Help me enjoy beans and pulses

[Poppy1999]

I would like to add more beans and pulses to my diet but have never found them very appealing.
I like lentils and use them - and baked beans!
I can eat kidney beans in a chilli but am always expecting the texture to be different from what it is.
I was a very fussy eater as a child and whilst much better now I haven't got over this avoidance yet.
Can you suggest any recipes to get me started please? I don't think I am ready for anything like a three bean salad yet.

Lentil Dal is absolutely lovely. I also chuck lentils into anything like spag bol or chilli. It bulks it out and you can freeze the extra portions. I also bake chickpeas. Drain and dry them and remove any loose skins. Toss in a little olive oil and whatever seasoning you fancy. I like paprika and garlic. Bake until crisp. In my air fryer, it takes around 15 mins. You can also do a sweet version with honey, cinnamon and a few sesame seeds. Lovely for snacking.

Chickpea salad is great and there are loads of recipes online.

If you make soups you can use white beans in them, blended, to make the soup creamy.

If you look for vegan haggis is it made from lentils and I think it is absolutely delicious. Nothing like meat haggis (which is also nice, but different). It's really savoury.

Worth trying, maybe?

Add cannelini beans to homemade minestrone soup.

Black beans are smaller than kidney beans so you might find the texture better? We serve black bean chilli with rice, in tacos or in a burrito.

The Bold bean company on Instagram and their own website is great for inspiration. They also have their own cook books.

Homemade mushy peas are lush. There are tons of amazing pulse recipes on the hodmedod site:

hodmedods.co.uk/search?q=mushy

You can make your version of baked beans, or make it like a ratatouille with beans added.

If you fry off onions, celery and carrots, then add couple tins of toms, salt, maybe a pinch of sugar and herbs. Then just add a couple tins of borlotti or cannelini beans. If you want you can use courgettes, aubergines and stuff as well. You can cook for as long as you like if you want the beans to be very soft. Just top up with water if it's drying out.

Lentil and beetroot salad is great too. Just add cooked green lentils to packaged sliced beetroot and sliced red or Spring onions, and add lemon juice and olive oil.

Napolina make a lovely bean salad in a tin. I just rinse it first, add chopped peppers and spring onions, sometimes sweetcorn with lemon juice and olive oil to taste.

Also chickpea, potato and spinach curry with coconut milk. I added peanut butter to mine and it worked well.

Flageolet beans have much nicer texture (to me!) than most beans. Less tough skins, much creamier texture. I can literally eat them cold with olive oil and a pinch of salt 😳

https://www.themediterraneandish.com/gigantes-plaki-greek-giant-beans/ Is my fav butter bean recipe

And Mujadara (spellings will vary!) for lentills! The Claudia Roden recipe is perfect for me.

I liked adding giant couscous to beany/lentily concoctions as well. Breaks up the beaniness!

Justine Doiron has some nice bean recipes https://justinesnacks.com/category/recipes/beans-grains/

I bloody love beans.

I make dhal
Chickpea curry
Five bean chilli
Moroccan soup
Lentil soup
Lentil curry
Roast chickpeas
Refried beans for enchiladas

Cannellini beans are frequently used in sauces , blended, as a cream substitute in savoury dishes as a cream substitute. If you can afford it, I recommend Merchant Gourmet sachets of flavoured beans as an introduction. There are many excellent vegan recipe books, mostly American, that use beans. I love soya beans, but I cook them in a pressure cooker. If you can get hold of a copy of Gail Duff’s vegetarian cookbook then I recommend that. There are several excellent websites, too.

We've got their Bean Book. It's not vegetarian let alone vegan but does have some good ideas.

DH always thought he hated beans (force fed baked beans at school) but he found he really likes some now, especially butter beans and black beans. Butter beans or cannelloni beans are good in a 'traybake' tossed with some olive oil, cherry tomatoes and/or other veg and baked for about 20 mins.

www.thevegspace.co.uk/recipe-quick-easy-tomato-and-herb-gigantes-beans/

I love most beans but I think white-coloured beans tend to be the most palatable. Kidney beans are a bit dry!

Do refried beans appeal?
Lots of different recipes online but I think black beans work best and I always put in some with some chipolte paste (Luchito is a good one).

These are all great - thank you.
I'm not vegan - just trying to move more in that direction.

I love this chilli recipe. I tend to use 5 different cans of beans instead of what the 2x black beans and 3x ref kidney beans in the recipe. I use black beans, black eye peas, borlotti beans, haricot beans and red kidney. www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/double-bean-roasted-pepper-chilli www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/double-bean-roasted-pepper-chilli]]

I also love dal and chickpea curries. This is one of my faves and it's fine with canned chickpeas to save time. https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/chana-masala/

Day 1 - lentil and root vegetables slow cooker stew. It's lush!

Nooooooooooooo!

Recommending Hodmedod’s is probably the most useful thing I can do here!

Seriously, @Poppy1999 - click on the site; it will change your life.

Tinned haricot beans are good. (Baked beans without the tomato sauce.) I make fajitas with them, onions, peppers, tomatoes etc. Also try a tomato, chilli, lentil and sweet potato sauce with spaghetti. I'm not vegan either, or even vegetarian but have both of these regularly.

I like Bold Bean Co too!
My favourite bean recipe at the moment is Ed Smith's braised white beans and courgettes from his book Crave. It is delicious - slow cook on the hob sliced courgettes until they're almost collapsing, lots of lovely broth-y juices from the white beans and then dotted with goats cheese/feta cheese and mint. I don't think the recipe is available on line but I'll take a photo if anyone wants it.

Also from Ed is a delicious cacio e Pepe white bean dish which he serves with lamb chops but they're not obligatory! https://boroughmarket.org.uk/recipes/lamb-chops-with-cacio-e-pepe-white-beans-2/

Anna Jones has a fab black bean taco recipe which we use a lot! https://annajones.co.uk/recipes/lime-and-chipotle-black-bean-tacos

I love this Ethiopian red lentil dhal
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jan/11/the-10-best-lentil-recipes

And also love this from Meera Sodha - a malaysian dhal
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/oct/29/vegan-malaysian-dal-curry-recipe-meera-sodha

Ottolenghi's tandoori chickpeas I've only made once - i wasn't blown away but others love them so I should give them another outing https://ottolenghi.co.uk/pages/recipes/confit-tandoori-chickpeas

Love chole bhature - can't remember which recipe I use - possibly Dishoom?

Some we do frequently that my fussy young children usually eat well:

• Sausage and chickpea or butter bean stew (vegan sausages),
• Chickpea korma
• What we call 'tortilla pizzas' which is a tortilla with refried beans on, and another tortilla stuck to it, then toppings of black beans, spring onion, tomato and grated cheese (could use vegan cheese or omit entirely)
• Tomato and chickpea stew
• Lentil bolognese

I have a soup maker and add butter beans from tin or chickpeas to thicken and extra nutrients then blend lovely.

I don't usually like mushy peas but the Hodmedod's ones are really lovely.

Beans are so good for helping veggie stuff not be so wet and unfilling.

Really appreciate all of the suggestions thanks. Going to work my way through them all - have some tins of black beans so they're going in something next.

Honestly, @Poppy1999 - if you want to incorporate beans into your regular eating, you’ll enjoy them much more bought (in bulk where possible) dried. It really isn’t any trouble to soak the amount you want overnight and then cook the next day. You’ll get far more flavour from the different varieties, and they won’t turn mushy when cooked with other things. All those little tins and cartons are so wasteful - and comparatively expensive when beans should be truly economical food.