I like pretty much every kind of bean, but if pressed I’d probably say that red kidney beans are my very favorite. I love the texture and how substantial they are. They do take a bit of extra soak time, but it’s worth it.
I picked up some black-eyed peas a couple weeks ago; I’ve never had what I’d call an exceptional bowl of them, but I figured I’d give it a try since (not to brag) I can make really good beans and I’d never tried cooking them before. I made the best bowl of them I’d ever had— collard greens, boudin, lots of aromatics, herbs, and spices. After all that effort though, I still felt like they’d have been better with pinto beans instead. C’est la vie.
So what kind of bean do you prefer, and which ones leave you cold? Also, any advice on black-eyed peas would be nice; I’m still not ready to give up on them.
I’ve never had a bean variety I disliked, but black beans are my favorite and most common bean craving.
I think least favorite goes to baked beans, if I can count those as a kind of bean. I don’t like their weird sweetness + smokiness combo (sweet + smoky can be good, but here it never worked for me) and also I have a Pavlovian negative association between them and being dragged to cookouts where people were like “Sure, we have a vegetarian option! Baked beans! … It’s cool that they have bacon in them, right?”
If I can’t count baked beans because they’re not a variety of beans, then Lima beans. There are good Lima beans, but if you run into them in the wild, they’re probably mushy and poorly prepared.
As for black-eyed peas, I like to cook them up in an Instant Pot with seasonings of smoked paprika, nutritional yeast, chilli powder, and hefty amounts of garlic and onion, then stir in a cooking green at the end and eat them with corn chips or over cornbread. Oh, and drizzle them with a good extra-virgin olive oil and add a splash of lemon juice before serving.
That cornbread is a great idea. I froze half of my leftovers, so I’ll definitely make some when I heat it up.