Our Readers Have Spoken—These Are the Bean Recipes They Love Most

A classic three-bean salad, a comforting Italian soup, and more bean dishes everyone's saving right now.

By
Genevieve Yam
Genevieve Yam headshot
Genevieve Yam
Senior Editor
After graduating from the International Culinary Center, Genevieve cooked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Per Se. Prior to joining Serious Eats, she was an editor at Epicurious. She grew up between Toronto and Hong Kong and is a graduate of the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She currently lives in New York with her husband and two cats.
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Updated December 03, 2025
Ham and bean soup

Serious Eats / Liz Voltz

I don't subscribe to a lot of things, but I am a proud member of the Rancho Gordo bean club. Every quarter, I receive a shipment of beautiful, flavorful heirloom legumes that I gently simmer for soups, stews, salads, pastas, and more. (They aren't paying me to write this—I just genuinely really love their beans.) The steady stream of beans throughout the year means I eat a lot of them—and am constantly looking for inspiration.

Luckily for me, there are plenty of great bean recipes on our site. Below, we've gathered the bean dishes our readers have saved the most with MyRecipes, our free tool for saving and organizing recipes. They include a comforting Neapolitan soup, hearty New Orleans-style red beans and rice, a classic three-bean salad, and rustic Italian bean and pasta soup, among others. So what are you waiting for? It's time to spill the beans and get cooking!

Love these recipes? With MyRecipes—your personal home for recipes—easily save and organize your favorites, plus thousands more, in one convenient place.

  • Three-Bean Salad

    Bowl of mixed bean salad with greens and utensils on a patterned tablecloth

    Serious Eats / Qi Ai

    This crisp-tender, tangy three-bean salad that comes together in minutes—perfect for any table that needs a fresh, easy side. A brief rest allows the beans to marinate in the vinaigrette, the onion to mellow and soften, and the flavors to meld into a more balanced salad.

  • Neapolitan Escarole Bean Soup

    A bowl of zuppetta Scarola e Fagioli with croutons and beans a spoon scooping out the soup

    Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

    This classic Italian soup combines escarole and beans for a simple, nourishing meal. Melting down the escarole in a rich broth flavored with olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes—then simmering the silky, tender beans in it—builds a satisfying soup that is far more than the sum of its parts.

  • Boston Baked Beans

    20160901-baked-beans-vicky-wasik-11.jpg
    Vicky Wasik

    Cooking beans, molasses, and salt pork low and slow maintains the perfect level of moisture throughout cooking, which promotes even browning and prevents dryness, ensuring the top layer of beans develops a desirable crust.

  • New Orleans-Style Red Beans and Rice

    New Orleans–Style Red Beans and Rice

    Serious Eats / Liz Voltz

    "New Orleans-style red beans and rice is mind-bendingly delicious," our editorial director, Daniel, writes in his recipe. "Smoky, spicy, hearty, and supremely comforting." He starts with smoked andouille sausage and an optional ham hock, which infuses the stew with rich, cured flavor and hearty texture as the pork renders into the beans.

    Continue to 5 of 10 below

  • Frijoles Charros (Mexican Pinto Beans With Bacon and Chiles)

    Two bowls and a pot of frijoles charros, on a stone background.

    Serious Eats / Diana Chistruga

    Frijoles charros—Mexican cowboy beans cooked with onions, garlic, tomatoes, salted pork, and chiles—is what former Serious Eats editor Kenji described as "the superlative potluck dish." It's easy to make in bulk, inexpensive, and doesn't degrade with extended heating or reheating.

  • White Bean and Tuna Salad

    20200506-tuna-white-bean-salad-sasha-marx4
    Sasha Marx

    This is the perfect light, protein-packed meal for when you don't want to do any cooking. Along with creamy white beans and rich, flaky oil-packed tuna, this salad features bright, crisp, sliced red onions—which are soaked in ice water for a few minutes to temper their sharp bite—and a vinaigrette emulsified with a small amount of bean cooking liquid.

  • Pasta e Fagioli (Italian Bean and Pasta Soup)

    Overhead view of a soup lifting a bite of soup

    Serious Eats / Fred Hardy

    Every region, province, and household in Italy has its own version of pasta e fagioli, the classic Italian bean and pasta soup. This minimalist version starts with dried beans and plenty of aromatics, which guarantee a flavorful soup.

  • The Best Black Bean Burger

    20210322-BlackBean-Burgers-Andrew_Janjigian-18
    Andrew Janjigian

    In its ideal form, a black bean burger should be moist and meaty, with a patty that holds together and forms a substantial crust, packed with robust bean flavor and the seasonings that complement the legumes. This one checks all those boxes—and is delicious enough to please vegetarians and carnivores alike.

    Continue to 9 of 10 below

  • Hearty White Bean and Spinach Soup With Rosemary and Garlic

    20130210-white-bean-spinach-soup-1.jpg
    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    White beans in a garlicky rosemary broth with wilted spinach make for a quick, easy, and delicious 30-minute meal in a bowl. Starting with a homemade stock and a quick sauté of fresh aromatics—including six cloves of garlic—results in a full-flavored soup. It's a great winter warmer, especially on busy weeknights.

  • Ham and Bean Soup

    Ham and bean soup

    Serious Eats / Liz Voltz

    This rich, hearty, and undeniably satisfying soup is loaded with navy beans, smoky ham, and lots of vegetables. Cooking the beans directly in the soup gives it a thick, creamy consistency, and puréeing half the cooked beans and leaving the other half whole yields a complex texture that balances heartiness with a smooth, velvety finish.

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