Heirlooms, Grains or One Pan? The Best Bean Cookbook

A pot of beans is one of the first things a Mexican kitchen learns to do well, and one of the last things it stops thinking about. The bean matters, the water matters, and so does knowing when to stop. Most general cookbooks give all that a paragraph at most.

The books here give it far more. This guide covers eight from named authors at established publishers, from a reference on heirloom varieties to one-pan weeknight dinners, and it says plainly which ones have a named review behind them and which rest on the publisher’s details.

Julia’s earns a commission on purchases made through links on this page, at no cost to you. Recommendations are based on what a restaurant kitchen looks for in a cookbook, the Amazon listing, publisher and author information and published reviews, which we name where we use them.

Quick verdict: the best bean cookbook to start with

The other five cover one-pan dinners, two recipe collections from a bean company, a grain-green-bean meal formula and a vegan paperback.

Five bean cookbooks side by side

Five of the eight, one for each kind of cook. All eight are described in full below.

Cover images from Amazon. Page counts and formats are from the Amazon listings for the editions linked. Recipe counts are from the title or the publisher’s copy.

Our picks for the best bean cookbook, book by book

All eight were in stock, new and sold by Amazon when we checked. We have not cooked from these books; where we describe a strength, we say whose view it is.

How to choose a bean cookbook for your kitchen

Five questions will narrow this list quickly.

• Do you need the method or the recipes? If your beans come out uneven, start with a book that teaches the pot, such as Cool Beans or The Bean Book. If your beans are fine and dinner is boring, the Bold Beans books and One Pan Beans make more sense.
• What do you cook beans in? Yonan’s master recipe names the Instant Pot, slow cooker and stove. A pressure cooker saves time, and a clay pot is the traditional route for slow frijoles.
• Do you eat meat? The Bean Book includes meat-based dishes. Cool Beans reads as vegetarian to PW, and the Hamshaw and Hester books are plant-based, so check before you buy for a family that wants pork in the pot.
• Beans alone, or grains too? Grist and A Grain, a Green, a Bean share the page with other ingredients. That is useful if you want it, and padding if you don’t.
• Where do you shop? Heirloom varieties and branded beans can be harder to find than supermarket pintos, so think about whether you will order beans or use what is already nearby.

How we chose these bean cookbooks

We searched Amazon’s book listings first and kept print editions from named authors at established publishers, plain in stock, with a new lead offer sold by Amazon. We compared titles against our other book pages and kept out anything already on them. Author, year, format and page count come from the Amazon listing. Recipe counts and descriptions come from the title or the publisher’s copy, as carried by a bookseller, unless we credit someone else.

Here is what stands behind each pick. Cool Beans, The Bean Book and Grist have Publishers Weekly reviews we read ourselves. One Pan Beans rests on the publisher’s and author’s details. The two Bold Beans books, A Grain, a Green, a Bean and Great Vegan Bean Book have praise from other cooks and authors that we read only as quoted by the publisher. For those five, PW’s page at the ISBN says it has not yet reviewed the book. We did not run a wider search for other reviews, so that says nothing about reviews elsewhere.

Several titles did not make it. Ken Albala’s Beans: A History is a history book and not a cookbook. The Amazon lead offer for Steve Sando’s Heirloom Bean Grower’s Guide was used when we checked, and Bean by Bean by Crescent Dragonwagon was offered by a third-party seller. America’s Test Kitchen’s The Complete Beans and Grains Cookbook is in stock, but it is credited to the company and not a named author, so we left it out.

Bean cookbook questions, answered

What is the best cooking with beans book for a beginner?

Cool Beans. PW says the recipes tend to be simple, and the publisher describes a master recipe for three cooking methods.

Do any of these cover Mexican bean dishes?

Yes, though none of them is a Mexican cookbook. PW mentions Mexican dishes in The Bean Book and Mexican sopes in Cool Beans. For the difference between two Mexican bean staples, see our guide to charro beans and refried beans.

Which book says the most about soaking?

We can’t rank them on this without reading every chapter. PW does name soaking advice in The Bean Book, so that is where we would look first.

Are these books only about beans?

Not all of them. Cool Beans covers chickpeas, lentils and other pulses, per the publisher, and One Pan Beans names chickpeas and lentils in its title. Grist gives part of its length to grains, and A Grain, a Green, a Bean makes beans one part of a formula.

Can I use canned beans with these recipes?

We have not checked this recipe by recipe, and the copy we read does not settle it for every book. A sample of the book you are considering is the best guide. If you often start from cans, our canned refried beans guide covers one common shortcut.

Which bean cookbook should you buy first?

Buy Cool Beans if you are starting out. Choose The Bean Book for varieties and recipes with meat, Grist for reference and One Pan Beans for weeknights. The two Bold Beans books, the Hamshaw formula and Hester’s vegan paperback each suit a narrower need, and each entry says who that is. For the pot itself, go to our best pressure cooker guide, and for mashing what you cook, our bean masher guide.

And if you would rather let someone else make the beans tonight, see the menu or call to order.