White kidney beans, dried is easier to cook with than it looks. Here's how to choose, use, and store them, what to substitute, and 7 recipes to get you started.

What is white kidney beans, dried?

White kidney beans are the large, kidney-shaped white beans most cooks know by their Italian name, cannellini. Dried, they come as ivory ovals about ½ inch long that roughly double in size once soaked and cooked.

Inside that thin skin is creamy, almost buttery flesh. It holds its shape better than a soft navy bean but turns silky when you simmer it long enough.

The flavor is mild and faintly nutty. That is exactly why Tuscan and southern French kitchens lean on them so hard, soaking up garlic, sage, rosemary, and pork fat without ever fighting back.

Cooking With Cannellini Beans

Soak dried cannellini overnight, or at least 6 to 8 hours, in plenty of cold water. They roughly double in weight, so 1 cup dried yields close to 3 cups cooked.

Drain, cover with fresh water by two inches, and simmer gently. A hard boil splits the skins and turns the pot cloudy, so keep it at a bare bubble for 60 to 90 minutes until the beans crush easily against the side of the pot.

Salt early. The old rule that salt toughens beans is mostly a myth; a tablespoon per quart of cooking water seasons them through and actually keeps the skins more intact.

A halved onion and a peeled garlic clove dropped in the pot, with a bay leaf, do more for the final flavor than anything you stir in later. Pull them out before serving.

These beans belong in long, slow dishes. A Tuscan Bean Soup and Bean Soup From Tuscany both treat them as the body of the bowl, mashing some to thicken the broth while leaving the rest whole.

They also sit under braised meat, as in Braised Lamb Shanks with Roasted Garlic & White Beans.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Cannellini have a real affinity for sage, lemon, and good olive oil. Pork in any form, from pancetta to a ham hock, gives them backbone. A Slow Cooker White Beans with Sage/Garlic shows how little else they need.

The biggest mistake is undercooking. A bean that is merely tender at the center still tastes starchy and raw. You want it fully soft, almost falling apart, before you call it done. Pull one out and bite it.

The second mistake is acid added too soon. Tomatoes or wine stirred in before the beans are fully cooked will stall them, leaving the centers chalky no matter how long they cook. Cook the beans soft first, then build the tomato or wine layer around them.

Substitutes

Great Northern beans are the closest swap, slightly smaller and a touch firmer but interchangeable cup for cup in soups and stews. Navy beans work too, though they are smaller and break down faster, which suits a creamy soup more than a salad.

Butter beans, the large limas, give you a similar creamy texture with a more pronounced earthy flavor. In a pinch, a drained 15-ounce can of cannellini stands in for about ⅔ cup dried beans, so plan on roughly one and a half cans per cup of dried.

Buying and Storing Dried Beans

Buy dried cannellini from a shop with steady turnover. Beans are dry but not immortal; the older they get, the longer they take to soften, and very old beans may never fully cook.

Look for unbroken, evenly colored beans without shriveled skins or a dusty smell.

Store them in an airtight jar away from heat and light, where they keep their cooking quality for about a year. They stay safe far longer, but expect stubborn beans and longer simmer times past that point.

Cooked cannellini keep four to five days in the fridge in their liquid, and they freeze well for up to three months.

Quick facts

In Chinese

白芸豆，干

British (UK) term

White kidney beans, dried

en français

haricots blancs secs,

en español

frijoles blancos, secos

Recipes using white kidney beans, dried

There are 7 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 7 recipes