All the Recipes from Bean Month 2026

Zolfini Beans

Dessert

Lunch

Side Dish

Pesto Bean Salad: This was my go to side dish over the summer and helped me work through the thriving basil in our garden (which is now frozen as pesto). Take a few cups of cooked Zolfini or Sorana beans and mix them in a bowl with as much prepared pesto as you’d like. Add a glug of olive oil, chopped tomato, and finish with chile flakes. Use your instincts for how much of each ingredient to add. In the winter, pair it alongside a roasted chicken or grilled steak. Beans needed: A few cups cooked

Dinner

Pasta e Fagioli: I grew up eating Pasta e Fagioli at my grandparents house but had not made it until a few days ago. I appreciate this Serious Eats recipe for its reliance on the superior flavor of dry beans over canned and how you don't need to add a ton of other ingredients to make the dish taste good. While there are many different variations of Pasta e Fagioli, this Tuscan version is quite simple. The beans are cooked with onion, celery, garlic, and carrot that you are supposed to strain out at the end. I didn't quite get all the onion out and ended up blending some with the beans and it tasted great. I opted for rosemary over sage after it was the only remaining garden herb after a hard frost. The recipe makes a lot of food and could easily be halved or quartered. Beans needed: 1 pound dry

Marry Me Beans: There’s about a thousand different recipes for “Marry me (insert protein here)” after the dish went viral on TikTok. This recipe from our friends at Foodocracy cooks up quick and has a great flavor. The recipe calls for a full pound of beans and I recommend cutting the whole recipe in half unless you want a lot of leftovers (we made the full recipe and it yielded about 8 servings). You’ll want to add more liquid to the pan when you reheat it. I would also add more chile flakes than it calls for. Serve with crusty bread and an arugula salad. Beans needed: 1 pound dry   Community Pick from Margie G - Creamy Spicy Tomato Beans and Greens: A NYT Cooking favorite, this recipe has over 11k 5 star reviews. It is very similar to Marry Me Beans, but is a bit richer with the addition of tomato paste. It also puts the arugula salad on top of the finished dish - something that was really fun to eat. You’ll need a NYT cooking subscription to access the recipe. Beans needed: 3 cups cooked / 1/2 pound dry   Community Pick from Caitlin S - Lemony Brothy Beans: “I love the Zolfini beans and this is what I make the most. I’m not a recipe person, my cooking style is very much based on feel and vibes, so these directions feel very approximate, which is the way it goes with so many beans. These are a riff on Alison Roman’s Brothy Beans that has evolved over the years in my kitchen.” Beans needed: 1/2 pound dry

Southwest Gold Beans

Cheesy Baked Bean Dishes

Cheesy Green Chile Bean Bake: This follows the NYT Cooking equation of beans, sauce, cheese on top and bake. And there’s nothing wrong with that! If you don’t have a NYT cooking subscription, you can make this pretty easily. Saute some chopped poblano chiles (I added half an onion and the remnants of a bag of frozen corn), mix them with a few cups of cooked beans, salsa verde, and cilantro. Add some jack cheese on top and broil it until the cheese is melted. It’s a good method for making cheesy baked beans with whatever kind of salsa or sauce you have on hand. This is basically the same as Pizza Beans but with Mexican flavors. I have plans for a Cheesy Enchilada Bean Bake recipe this spring. Bean use: 3 cups cooked beans French Onion Beans: When I was a kid and there was French Onion soup on the menu, I was definitely ordering it and definitely going to burn my mouth while eating it. This recipe makes a little over 2 servings and could be easily scaled up. I sliced one large onion and slowly caramelized it in a cast iron pan. I used Better Than Bouillon Beef Broth and once I added it, the vinegar, and the beans to the pan, I let it simmer for about 10 minutes to really get more of that soup flavor into the beans. I spooned a single serving of the beans into a small cast iron, topped with croutons and cheese and popped it in the oven for 8 minutes. Once cooked, I slid it out of the pan into a bowl. These beans were even better than I expected. The Southwest Gold beans were able to get really flavorful and I also didn't burn my tongue on any hot broth! Bean use: 2 cups cooked beans

Soups Sopa de Milpa: I was eyeing this recipe for a while last fall and after an employee gifted us a whole chicken her husband had harvested from their flock, it was the sign I needed to make it. This soup brings together the three sisters of the Milpa farming technique where corn, beans, and squash are intercropped together to help each other grow. While the recipe doesn’t call for chicken, I simmered the chicken and added the meat to the pot and added stock from the bones instead of vegetable stock. Our whole pasilla chiles add really earthy flavors to the soup with a nice level of heat. I regret not taking a photo, but I just got another chicken from our employee and am going to make it this week! Bean use: The recipe calls for a full pound of dry beans but I would use a half pound or whatever gives it the thickness that you are looking for. That might be only a cup or 2!

Senate Bean Soup: Who knew there was a soup that's been served at the Senate Dining Room (or that that existed) daily for the past 100 years? Enter Senate Bean Soup. It has a short ingredient list of navy beans, ham hock, celery, onion, and garlic. This soup had been on my list of things to make for awhile and I finally got the ham hocks to make it. It was an easy soup with a lot of flavor. You cook the beans with the ham hocks till the beans are fully cooked, saute the vegetables (I added a small carrot) and add them to the pot, and then simmer for an hour till the beans have broken down a bit and the whole pot has gotten really creamy. I shared this one with friends and their responses were "Bean month is my favorite month. These beans are so good." "Was there meaty bits in there? What was that?!" and "Yummy!". You can thin the soup out if you prefer it a bit thinner, too. Make the soup at home or visit the Dirksen Cafeteria to try a cup if you happen to be in D.C.! Bean use: The recipe calls for a full pound of dry beans but you can easily halve it.

Dinner

Caesar White Bean Burgers: A great way to use beans is for bean burgers. Last year we fell in love with these Carrot and White Bean Burgers from Smitten Kitchen. This year, we tried out Caesar White Bean Burgers from The Kitchn. I really like the idea of using strong flavors found in a Caesar salad to liven up a burger. After reading the reviews of this recipe, I knew that the bones of it were solid, but it needed a little tweaking.   To make 6 burger patties, I used 3 cups of cooked beans. Instead of 3 Tablespoons of lemon juice, I used 1 (the comments made it seem like the recipe would create too wet a burger). I was curious about the use of anchovy paste (never had it before!) and really liked how it worked here. You could even up it to 4 Tablespoons of the paste and it wouldn’t be a problem. We served these with crisp lettuce, pickled onions, sliced tomato, mayo for the buns, and roasted sweet potato fries on the side. Bean use: 3 cups cooked

Community Pick from Carrie A - Frijoles a la Charra “I have to share a "been making forever" recipe. It isn't the newest invention ever. I started with a Diana Kennedy version years ago, but have since evolved it. I like to cook a double or triple batch of beans in one go. Then on night one we have them in a "wet style", serving them in a bowl with lots of the pot liquor. On meals two (and three, if they last that long!) we'll move on to a dry style, like in a burrito.” Bean use: ½ pound dry beans

Ingredients

• 8 oz dry Southwest Gold beans
• 2 strips of bacon, chopped
• 2 green onions, cut into 2-3mm segments, whites and greens separated
• 1 small fresh tomato, diced
• 1 fresh serrano chile, sliced thin (optional)
• 3 sprigs of cilantro, with the biggest stalks removed, slightly cut up

Cook the beans as you like. Carrie typically cooks them with an onion, a garlic clove, a whole Espelette chile, and minimal salt. 

 

While the beans are cooking, cook bacon in a large frying pan until the fat is almost completely rendered. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and reserve it. To the bacon fat in the pan, add the white part of the green onions until fragrant, not quite translucent. Next add the diced tomato and cook down a few minutes until it has lost half its volume. Finally add the cooked bacon, the greens of the onions, and the serrano chile, warming it all very briefly so the greens keep some fresh texture. Add in 3 cups of the cooked beans including lots of the cooking liquid. Throw in the cilantro just as you are serving it in bowls.

 

These are a crowd pleaser as-is. Some in my family like a dollop of sour cream on top. Others add in some Aji Crisp. 

Rosso di Lucca Beans

Salad

Chickpea Sumac Salad (but with Rosso Di Lucca Beans)  Since the Rosso beans have that starchier texture, I looked at different recipes that call for chickpeas to see if these beans would be a good substitute. And they were! I made this sumac salad as a side for a dinner with friends. I would describe it as the tangiest bean dish I've ever eaten. Sumac is a really cool spice whose flavor is zingy and very lemony. And that paired with the pomegranate molasses was such a bright flavor to enjoy on a cold winter night. I used chopped arugula instead of Italian parsley and marinated the beans with the onions and dressing for about an hour before serving. Serve it alongside something rich in order to cut the fat with the sumac's brightness. Bean use: The recipe calls for 6 cups of cooked beans (1 pound dry) which makes A LOT. Halve or quarter the recipe based on how many cups of beans you want at the end and it will still come out great.

Soups

Zuppa alla Frantoiana I came across this recipe while searching specifically for recipes from Tuscany (and the Lucca area) to honor the Rosso di Lucca bean. This soup delivered. It is absolutely packed with vegetables in the most comforting way. We ate this with a group of friends and watched the first night of the Milano Cortina Olympics coverage.   Here's how I modified the recipe: I sautéed all the vegetables instead of just boiling them to give them more flavor and added them to a large dutch oven in the following order: onions/leek/garlic, celery/carrot/onion, fennel, squash, zucchini, kale/cabbage. Then added the tomato paste and sage before adding water to give it broth. I used all Rosso di Lucca beans. Once they were cooked, I did not mash them but just added them from the pot into the soup (now understanding the tradition of blending the beans, next time I would add the bean puree!). I really enjoyed how many different vegetables were in here and how hearty it was. Bean Use: This calls for 1.5 cups of dry beans. I ended up cooking a full pound to use with other recipes for the week and used about half of the pot for the soup to get the ratio of beans to vegetables that seemed most pleasing to me.    Zuppa di Farro alla Garfagnana Here's a soup recipe from Giada that I haven't tried yet (one can only eat so much bean soup!), but is also from a town (Garfagnana) in the Lucca province of Italy that perfectly honors these beans. If you want an even heartier soup, this one combines the Rosso di Lucca beans, farro, and a few vegetables. Finish it with a drizzle of good olive oil, too. In researching more about cuisine from Lucca, you can buy bags of mixed uncooked farro and dry beans for the base of this soup. Bean use: 1 cup dry beans or about 3 cups cooked beans.

Braised(ish) Beans

Braised Cauliflower and White Bean Piccata If I had to pick a favorite new recipe for the month, it would be this cauliflower piccata. While we normally grocery shop according to our list of meals for the week, Gideon had picked up a rogue cauliflower with no real plans to use it. With a big batch of Rosso beans in the fridge, I came across this recipe and knew I wanted to try it. I don't think I had ever had "picatta" (main flavors being lemon juice, butter, and capers) before? I thought the Rosso beans would be a good swap to give the very beige dish a pop of color and contrast. It was quick to make and really flavorful with the capers and garlic. After trying a bite, I immediately texted 5 friends with "You have to try this recipe. It's so good." It's a great weeknight dinner that transitions nicely to lunch for the next few days. Bean use: 3 cups cooked or however feels like the right amount based on the size of your cauliflower.

Fagioli all'uccelletto This Tuscan recipe is for a simple pot of beans braised in a cherry tomato sauce with sage leaves. I used a bag of frozen sungold tomatoes from my summer garden and cooked them down a bit before adding the beans and our Calabrian chile flakes. Like most peasant recipes from Italy, the short list of ingredients still leads to big flavor. I added a big drizzle of spicy olive oil to finish and cooked up a pork sausage to eat alongside it. While I eat plenty of tomato and bean dishes, this was the first that I've made in a while that wasn't a pot of Chili and it was a welcome change in flavor. Bean use: This is another recipe that calls for a full pound of dry beans but it's easy to cut down. I halved the recipe and used 3 cups of cooked beans.

 

Paniscia (Risotto with Beans) While this is not a Tuscan dish from Lucca, this rich risotto is traditional to the Piedmont region in the northwest corner of Italy. It features cabbage, beans, and soft salami plus tomato paste and red wine to really deepen the flavor. This recipe makes a solid amount of risotto, but for my first time making risotto the directions worked very well. I ended up with a nice toothsome rice that wasn't too mushy or gloopy, full of different textured ingredients and flavors. We served this with a simple green salad and extra parmesan cheese to top the bowl. Follow the link to a Reddit page and then you'll have to expand one of the comments for the pasted recipe. Bean use: 1.5 cups of cooked beans.

 

Tiger's Eye Beans

Refried Beans and how to use them

Refried Beans: Whenever people ask me what to cook with Tiger's Eye beans, my first though is Refried Beans. This is because these beans break down more than our other beans do. They already have a lot of creaminess to them and aren't too starchy. Refried beans can be made with a variety of fats (lard, olive oil, etc) and the important thing is that you do actually fry them in the fat (they aren't just mashed up or blended beans!). This recipe from Serious Eats gives you ideas of ways to mash them and different cooking fats to use. If you're a NYT Cooking subscriber, there's a good Olive Oil Refried Beans recipe from Samin Nosrat that I'd recommend, too.

 

While I do love a good side of refried beans, there's so many great ways to use them as part of the dish instead of just to fill out a plate. Here's a few ideas. 

 

Sopes: I LOVE sopes. There's something about having like a little crunchy salad on top of a masa cake that is the perfect lunch. And I really miss the Mexican restaurant here in Boonville where I used to get sopes regularly for lunch. While you can fill them with anything, a good scoop of refried beans in the bottom of the masa bowl help round it out. 

Molletes: As someone who has a hard time finding a breakfast food to regularly eat, I might have found my new favorite option with Molletes. This uses bolito rolls or a baguette sliced open as the base and then gets topped with a layer of refried beans, melty Oaxacan cheese, and finished with pico de gallo. Last week I got frustrated after spending an evening making a bean/hominy/chicken stew that didn't taste great. Not only did I not want to eat it again, but I was annoyed that the recipe I had picked for the Tiger's Eye beans didn't really work. I went back and looked for an alternative and found Molletes. I made these with the loaf of sourdough bread I had on hand, pepper jack cheese, and store bought pico de gallo because it's what we had in the fridge and I didn't want to venture out in a stormy night. I loved it. The Tiger's Eye made incredibly flavorful refried beans (I used our olive oil as the fat) and it was just a really simple and perfect combo of satisfying flavors. It was a great not too hard to make dinner and an even more delicious breakfast the next day.

 

Soupy/Braised Beans

Moroccan Tiger's Eye Beans: I enjoy a nice braised bean dish and this was an easy to make dinner with the pound of Tiger's Eye beans I had in the fridge. I would add more harissa paste than the recipe calls for as the 1 tsp wasn't quite strong enough after adding water to give it some brothyness. Eat it with a side of flatbread or other bread to soak up the juices. Bean use: This called for 3 cups of cooked beans. It was about 3 medium servings worth of dinner.

Community Pick from Jim H - Instant Pot Pinto Beans with Mexican Style Adobo: A great simple recipe for a pot of beans seasoned with onion, garlic, dried pasilla chile, and Mexican Adobo blend. Jim shared that he likes to make these on the stove, too. You can do this by following the recipe and just adding water to the seasoned onions and cooking the beans on the stove or first cooking beans fairly plain with a dried pasilla chile, and then adding the cooked beans to a pot with already sautéed onions and garlic and seasoning all of it with the adobo blend. Bean use: This calls for 1 pound of beans but could easily be cut in half or down to however many beans you want to cook.

Spicy Pinto Beans: I do admit that I have not tried this recipe, but it seems like a good option for the Tiger's Eye beans. It's similar to the Frijoles a la Charra shared by Carrie A during Southwest Gold Bean week with the addition of fresh chiles and bacon. The creaminess of the Tiger's Eye will soak up all the bold flavors and will result in a rich pot of beans at the end. Serve them as a side or in a bowl topped with cotija cheese, avocado, a little more lime juice, and a dash of hot sauce. Bean use: 3 cups of cooked Tiger's Eye beans.

Snack

Lemony Tiger's Eye Bean Dip: This is a perfect snack to enjoy after work or on a Sunday afternoon that gives you a bit more energy/protein for the rest of the day. The addition of sumac helps amp up the lemon flavor in the dip and helps cut the richness of the beans. This would be really good in late summer with broiled cherry tomatoes right from the garden. Bean use: 2 cups of cooked beans or make based on however many cups of beans you have left!

 

Tepary Beans

It's Salad and Bowl Week

Salsa Macha (Chickpea) Rice Bowl After a few weeks of many warm bean stews and braised bean dishes, we made these Salsa Macha Tepary Rice Bowls. It was a welcome shift to some fresh vegetables. While the recipe calls for chickpeas, Tepary beans worked as a very easy replacement. I used Sauce Everywhere's Ají Crisp made with our Sugar Rush Peach chiles instead of making my own salsa macha. The technique of frying the beans in salsa macha is such a simple way to bring maximum flavor to beans. This was my favorite bowl of the week. Bean use: 3 cups cooked Tepary beans (or however many you want to use)

Greek Chicken Cobb Salad My favorite part of making Cobb Salads is just putting all the vegetables I have on hand in them (i.e. leftover fennel and radishes). This recipe also called for chickpeas and I used our Tan Tepary beans instead. I also used some braised chicken from the freezer, which I reheated in a pot with a little water, some olive oil and Oaktown's Greek Seasoning. I forgot to add the olives I bought for this, whoops! The yogurt based dressing was nice and zingy! This is a great lunch to prep all the ingredients for on a Sunday and then mix up a salad each day for lunch that week. Bean use: 1.5 cups cooked Tepary beans.

Fattoush Salad with Marinated Tepary Beans This salad is reminiscent of the Rosso di Lucca Sumac salad from earlier this month. The Tepary beans are marinated in pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, olive oil, sumac, and Piment d'Ville chile powder (mine were in the fridge overnight). The beans then get tossed with romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomato, radish, and toasted pita bread. I added some feta cheese. This was a delightful Sunday lunch Bean use: The recipe calls for 1 cup of cooked Tepary beans, but I used more like 2.5. 

Warm Winter Grain Bowl with Roasted Vegetables In this grain bowl, I used our Tepary beans instead of lentils. Here you cook alliums with tomato paste and then add the Tepary beans and Ras al Hanout, a North African spice blend with over 20 ingredients. You end up with a kind of saucy baked bean that is spiced and rich and so good. I'd recommend making them even if you don't make the rest of the grain bowl. The bright tahini sauce did a good job of cutting the richness of the beans and it was fun to have other roasted veg in the bowl too. Bean use: 2-3 cups of cooked Tepary beans.

Winter Tepary Bean Salad This was my attempt at a wintery Tepary bean salad that was different enough from the Fall Tepary salad and the other things I ate last week. I roasted some broccoli and sliced turnips with salt and olive oil and tossed them with warmed tepary beans, radicchio, arugula, shaved fennel, and a lemony mustard vinaigrette. I slathered some greek yogurt seasoned with lemon, salt, and Italian herbs on the bottom of the bowl for something creamy and topped the salad with prosciutto. Bean use: 2 cups.    French Lentil Salad This salad made Gideon interested in eating lentils again after proclaiming that lentils are the worst. I think it would be very delicious with Tepary beans as the base. I prefer to sauté the onion, carrot and celery to give it a bit more flavor. There's something about the combination of the red wine vinaigrette, walnuts, and goat cheese that make this simple salad over the top. Bean use: 3-4 cups of cooked Tepary beans.

Soup and Sauce - Community Picks   These 2 recipes come courtesy of our friend Paul and Christine as favorite recipes they make at home with our Tepary beans.    The Best Lentil Soup (but with Tepary Beans) While this starts as a fairly standard lentil soup recipe, the addition of curry powder and fresh lemon juice make it a stand out. It also calls for blending a cup of the soup and adding it back to the pot to make it creamy without adding any dairy. Just remember that you want to add cooked Tepary beans, not uncooked Tepary beans to the pot or you'll never cook them in time for dinner. With this one, Paul says the squeeze of lemon at the end is key. Bean use: 2.5 cups cooked Tepary beans.    Lentil and Mushroom Bolognese Pasta Sauce (but also with Tepary beans) I love a good pasta bolognese, but man sometimes it can be so heavy. Adding mushrooms and balsamic vinegar to the standard onion, carrot, celery, and garlic of the sauce help give it a boost of umami. Using a mix of Tan and Dark Brown Tepary beans might add a good balance of sweet and earthy to replace the meat and be used instead of the lentils. The recipe here is just a video without specific quantities (you'll have to get the cookbook for that) but it seems simple enough to figure out quantities while you're cooking! Bean use: Around 2-3 cups of cooked Tepary beans.