Creamy Herby Butter Beans
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- Serves: 2-4
- Preparation: 10
- Cooking: 20
- Ready: 30
Using the trusty tinned bean, here’s a super easy weeknight dish that’s comforting and packed full of protein!
Ingredients
- 3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 3-4 cloves of garlic
- 2 x 400 g tins butter beans
- fresh dill, chives and coriander – equivalent to 1 small bunch
- 2 tablespoons tahini
- 3-4 spring onions
- juice of ½ a lemon
- ½ teaspoon chipotle or red pepper chilli flakes
- brown/granary/sourdough bread, toasted to serve
- salt and pepper to taste
- vegetable stock cube, optional*
Method
Start by slicing garlic, spring onions, chives and dill, and tear the coriander leaves from the stems. Set aside a few of the sprigs of dill for topping.
Place a small frying pan on medium heat and add a generous glug of olive oil. Fry the garlic for a few minutes until it is softened and sizzling, but not browned. Take it off the heat if it starts to colour too quickly. Season with a pinch of salt and add a pinch of chipotle or red pepper chilli flakes into the olive oil, allowing to sizzle.
Now add the chopped chives and dill and fry them until they go a deeper shade of green. After a few minutes, add the butter beans along with the liquid from one of the tins.
Let the beans simmer for about 5 to 10 minutes. Use a wooden spoon or fork to break down some of the beans – this will help to thicken the sauce that’s being created.
Once the beans have had 5-10 minutes to soften, but the sauce is still relatively runny and juicy, add the spring onions, coriander leaves and a big squeeze of lemon.
Finish with a pinch of salt and a generous grind of black pepper, and drizzle over the creamy tahini.
Serve with optional extra chilli flakes and a big hunk of toast per person. Drizzle over extra olive oil and the reserved sprigs of dill.
Additional notes
Recipe and video created for Meat Free Monday by Alexis Tymon
This dish keeps really well in the fridge to be warmed up for leftovers. You could also add vegetable stock and a few cubed potatoes, cooking for an additional 15 minutes, to make a quick herby, bean and potato soup. Alternatively, you could blend any leftovers until smooth to make a herby hummus alternative.
*If you find that beans don’t agree with your digestion, you may benefit from rinsing the beans thoroughly in a sieve to remove the cooking liquid they’ve been stored in. If you do this, add the rinsed beans to the frying pan along with 200 ml (roughly half a can’s worth) of water. Add a pinch of vegetable stock powder, or half a vegetable bouillon cube, to amp up the thickness and savouriness of the beans that the liquid from the tins would have added.
