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Beans are one of the best vegetarian foods. Hearty, nourishing, and versatile, there are so many delicious vegetarian bean recipes to choose from. And with hundreds of different types of beans, there’s no end to the flavor twists you can put on your favorite vegetarian meals. Read on below for our top vegetarian bean recipes.
1. Tuscan pastina with beans
First on our list of vegetarian recipes with beans is Tuscan pastina, a classic vegetarian bean soup recipe. Creamy and warming, this should be your go-to vegetarian soup recipe in the wintertime. Small-sized pasta combined with nutty and tender white kidney beans, all housed in a comforting vegetable broth. 'Pastina' translates to small pasta in English and you can make this dish using any small-sized pasta of your choice. We’ve shared a recipe using tubetti pasta, which is shaped into small tubes and ideal for a soup-based dish. The beans will need soaking overnight for the top results, but other than this initial preparation the rest of the recipe is fairly quick and easy to pull together for a quintessential winter warmer. Try making this one for a filling start to a dinner party at home, or enjoy it as a lighter meal during the week with all your family.
2. Pasta e fagioli
Next up on the list is a classic Italian dish that any self-respecting chef will know, pasta e fagioli, which literally means pasta and beans. Traced back to various parts of Italy, there are many variations of this dish found across the country. But what they all have in common is the use of beans, pasta, extra virgin olive oil, and pepper. Some chefs will blend the beans to create a creamy texture, whilst others will leave the beans to cook to create a natural creaminess in the soup. Either way, the final result that you’re looking to achieve is a dish of creamy pulses. Generally the beans used in this dish will either be borlotti, white kidney beans, or tondini and it’s better to source fresh or dried beans that you soak yourself, instead of shop-bought varieties. Extra virgin olive oil, hearty helpings of garlic, fresh rosemary, and spicy chili peppers all come together to form a tasty base for the beans. In some parts of Italy chefs will substitute the oil for lard or pork fat for a richer base. For centuries this has been an appetizing way to use up leftovers in the store cupboard and cook up a nutritious, vegetarian meal. As with Tuscan pastina, you can use whichever small-sized pasta you prefer.
3. White bean salad
This white bean salad couldn’t be easier to make. With a short list of ingredients, and many of them already in your pantry at home, we’d recommend having this recipe to hand for any last minute vegetarian hosting needs. Nutty and tender white kidney beans are mixed with fresh cherry tomatoes, onion, mellow white wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and peppery basil. Once your ingredients have all blended together, season with salt and pepper as desired and simply leave to chill in the fridge for a couple of hours. If you’re not serving exclusively vegetarian dishes at your table, then this salad is absolutely delicious alongside a fresh filet of roasted salmon. Or serve as part of a selection of vegetarian salad dishes, alongside other classics like coleslaw and grilled courgettes with lemon.
4. Black bean stew
For vegetarian black bean recipes, a traditional black bean stew is easy to cook and fast to make. This one can be ready in as little as 15 minutes, and it’s ideal for batch cooking when you need to feed the family at speed during the week. Or store it away in the fridge ready for heating up for lunchtime during the busy working day. As with all of our other suggested bean recipes, rinse and dry your black beans before starting to cook the stew. You’ll then add all of the ingredients to a large pot in stages and, once all added, they’ll be left to simmer and homogenize for five minutes. The stew is finished with a bright garnish of cilantro and can be enjoyed straight away. It’s perfect for those cooler winter nights where you need a soothing dish to end the day. For red bean recipes vegetarian-style, you could adapt this black bean stew and use red beans instead. Red beans are sweeter than black beans, so will bring a slightly different flavor profile to the dish, but it is a fairly nuanced taste difference.
5. Ribollita
Last, but not least, is a classic ribollita recipe. Hailing from Tuscany, it’s a bread and vegetable soup that’s cooked twice. As such, the name of this recipe literally translates to boiled twice. You’ll first prepare the soup and toast the bread before combining these two ingredients together and cooking for a second time in the oven. This second cooking stage makes it a real ribollita recipe, so make sure you factor time in for this step if you want to create a truly authentic ribollita dish. Ribollita is best with white kidney beans that have been boiled and forced through a sieve, though it’s a good idea to leave a few beans still whole for the final presentation of the dish. As it’s traditionally a recipe that’s been made from leftovers, it’s common for this soup to be made with day-old bread and a long list of vegetables. In the recipe shared we’ve included chard, cabbage, potatoes, celery, carrots, tomatoes, onions, and garlic, though it’s not unusual to see other inexpensive ingredients crop up in this recipe. Really, you could use any other leftovers in your cupboard as needed to bulk out this soup and save on some of the food waste from your kitchen.
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