The featured read

Dried or canned? The bean question worth settling

Basics 7 min read Start here

One costs pennies and rewards a little patience. The other is ready in the time it takes to open a tin. Here's when each earns its place on the shelf — and how to get the best from both.

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Featured

Lentils, chickpeas and black beans arranged into the shape of a world map on a warm yellow surface

About this blog

Beans, taken seriously and cooked often

Everyday Beans is a small blog for the humblest thing in the cupboard. Lentils, chickpeas, black beans — bought dry in a bag or cracked open from a tin, they turn a handful of change into a pot that feeds you for days. Most people treat them as an afterthought. We treat them as the plan.

There are no meal-plan promises here and nothing to sign up for. Just the useful, hands-on stuff: which lentils actually hold their shape in a salad, how to get chickpeas properly crisp, why a bland pot is a seasoning problem and not a bean problem, and how to freeze a batch so a good dinner is always three minutes away.

6full reads, from the dried-versus-canned debate to a freezer stocked with cooked beans.

3everyday heroes running through all of it — lentils, chickpeas and black beans.

The reads

Six ways to make beans the best part of the week

Each one is a proper read — technique, texture and the small habits that stretch a cheap ingredient a long way.

A warm spread of Mexican dips, red and green salsas and tortilla chips laid out on a patterned cloth

Basics

Dried vs canned beans

What you gain from a bag of dry beans, what a tin gives you back, and when each one is the smart call.

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A pan of golden cooked lentils topped with fresh coriander and dried chillies, spices scattered around it

Technique

Lentils that hold their shape

How to cook lentils that stay whole and springy for salads instead of collapsing into mush.

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A plate of small golden-brown crisp-baked bites, roasted until crunchy

Snacks

The crispy chickpeas guide

Dry them well, roast them hot, and season them last — the route to chickpeas that actually stay crunchy.

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A generous pile of small round coriander seeds on a dark slate surface

Flavour

Seasoning beans well

Salt, acid, fat and aromatics — the four levers that turn a bland pot into something you go back to.

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A build-your-own bowl of rice, charred corn, fresh salsa and toppings ready to assemble

Lunch

Bean-based lunches

A flexible bowl formula that turns one pot of beans into a week of lunches you'll look forward to.

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Portioned meal-prep containers filled with prepped food, ready for the fridge and freezer

Make-ahead

Freezing cooked beans

Cook once, portion smart, and keep a dinner's worth of beans a three-minute thaw away.

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The pantry

Four things worth keeping on the shelf

Stock these and a good bean dinner is never more than a plan away. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive.

Dry goods

A bag of lentils

Green or brown for salads and stews, red for something soft and quick. They keep for a year in a jar.

Dry goods

Dried chickpeas

Cheaper than tins by a mile. Soak overnight and you get a creamier, firmer chickpea for pennies.

Backup

Tinned black beans

The reliable friend for a weeknight. Rinse, warm, season — dinner is halfway done before you've decided.

Flavour

Cumin, bay, garlic

The small kit that flavours nearly every pot here. A bay leaf and a clove of garlic go a long way.

Keep these handy

Four numbers worth remembering

Rough starting points, not rules. Learn these and you can cook most beans without looking anything up.

1 : 3 Dry beans to cooking water, roughly, with room to top up as they drink it in.

×2.5 How much a cup of dry beans swells once it's soaked and fully cooked.

8 hrs A comfortable overnight soak for chickpeas and larger beans. Lentils skip it.

3 mo How long a labelled tub of cooked beans keeps its texture in the freezer.