Warm Butter Beans with Tomatoes

Autumn brings with it cooler weather and, at this time of year, comforting and warming dishes are a must! My Warm Butter Beans and Tomato recipe fits the bill!  It’s creamy, delicious, flavourful, hearty and oh so satisfying! Enjoy a heaping spoonful (or two) for that warm, cozy and fuzzy feeling!

As the name suggests, my Warm Butter Beans with Tomatoes dish features butter beans. This recipe uses two cans of butter beans, also referred to as cannellini beans. Canned beans are a quick and easy alternative to their dried bean counterparts. Canned beans are cooked while dried beans require soaking, rinsing and a significantly longer cook time. I love using canned butter beans in this recipe given their mild, creamy and buttery taste and texture. Fresh and tangy grape tomatoes are added to the mix and are cooked until they blister and pop. This cooking process releases the grape tomatoes’ rich juices while also amplifying their sweet flavour. Garlic, fresh rosemary and dried oregano are added to the mix and impart an earthy, fresh and savoury flavour profile to this dish.

The beans and tomatoes are braised in a complex, flavourful and rich sauce. Vegetable broth serves as the base of this sauce and is flavoured with a spoonful of miso paste. If you’ve never had miso paste, you’re missing out! Miso paste, a fermented soybean paste, is made using soybeans, salt and koji. This paste adds layer upon layer of rich, umami flavour, imparting earthiness, savouriness, saltiness and sweetness to this dish. As the beans cook, they release starch, thickening the delicious sauce in the process. Once cooked, the warm butter beans and tomatoes are topped with fragrant basil leaves and nutty Parmigiano Reggiano. The result - an aromatic, creamy, fresh, flavourful, rich, sweet and satisfying bite! Enjoy it with a side of crusty bread or toast or serve it alongside your favourite protein, such as fish, chicken, pork or beef.

This dish couldn’t be easier to make, comes together in under 20 minutes and uses a handful of simple and everyday ingredients. It’s a must try recipe for a busy week but is special enough to serve at your next celebratory occasion. Enjoy this dish for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner. You really can't go wrong! So, let me show you how it’s done. Grab a spoon and come and cook with me!

For more fun and exciting bean or legume recipe ideas, try my Mediterranean Tuna Salad, Fully Loaded Nachos, Homemade White Bean Dip, White Bean and Kale Soup and Braised Moroccan Chicken recipes!

Prep Time: 2 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 17 minutes

Serves: 4 - 6

Ingredients:

• 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• 1 large shallot, peeled and finely chopped

• ¼ - ½ tsp red pepper flakes (See Notes below)

• ¼ tsp kosher salt

• 1 ½ pints grape tomatoes (approx. 337g)

• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

• 1 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped (See Notes below)

• ¼ tsp dried oregano

• 1 Tbsp white miso paste (See Notes below)

• ¾ cup low-sodium vegetable stock (See Notes below)

• 2 540mL cans butter or cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

• ½ cup fresh basil leaves, roughly torn

• ¼ cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano (See Notes below)

• Crusty bread or toast (optional), as an accompaniment

Instructions:

1. Set a large stainless-steel skillet set over medium-low heat. Once hot, add the olive oil, shallot, salt and red pepper flakes and cook for 3 minutes or until translucent and slightly caramelized.

2. Add the grape tomatoes, garlic, rosemary and oregano to the skillet and cook for 5 minutes or until the tomatoes start to blister. Then, add the miso paste, vegetable stock and beans.

3. Turn up the heat to medium and bring the mixture to a simmer. Cook for another 5 minutes or until the sauce thickens.

4. Remove the skillet from the heat and top with basil leaves and Parmigiano Reggiano. Serve and enjoy!

   
   

Notes:

1. Turn up the heat!: If you love a little heat, simply increase the red pepper flakes in this recipe to ½ teaspoon.

2. Substituting dried for fresh: If you don’t have fresh rosemary on hand, you can simply substitute it with dried rosemary. Given that dried herbs tend to be more potent or concentrated in flavour relative to fresh, a small modification is required. For consistent results, you’ll want to substitute 1 teaspoon of fresh rosemary in this recipe with ¼ teaspoon of dried rosemary.

3. Check the labels: To keep this dish gluten-free, be sure to check the ingredient labels and select gluten-free miso paste and vegetable stock. Some store-bought varieties of both miso paste and vegetable stock contain gluten.

4. Fresh is where it’s at: Nothing quite compares to freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano! It’s rich, nutty and too savoury for words. At your local grocer, you’ll find pre-grated Parmigiano and the shelf-stable varieties but, I highly recommend buying a piece of fresh Parmigiano and doing the grating on your own. It makes a world of difference. Once you try freshly grated, you’ll never go back!