I like pretty much every kind of bean, but if pressed I’d probably say that red kidney beans are my very favorite. I love the texture and how substantial they are. They do take a bit of extra soak time, but it’s worth it.
I picked up some black-eyed peas a couple weeks ago; I’ve never had what I’d call an exceptional bowl of them, but I figured I’d give it a try since (not to brag) I can make really good beans and I’d never tried cooking them before. I made the best bowl of them I’d ever had— collard greens, boudin, lots of aromatics, herbs, and spices. After all that effort though, I still felt like they’d have been better with pinto beans instead. C’est la vie.
So what kind of bean do you prefer, and which ones leave you cold? Also, any advice on black-eyed peas would be nice; I’m still not ready to give up on them.
Coffee bean is goat and maybe isn’t even a real bean? Idk how beans work.
Is peanut a bean?
I believe peanuts are also legumes? Maybe they’re cousins. I was wondering how wide people would interpret it though.
Also try on this article for size. https://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-dont-soak-dried-beans-20140911-story.html
I never soak beans any more. I just cook them longer, making sure they don’t burn on the bottom or get dried out.
Samesies :) I also don’t toss the water and use it as part of the dish. More farts but great flavor.
Best: Great Northern.
Worst: Mexican Jumping. Wow do those taste terrible.
But the protein-content, kitty, THE PROTEIN!
Baked beans are so good, excellent choice.
Best: Mr.
Worst: Lima
I like chickpeas, they’re very versatile. I’ll happily chow down on a bowl of chickpeas tossed with olive oil and red vinegar. Green and black lentils hold their texture nicely; I’m not fond of how easily yellow lentils cook to mush.
Never met a bean I didn’t love.
Favorite: soy beans. So versatile.
Least favorite: great northern, if we’re sticking to items traditionally called “beans” and not other legumes. Oh wait, chickpeas are also called garbanzo beans. I amend my answer.
What are some of the ways you like to prepare soy beans?
I do really like garbanzo beans if they’re made into falafel or hummus, but otherwise not really.
Soy is great, especially as edamame or tofu.
Funny, garbanzo beans are probably my favorite. Total opposite!
We have a chickpea casserole, a roasted halloumi and root veg + chickpeas recipe, and a “marry me chickpeas” dish that we particularly like at my house. They’ve become a staple in the menu here over the past year.
We also like black beans for a number of things. We like pinto beans too, but it’s harder to find uses for them.
Black beans are the best.
Lima beans are the worst, by far.
You picked my second choice in each category!
I started getting fancy heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo and their giant lima beans are amazing. They’re fresh and if you soak them too long they sprout. Honestly all their beans are delicious.
Someone gifted me a few batches from Rancho Gordo a while ago. They really are next-level good.
Favourite: Chick Peas
Least: Fava beans
Chick peas are my favorite, hands down!
Hummus? Yes please!
Aquafava for egg substitute in mayonnaise? Oh fuck yeah!
Simply pan fry with seasoning for a crispy treat? Stop! I can only eat so much!
Least favorite? Don’t really think I have one. I even liked lima beans as a kid.
You can pan fry them? Imma have to try that. I just dry them off then throw them in the oven covered in seasoning.
Oh yeah, baked/roasted would be dope too!
I like a black beans and garbanzo beans. Black beans in a salad and garbanzos in curry, hummus, or falafel.
I enjoy black eyed peas cooked with a ham hock, but that’s not for everyone. I like them extra mushy, with hot sauce and spinach added right at the end :)
Navy beans are my least favorite. Too small to offer much substance from texture. I really only keep them around to blend them to thicken a soup.
Kidney are the best for flavor, color and texture. But as a kid who grew up in formerly Mexican territory I will always love the versatility of pintos. Solid or mushed. Just great all around.
I haven’t done the experiments I want with cranberry beans to see if they are interchangeable with pintos for some applications.
That’s interesting, I smash about a cup of the beans in red beans and rice to thicken it up, but I’ve never tried using them specifically as a thickening agent; I’ll have to give that a try with some navy beans.
Pintos are so good, too. Top 3 bean for sure.
If you aren’t smashing some beans for your red beans and rice then something has gone wrong.
I’ve never had a bean variety I disliked, but black beans are my favorite and most common bean craving.
I think least favorite goes to baked beans, if I can count those as a kind of bean. I don’t like their weird sweetness + smokiness combo (sweet + smoky can be good, but here it never worked for me) and also I have a Pavlovian negative association between them and being dragged to cookouts where people were like “Sure, we have a vegetarian option! Baked beans! … It’s cool that they have bacon in them, right?”
If I can’t count baked beans because they’re not a variety of beans, then Lima beans. There are good Lima beans, but if you run into them in the wild, they’re probably mushy and poorly prepared.
As for black-eyed peas, I like to cook them up in an Instant Pot with seasonings of smoked paprika, nutritional yeast, chilli powder, and hefty amounts of garlic and onion, then stir in a cooking green at the end and eat them with corn chips or over cornbread. Oh, and drizzle them with a good extra-virgin olive oil and add a splash of lemon juice before serving.
That cornbread is a great idea. I froze half of my leftovers, so I’ll definitely make some when I heat it up.
Kidney beans suck, they’re just filler in shitty chili.
I adore beans, but there’s usually some trade-offs, complications and permutations involved.
Kidney beans are absolutely awesome, yes, but typically take a long time to cook. And yes, of course I know about pre-soaking them the night before. But here’s a funny story for you–
Some years back I bought myself a big, clunky grain / whatever grinder. It’s this steel-constructed tank that clamps on to a table, etc almost like one of those badass, olde-timey corn-shuckers:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LDDLIDMZabg
Now, that excellent device indeed allowed me to throw bags of kidney beans (and other big beans, like Limas) in to the hopper, and grind them in to much-smaller size, which naturally cooked much faster. Problem? Weirdly (and I still don’t know why this is, exactly), the kidney beans in particular lost… all that unique, delicious flavor of theirs. So in the end, it pretty-much amounted to eating ‘bean-gruel.’ Holy fluff, that was not what I signed up for. :S
Nowadays I just add a bit of baking soda to the beans, and Robert’s your avuncular figure. :D
