For months, TikTok home cooks have been spilling the beans on the nutritional power of soaking and simmering pots of cannellini, borlotti and black beans. There are more than 13,000 TikTok videos under the hashtag #beantok, with cooks claiming the humble legumes have alleviated their anxiety, perimenopause and inflammation. Pair that with “fibremaxxing”, and the bean has found itself recast from back-of-the-pantry afterthought to wellness main character.
But for many cooks and chefs, none of this is new. Beans are native to the Americas and arrived in Europe by the 16th century, but they were so readily adopted into Mediterranean cooking that it’s now hard to imagine those cuisines without them. “The Tuscans are even known as ‘mangiafagioli’: bean eaters,” says food writer Emiko Davies, who points out that beans were once the everyday nutrition of a largely peasant population.
The same pattern holds well beyond Italy: South Asian kitchens are built on dal; Levantine cooking leans on chickpeas and broad beans; beans and rice are a widespread pairing across Central and South America; while black-eyed beans and pinto beans underpin many dishes of west Africa, with kidney and black beans in east Africa.
“Beans are the unsung hero of bulking out a meal,” says food writer and Guardian Australia columnist Alice Zaslavsky. “Whether it’s for their protein or their fibre, [or] for satiety, you can’t ask for better bang for buck.” A can of supermarket white or kidney beans will set you back around $2.
For Sharon Salloum, chef at Sydney’s 3 Tomatoes cafe and author of Almond Bar: 100 Syrian Recipes, the appeal runs deep. “Something people don’t realise about Middle Eastern food is that we have a lot of vegan dishes in the traditional repertoire,” she says.
MasterChef Australia contestant Olaolu Olorunnimbe, who grew up in Nigeria and England, sees the same principles at work in both countries’ cuisines. “Ewa aganyin with agege bread, and baked beans on toast are essentially versions of the same dish,” he says.
Why are beans good for you?
“Beans are a unique food as they contain both protein and fibre,” says associate professor Evangeline Mantzioris, program director of human nutrition at Adelaide University, noting they are also distinct for being categorised in both the protein and vegetable food groups under Australian dietary guidelines, and also boast iron, zinc and antioxidants.
A fibre-rich diet can help reduce the risk of bowel cancer, and Mantizioris says adults should aim for “between 25 and 30 grams” of fibre per day. One cup of cooked beans could provide up to one-third of daily fibre requirements, depending on the bean.
Should you use dried or tinned beans?
Salloum is unambiguous: “In Middle Eastern cooking, we only ever use dried beans.” Falafel, she says, depends on it. “The canned chickpea is overcooked for falafel. It’s the wrong texture.”
Davies makes the same case more broadly: “Dried beans have the best texture, so if you’re making something like a salad with them, they hold their shape well and don’t just turn to mush.”
Tinned, she says, are better suited to soups, stews or pasta, “dishes where it doesn’t matter so much if some of them break or are a bit soft.” As a general rule dried beans need to be soaked and have a longer cooking time; drained, tinned beans can be tipped straight into the pot.
Mantzioris says there’s less nutritional difference between tinned and dried than you might think. “Tinned beans have undergone a cooking process, so there is some drop in some nutrients, but this is exactly what would happen when people cook dried beans in their kitchens, so at the end of the day, there is no difference.”
Salloum has made peace with this too: “I am all for throwing a can of lentils, cannellini, black beans or chickpeas into a tomato-based stew.”
When it comes to choosing the right bean, Zaslavsky chooses based on hues: “The deeper the colour, the more interesting and intense the flavour.”
“Finer skinned white beans are much more delicate in flavour and in texture than something like a red kidney bean or a black bean.”
Does salting the water stop beans from cooking?
There’s a culinary myth that salting beans too early will toughen their skins and render them inedible. But Olorunnimbe salts from the very start. “Always salt the water your beans are cooked in,” he says. “It’ll bring out flavours you didn’t know beans had.”
The science, as well as this experiment by culinary writer J Kenji López-Alt, backs up Olorunnimbe’s method. Salt in the soaking and cooking water improves the finished consistency of the beans, amps up the flavour and reduces cooking time.
Will beans make you fart?
Instead of boycotting beans because of their gassy aftereffect, Mantzioris offers a reframing. “It’s a good sign, indicating that your gut microbiome is digesting the fibre and helping the good microbiome live.”
The science shows that adjusting the pH level of the soaking or cooking water – by making it more alkaline or more acidic – can help draw out the fart-causing molecules.
Zaslavsky’s tricks for toning down the “musicality” of the bean include a strip of kombu (the alkaline) and lemon juice or vinegar (the acid), which is why beans so often turn up with tomato or citrus regardless of cuisine. She also swears by bicarb soda in the cooking water.
Easy ways to cook with beans
When it comes to quick bean dishes, Salloum’s go-to is sauteed greens, garlic and lemon with a tin of cannellini or kidney beans tipped in at the end.
Davies’ is even simpler: simmered cannellini beans with sage and garlic, dressed with olive oil and black pepper – her recipe for fagioli all’olio is below – served warm alongside roast meat or cooled into a salad with tinned tuna and red onion. Her one firm rule is never to discard the cooking water, and repurpose it for soups or pasta. “This is the most delicious stock you have ever tasted,” she says.
Zaslavsky go-to is lobio, a red kidney bean stew from her mother’s Georgian cooking, while Olorunnimbe’s answer is gbegiri, a Yoruba black bean soup.
Even simple dishes can be transformed by the bean. As Zaslavsky puts it: “A way to take a salad from a side to a hero can be as simple as a two-dollar can of beans.”
Emiko Davies’ fagioli all ’olio (stewed cannelini beans) – recipe
This very simple preparation produces delicious beans, which can be eaten on their own, as a side dish to accompany grilled steak or roast meats, or used in countless other dishes from fagioli all’uccelletto to soups and salads. This recipe is similar to the preparation for fagioli al fiasco, which was traditionally cooked in an old glass flask of Chianti, the straw padding around the outside removed and wound up to make a stopper for the top of the flask. The whole thing was left in the warm ashes of a dying fireplace to cook slowly overnight.
You can get a similar result by cooking gently in a heavy casserole dish for several hours in a low oven or on a low flame on the stove top.
Never throw away the liquid that beans have been cooking in – this precious liquid can add flavour to soup or polenta. It can keep it in the fridge for a day or two or you can freeze it.
The general rule when cooking beans is that you will end up with triple the weight of the dried beans – so if you want a smaller amount of cooked beans, this recipe can easily be divided. Otherwise, make a big batch and freeze or seal in sterilised jars like you would jam or other preserves and these beans will keep for months. You will need to start this recipe ahead of time to soak the beans.
Makes 1.5kg cooked beans
Serves 4
500g dried cannellini beans
2–3 cloves garlic, peeled but whole
4–5 sage leaves
60ml extra-virgin olive oil, ¼ cup, plus extra to serve
1 tbsp salt
Rinse the dried cannellini beans and then place them in a very large bowl with plenty of cold water. Leave to soak for at least eight hours or overnight.
Drain the beans and place in a heavy-based flameproof casserole dish with the garlic, sage, olive oil and 2.5 litres (10 cups) of water. Bring to a simmer on the lowest heat setting and cook, covered, very gently until the beans are tender, up to two hours. Remove any scum that rises to the top of the water with a slotted spoon. Towards the end of cooking, add the salt and some freshly ground pepper.
Drain the beans (but reserve the cooking liquid; see note). Serve dressed in some extra-virgin olive oil as a side dish.
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The recipe is an edited extract from Florentine: the True Cuisine of Florence by Emiko Davies, photography by Lauren Bamford, available now through Hardie Grant (A$45).
