How to Cook Southwest Gold Beans

Southwest Gold: A New Old Bean

bag of southwest gold beans by boonville barn collective

The UC-Southwest Gold bean was bred from heirloom Zuni Gold beans and a high-yielding, mosaic virus resistant bean. The Zuni Gold bean, also known as the Four Corners bean, comes from the Zuni Pueblo people in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. The bean has been cultivated for over 1,000 years.

The improved bean was developed by the University of California-Davis Plant Breeding Center. Mike Reeske, formerly of Rio Del Rey Farm, was one of the farmers that participated in field trials of the new variety and was our original source for the seed.

Since retiring as a science teacher, Mike became one of California's biggest stewards of heirloom bean varieties, working to find, save, and produce seeds of beautiful and delicious beans you can’t get anywhere else. He has now retired from farming as well.

Zuni Gold beans are historically part of the Zuni Three Sisters growing system where beans, corn, and squash are grown together in a way to have corn stalks be a trellis for the beans, squash plants offer shade to outcompete weeds growing on the soil surface, and beans fixing nitrogen in the soil to help all plants grow. The beans are also renowned for being able to uptake spicy flavors of the southwest, making them a perfect compliment crop for our chiles. They have a rich and meaty flavor and tend to hold their shape during the cooking process.

The improved Southwest Gold variety from UC Davis is resistant to bean common mosaic virus and has a yield 47-60% higher than the Zuni Gold. 47-60%!! That is an incredible production increase for small farms like ours that grow beans.

We work hard to have a balance between incredibly special, low producing, heirloom beans (Sorana/Tolosa) that are hard to find with other equally delicious beans that have a more consistent and reliable yield. The Southwest Gold beans (Zolfini, too) help us do that since they are robust beans, grow really well on our farm, and are fairly resilient during the season. It’s incredibly helpful to have research labs conducting trials to develop these improved seed varieties so that we can grow beans and not lose money doing so.

Here's an excerpt from UC-Davis about their bean breeding program:
Breeders worked with organic growers to choose heirloom and traditional bean varieties that had excellent flavor and aesthetics but are somewhat uncommon because they don’t always perform well in the field. Breeders cross-pollinated traditional and heirloom varieties and carefully selected the best characteristics of both groups.

The beans were grown in three locations over two years and produced between 19 to 60 percent higher yields on average than the varieties they were bred from. The six varieties were faster to mature than their heirloom parents and all were free from bean common mosaic virus infection.

“The higher productivity in the new bean varieties means that less land, water, fertilizer and other inputs are required to grow them,” said Travis Parker. “Furthermore, all of our field trials were conducted on organic farms, so these new varieties are uniquely suited to those conditions.” (UC Davis)

One of the most important parts about these trials was that they included beans that were chosen for their good FLAVOR! In looking at other commodity crops, varieties are generally chosen that ship best after harvest and have a good looking exterior. That's the reason plums you get at the grocery store are nothing like the plums our neighbors have in their backyard! And it really seems crazy that crops aren't always selected for flavor, but that is the reality for commodity crops that get shipped across the country or the world.

And while it isn’t a commodity bean, if you start looking at other small to medium bean producing farms, a lot of us are growing Southwest Gold beans. And we should be! These are the most productive beans we grow. It’s a beautiful bean whose parent plant has been cultivated for a millennium in the Four Corners region, and is much more interesting than any pinto bean out there.

Growing Southwest Gold Beans

big pile of southwest gold bean plants

In 2025, we grew these beans at our farm and Sophia Bates grew an acre of them at Pennyroyal Farm down the road in Boonville. Sophia is the Head Gardener and Grazing Flock Manager at Pennyroyal and has been farming her whole life. She spent a decade on small diversified farms in Maine and spent time working in livestock production before coming back to Boonville to work with her friend Sarah at Pennyroyal.

At Pennyroyal, Sophia used her 2 draft horses, Rom & Cirrus, along with an antique John Deere seeder to plant out the beans during the last week of May. It was really cool to stop by and see how the implement worked and how the horses managed the system. Working with Sophia meant we not only were able to work with a good friend, we were able to work with another woman-owned farm business in Anderson Valley (try Pennyroyal cheese!!) and pool resources to grow something we could both benefit from. My favorite kind of true collaboration.

We tried a few new things with the Southwest Gold beans. We planted one row at our farm straight into the soil without using a weed barrier. A few weeks later we decided that for our system, it was a horrible idea because the amount of weeds that were growing around the germinating beans was going to be unmanageable. We laid the plastic weed barrier down the next day and replanted.

We began the 2025 bean harvest with Southwest Gold beans on August 22 at our farm and harvested at Pennyroyal the first and second week of September in dense morning fog. One thing that I appreciate about these beans is that they are really easy to thresh. The leaves, stems, and pods dry quickly and break up easily in the thresher. And the bean’s size and shape make them easy to sort through the seed cleaner we purchased. You may find a stray black and white speckled bean that happens to be the same size and shape as the SWG making it tricky to sort out any way other than by hand.

Overall, we produced 600 pounds of SWG beans and Sophia produced 725 pounds. Our Southwest Gold Beans won second place at the 2025 Mendocino County Fair in the Beans, dry category.

I get asked regularly "what do you even use these beans for?" and it always surprises me. I like to think that the Southwest Gold beans is a perfect "all purpose" bean. I have yet to make something that it didn't taste good in. They are creamy like pinto beans but hold their shape to act like black beans. They sub in well for white beans and taste great in soups. They are meaty and substantial and have tons of flavor.

For first time users, I recommend making a pot of chili with them - either your go to recipe or our recipe for White Bean Chili. Use them in these Comapeño Butter Spiked Beans as a side dish. Use them when a recipe calls for pinto beans, bayo beans, yellow eyed beans, navy beans, northern beans, and really any other bean!

For recipe conversions, 1 can of beans is about 1.5 cups of cooked beans. 1 pound of dry beans equals about 6 cups of cooked beans.

If you make a pot of beans and have leftover that you don't plan to eat throughout the week, you can freeze a container of beans in their cooking liquid. You might want to do 1.5 or 3 cups of beans at a time so that it easily converts to 1 or 2 cans of beans for your next recipe. I had cooked a pound of Southwest Gold beans a few weeks ago and popped 4 cups in the freezer and thawed them in the fridge to use for many of these recipes!

Cheesy Baked Bean Dishes

green chile bean bake

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 burgers

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.

Older Post Back to Farm Updates Newer Post