24 Simple Recipes That Start With A Can Of Beans

Beans are some of the best vegetarian protein sources out there. A ½-cup serving of black beans, kidney beans, or pinto beans contains about 8 grams of protein, which, although not equivalent to a chicken breast or sirloin steak, provides a meaningful contribution to your daily protein intake. They are also extremely affordable. If you want to make sure you're getting plenty of protein in your diet but either don't want to eat meat every day or can't afford to, beans are an obvious solution. You can often find them priced as low as a dollar a can, which can really take the sting out of your weekly grocery bill.

From a cooking perspective, canned beans are also a boon because they are both convenient and versatile. You can keep them in your pantry for years without worrying that they'll spoil, and they can be the backbone of any number of recipes. If you like Italian food, there are Italian-style recipes that use beans as the foundational ingredient. If you like Moroccan food, ditto. You can turn them into soups, casseroles, salads, and appetizers, and, believe it or not, they can even be the ingredient that will upgrade your sweet baked goods. The recipes we've chosen are all savory, though, and they come together relatively quickly — no fancy 20-step process or elaborate ingredients necessary. And because they all call for canned beans, you won't have to factor in an overnight soaking period either.

When the fall rolls around, a lot of us are looking for every excuse we can to use pumpkin (with or without its eponymous spice). You can only make so many batches of quick breads, so why not try this savory dish instead? Recipe developer Jennine Rye has created a nutrient-packed casserole made with pumpkin, kale, and black beans, and packed with flavor from onions, smoked paprika, cumin, thyme, and garlic. If you want to make it even healthier, you can add in other veggies, too.

Recipe: Hearty Pumpkin And Black Bean Casserole

If you would like to make an Italian dish but want to avoid the classic cheese and carb-based options like lasagna, spaghetti bolognese, and pizza, this recipe fits the bill. Made with tinned tomatoes, dried basil, and Parmesan cheese, it certainly tastes like your favorite Italian fare, but is centered around cannellini beans and roasted red peppers. Sun-dried tomatoes add additional flavor, while a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar provides sweetness. Make sure to serve the beans with a baguette or sourdough to soak up all the deliciousness.

Recipe: Italian-Style White Bean And Tomato Skillet

Tortilla soup is of the greatest hits of Mexican cuisine. Depending on the recipe, it contains tomatoes, chilies, cilantro, tortillas, black beans, cheese, avocado, and much more. If you love Mexican cuisine and want a relatively easy recipe bursting with your favorite flavors, this vegetarian tortilla soup will match (and maybe even exceed) your expectations, even if you're a meat eater. You won't believe that it only took 15 minutes to prepare (plus 35 minutes of cooking time). To add that extra wow factor, make sure you add the lime.

Recipe: Hearty Vegetarian Tortilla Soup

Making plant-based burgers that even meat lovers would enjoy was a holy grail for food companies not long ago, but it turns out that you can make some pretty delicious ones right in your own kitchen. Sure, this recipe won't convince you that you're eating beef, but you may discover that it's more flavorful. Black beans and lentils form the bulk of the burger, while nutritional yeast and tomato paste add flavor. Make sure to press on the burgers with a spatula while they're cooking to mouthwatering delicious caramelization.

Recipe: The Ultimate Vegan Smash Burgers

If you can make delicious vegan burgers with beans, it stands to reason that you could do the same with meatballs. This recipe uses black beans for a rich, meaty texture, but has an added trick up its sleeve: beets. Yes, that deliciously sweet, earthy root vegetable makes these meatless meatballs tender and juicy. It also adds a tinge of red, making the results look uncannily like beef. Serve them with marinara and pasta and you won't miss the meat one bit.

Recipe: Vegan Beet and Black Bean Meatballs

Bean salads are a filling dish for hot summer days. Whether you're treating them as a main course or a side, they encompass all manner of flavors and ingredients. This one is deliciously creamy thanks to a generous amount of mayonnaise. It's also incredibly simple. All you need, aside from the beans and mayo, is carrots, red onion, celery, white wine vinegar, and garlic powder. Recipe developer Kristen Carli says she likes to eat it alongside a sandwich for lunch, though it makes a great barbecue side dish as well.

Recipe: Creamy Kidney Bean Salad

Nachos are the ultimate game day and movie night comfort food, but you don't have to follow the same formula every time. Sure, you can mix up your toppings, but why not go the extra mile by changing the queso? It might sound incongruous, but pumpkin adds subtle variation to this beloved snack without overhauling the flavor too significantly. Simply combine Velveeta, pumpkin purée, diced tomatoes, and green chilies and swoon over the silky, cheesy, lightly spicy results. You can get creative with the toppings, too.

Recipe: Pumpkin Queso And Black Bean Nachos

There is so much possibility in a can of black beans that it can be hard to know where to start. How can you turn this simple ingredient into a quick, flavor-packed dish without retreading old territory? Look no further than this recipe for Cuban black beans, which combines cumin, coriander, oregano, smoked paprika, and green peppers for a dish you'll want to make time and again. Garnish it with scallions, cilantro, and lime juice and you have a mouthwatering main dish that took less than 30 minutes to make.

Recipe: Cuban Black Beans

If you're feeding a group of picky eaters, tostadas are an excellent way to cater to everyone's tastes. Stock up on some crunchy tostada shells and all the fixings, and let your guests assemble their meals themselves. This recipe doesn't just give you a list of fixings but guides you through the process of making mashed pinto beans with green chilies, garlic, and lime juice, and provides steps for making a delicious salsa from scratch. It all comes together in the blink of an eye but has that unmistakable homemade quality, too.

Recipe: Pinto Bean Tostada

Bean salads and pasta salads rarely mingle, but this recipe from recipe developer Miriam Hahn creates the best of both worlds. The beans come in the form of black beans, while the pasta comes in the form of couscous. Shaped like small pearls, couscous provides a nutty, chewy texture to complement the mushiness of the beans, but it's the zingy lime dressing that really brings it all together. Corn and bell pepper are also brought in for a sweet element and pop of color.

Recipe: Limey Black Bean Couscous Salad

When you think of chili, you might automatically imagine a dish made with kidney beans or black beans, and while there are many recipes that fit this description, there's no reason to limit yourself to them. This chili takes the added unique step of using tomatillos, a fruit that looks like green tomatoes but which has a much more citrusy flavor. The combination of tomatillos and cannellini beans is lighter than meat-and-black bean-based chilis, but no less flavorful, especially when served with radishes, avocado, and scallions as garnishes.

Recipe: Tomatillo And White Bean Chili

Mole is famously time-consuming. The mouthwatering Mexican sauce is made from chocolate and chili peppers and contains a host of ingredients. Its intense depth of flavor often requires hours of labor to achieve, but this recipe aims to recreate a mole-ish taste in under an hour. You will need an array of ingredients, including chocolate (don't worry — it won't make it too sweet), chipotles in adobo sauce, cinnamon sticks, Mexican oregano, a can of beer, pinto beans, and crushed tomatoes (to name a few). Serve with your favorite garnishes, or on its own.

Recipe: Chicken Mole-Ish Chili

Red meat is often high in protein, but it also often comes with high levels of saturated fat, which can increase cholesterol. Swapping beef with turkey in chili will give you a nutritional advantage. Turkey has less saturated fat and more healthy polyunsaturated fats and is still high in protein. This recipe doesn't stop there, though. In addition to the protein-packed turkey, it contains quinoa (which has about 8.5 grams of protein in a 60-gram serving), kidney beans, pinto beans, and Greek yogurt. You can save the protein powder for smoothies.

Recipe: High-Protein Turkey Chili

If you're looking for a quick appetizer to serve at a gathering, bean dip is a crowd-pleasing option, and this recipe gives you a fresh spin on a classic. Of course, you can easily buy bean dip from the store, but you can't beat the flavor of a freshly made batch. This recipe can be whipped up in just five minutes, significantly faster than it takes to pop to the store for most of us. Made with jalapeños, lime juice, garlic, cumin, and red onions, it is packed with flavor.

Recipe: Spicy Black Bean Dip

Autumn and winter call for stew, and this vegetarian option is an excellent recipe to add to your repertoire. Without meat, it is less heavy and fatty than many other types of stew, but just as comforting. If you've been wanting to enjoy a hearty bean-based stew that doesn't follow the standard chili formula, this is what you've been looking for. Made with cannellini beans, black beans, bell pepper, and corn, it is full of healthy ingredients and a delicious spice blend of chili powder, paprika, cumin, and ground coriander.

Recipe: Warming Spicy Bean Stew

Like tostadas, fajitas are an excellent recipe to rustle up when you're trying to feed a group of people who have a range of tastes. They are also remarkably simple from a cooking perspective since most of the work is just rounding up the ingredients and setting them out for people to assemble as they choose. This recipe ensures everyone will be wowed with flavor by laying out instructions for a flavorful base of onions, bell pepper, and black beans seasoned with chili powder, cumin, garlic, smoked paprika, and lime juice.

Recipe: Easy Black Bean Fajitas

The first step to mouthwatering flautas is the beans. You can add whichever fixings you want, but if the beans are bland, no amount of garnishes will make up for it. Recipe developer Miriam Hahn has you covered. No guesswork or winging it needed. You'll start by sautéing onions, garlic, and chilies before adding beans, chili powder, smoked paprika, cumin, and broth. The mixture is cooked until the beans turn into a deliciously creamy texture that still holds its shape. Serve with all the fixings. Your guests will be delighted.

Recipe: Baked Black Bean Flautas

TikTok has no shortage of viral cooking videos, reaction videos to those cooking videos, and ill-fated copycat videos. In 2024, one such phenomenon was cacio e pepe butter beans, a bean-based recreation of a Roman dish made with pasta, Pecorino Romano cheese, and black pepper. Recipe developer Michelle Bottalico decided to take the guesswork out of the trend by starting from scratch, going back to the original pasta dish and making a creamy, butter bean-based option that works every time.

Recipe: Improved TikTok-Famous Cacio E Pepe Butter Beans

Stand aside, chili, this black bean soup might just be our new favorite bean-based stew. Made with paprika, oregano, cumin, chili powder, red pepper flakes, and chipotles in adobo sauce, it is rich and flavorful. It also contains plenty of veggies, including celery, carrots, and bell pepper. To achieve a creamy consistency, use an immersion blender to blend three-quarters of it. Keep in mind that this recipe is pretty spicy — about a seven out of 10 on the (admittedly subjective) spice scale. Feel free to adjust the spices accordingly.

Recipe: Spicy Black Bean Soup

Halloween is one of the most enjoyable holidays for cooks for two main reasons: there is no specific list of foods associated with it (meaning you can be as creative as you want), and the aesthetic — all things spooky — invites even more creativity. This spicy bean dip leans into the aesthetic side of the season, creating a tiny tableau of a graveyard with blue corn chips for gravestones and a deliciously spicy, layered dip full of surprises for the ground. 

Recipe: Spooky Spicy Graveyard Bean Dip

If you love Mexican food and have never tried sopes, you're in for a real treat. This beloved street food consists of small, thick discs of corn-based down turned up at the corners to create a shell for crave-worthy fillings. Our recipe keeps things classic by creating those delicious shells from scratch. Don't worry, though — it's easier than you think. All you need is masa harina, salt, hot water, and olive oil. Once those are baked, simply pile them high with refried beans and whichever fixings you desire.

Recipe: Vegetarian Bean And Cheese Sopes

This salad is a celebration of beans and bright flavors. It's also full of texture thanks to the variety of veggies. You'll need cucumber, red and green peppers, tomatoes, jalapeños, avocados, scallions, and a lime, as well as black beans, garbanzo beans, and kidney beans. With all these flavorful ingredients, the dressing is pretty minimal, containing just olive oil, apple cider vinegar, cumin, salt, and pepper. Because of the avocado and tomato, it's best to eat this dish the day you make it, but that's hardly a chore.

Recipe: Jalapeño-Lime Three Bean Salad

You can make chili in any number of variations. The template is so adaptable, in fact, that it can hard to know where to begin if you want to put a spin on it. Luckily, we have recipe developers like Miriam Hahn to do the creative work for us. This version is full of healthy ingredients but doesn't skimp on flavor. For protein, you have quinoa, black beans, kidney beans, and pinto beans, along with veggies like fire-roasted tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeños, chilies, and corn. It's comforting and nutritious, a winning combination.

Recipe: Veggie-Friendly Quinoa Chili

Beans make an excellent carrier ingredient for strong flavors, and this recipe proves it. Baked beans come in many regional varieties and people have strong opinions about which has the edge over the others, but we think this one might win you over. Not only is it easy (you can thank your slow cooker for that) but it is also layered with swoon-worthy, complementary flavors, including barbecue sauce, molasses, brown sugar, and the game-changer — gochujang. Oh, and did we mention the bacon? It's a winner all-round in our book.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Baked Beans