The Protein-Packed Pantry Staple You Need To Start Pairing With Fruit

It's quietly waiting in your pantry for its moment in the spotlight, ready to soak up flavor like a pro. This simple ingredient plays well with others while adding heft to everything from tacos to salads. Y'all, it's super versatile beans, and they are surprisingly delicious paired with fruit. Whether you're working with canned black beans, garbanzos, or fresh green beans, their creamy texture and mild, earthy flavors offer a perfect contrast to bright fruit flavors. If you're new to pairing beans with fruit, start where sweet meets heat — fresh salsas. A charred corn and mango salsa is full of natural sweetness and smoky depth, and it's out of this world paired with Cuban black beans. Or take a simple but well-rounded pineapple salsa for a tangy-sweet counterpoint that can be spiced up with as much heat as you like, and spoon it over black bean tacos. The pairing works like a charm and brightens up slow cooker white chicken chili like nothing else.

But the fresh and tasty possibilities with beans go beyond fresh fruit. Dried fruits add chew, richness, and concentrated sweetness — especially in savory dishes with beans. This Morroccan chickpea salad with chopped dried apricots, a bright vinaigrette, and warm spices is a beautiful example. Dried fruits like dates, golden raisins, and prunes are a common addition to many Mediterranean and Middle Eastern legume dishes; easy spiced lentils is a good example, which benefits from any chopped-in fruity additions. And we promise you'll never look back once you add dried cherries and creamy goat cheese to this lemon and garlic green beans recipe. It's a flavor explosion.

Now for another direction: bowls. These colorful, mix-and-match meals are a perfect canvas for pairing fruit and beans in creative, satisfying ways. Start with a base of grains or greens, add a scoop of beans — black beans, chickpeas, or edamame — and layer on fresh or dried fruit for balance and brightness. This is a fantastic way to incorporate a fruity dressing into the mix, too, like this vibrant citrus vinaigrette recipe. Tropical ingredients work especially well here, too. Try adding coconut milk to give salad dressing a creamy twist before drizzling it over a bowl built around coconut rice, black beans, roasted sweet potato, and mango chunks. Or go Mediterranean with chickpeas, quinoa, spinach, and crumbled feta, with dried figs or dates. Add an herb-packed tahini sauce with a sprinkle of za'atar, and you've got a bowl that's hearty and high in protein, and, well, super addictive.

Edamame, the tender, green soybean we all know and love, can be used with fruit in even more unexpected ways. Blend them into a creamy puree with garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil for a high-protein dip or spread that's great with apple slices. They also make an unbeatable savory filling for edamame and shiitake fried wontons. Serve them alongside this unstoppable Thai green papaya salad for a fun appetizer spread that will blow everyone's minds. Once you start experimenting with beans and fruit, you'll find just how flexible — and delicious — these BFFs (best flavor friends) are.