault. Start with half a cup a few times a week, drink more water, and give it two weeks. Your gut adjusts faster than people expect.

Bean Recipe FAQs

Do you have to rinse canned beans?

Usually yes. Rinsing removes the thick canning liquid and lowers the sodium by roughly a third. The one time to skip it is a chili or a thick soup, where that starchy liquid helps the pot thicken. Give them a good shake in a colander and let them drain properly.

Which beans have the most fiber?

Black beans lead the common tins at about 15 grams per cooked cup, with navy and pinto close behind. Chickpeas come in around 12 grams and butter beans a little under that. Honestly the differences are small enough that the best bean is the one you will actually eat.

Why do beans cause gas, and can you stop it?

It is the oligosaccharides, a type of carbohydrate your gut bacteria have to ferment. Rinsing tinned beans helps, cooking dried beans in fresh water rather than their soaking water helps more, and simply eating beans regularly helps most of all. Your gut bacteria adapt within a couple of weeks.

Are canned beans as healthy as dried?

Nearly. The fiber and protein are essentially identical. Tinned beans have more sodium, which a rinse largely fixes, and dried beans taste better and cost far less. I use both and do not think about it much. Convenience that you actually use beats an ideal you skip.

How long do cooked beans keep?

Four or five days in an airtight container in the fridge, or three months in the freezer. I freeze them in tin-sized portions with a little of their liquid so they do not dry out, which makes them a straight swap for a tin later.

Before You Go

Start with the butter beans if you want dinner in about twelve minutes, or the Tuscan white bean soup if you have an hour and want the house to smell wonderful. For more cheap and filling meals, see my high fiber dinners and my best soup recipes.

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