Haricot beans rewards a little know-how: how to choose them, cook them, store them, and substitute in a pinch. Browse 10 recipes to cook with them.

What are haricot beans?

Haricot beans are small, smooth, oval white beans, the same bean Americans call navy beans. The British name comes from the French haricot, and you will see them sold dried in bags or cooked in cans, ready for the bean pot.

They are mild and faintly nutty, with thin skins and creamy flesh once cooked through. Their best trick is that they soften to a tender, almost buttery inside while keeping their shape, which is exactly what you want in a long-simmered dish.

One quick note on names. Haricot beans (the white bean) are not the same as haricots verts, the slim French green beans. Same French word, completely different vegetable.

Cooking With Haricot Beans

Dried haricot beans cook best after a soak. Cover them with plenty of cold water and leave them overnight, or use the quick method: boil two minutes, then sit off the heat for an hour.

Drain, then cover with fresh water and simmer gently for about an hour to an hour and a half, until tender all the way through.

Salt them toward the end, once they are already soft. Add salt or anything acidic too early and the skins toughen, so the beans take much longer to give in.

Their shape-holding is the whole point in Boston baked beans, where they bake for hours with molasses and salt pork and still come out distinct rather than mushy.

The same quality carries a Haricot Beef Casserole and the Greek soup Fasoulada, where the beans thicken the broth a little while staying whole.

For a fast version, a drained can goes straight into a Summer Bean & Basil Soup or a Sorrel & Haricot Soup. Canned beans are already fully cooked, so you are only warming them through.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Haricot beans are a blank canvas, which is their strength. They take to smoky pork and ham hock, to tomato, onion, garlic, and bay, and to assertive herbs like sage and thyme.

A glug of good olive oil at the end turns a plain pot of them into something worth eating on its own.

The classic mistake is salting or adding tomato at the start of the simmer. Acid and salt both firm up the skins before the inside has cooked, so you end up boiling forever and still biting into a grainy center. Build the beans soft first, then season.

The second mistake is a hard, rolling boil. Keep it at a bare simmer; a violent boil knocks the beans around and splits the skins, and you lose the clean shape that makes this bean worth choosing.

What to Use Instead

Cannellini beans are the closest swap. They are larger and a touch creamier, but they cook and behave the same way, so use them one for one in any soup or stew. Great northern beans sit right in between in size and are just as forgiving.

Flageolet beans, the pale green French bean, are smaller and more delicate; reach for them when you want something a little finer alongside lamb. In a pinch, butter beans or chickpeas work, though both bring a different texture and a stronger character of their own.

If a recipe simply says white beans, any of these will do the job.

Buying and Storing Haricot Beans

Dried haricot beans should look smooth and uniformly creamy white, not cracked or dusty. Older beans are the usual reason a pot never softens, so buy from somewhere with steady turnover and use them within a year of purchase.

Store dried beans in a sealed jar in a cool, dark cupboard. They keep for a couple of years, but the longer they sit the longer they take to cook, and very old beans may never go fully tender.

Canned haricot beans keep for years on the shelf. Once opened, move leftovers to a covered container and use within three to four days. A quick rinse cuts the canning salt, though for a soup you can keep that starchy liquid to help thicken the pot.

Quick facts

In Chinese

菜豆

British (UK) term

Haricot beans

en français

haricots

en español

alubias

Recipes using haricot beans

There are 10 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 10 recipes