Butter beans

More and more recipes are telling us to use jarred beans but with the generous offer to use tinned as an alternative, if we must. Tinned have always been more than adequate but are no longer the preferred choice because seemingly out of nowhere giant butter beans have arrived on our shelves at exorbitant prices claiming authority over the humble tin. I use a mixture of both. There is a huge difference in taste and cost. I’d gone from spending £5 for a pair of salmon fillets in my pre vegan days to spending 80p on a tin of beans. I was loving life until boujie beans entered my radar and curiosity (and my finances), got the better of me. 

I thought I’d do a review of several brands, both tinned and jarred, because seeing another food writer demand a jar and nothing else got on my last nerve.

THE TINS

Tesco

Cost: 70p for a 400g tin

Stockist: Tesco

Look: Pasty and dehydrated encased in a cracked skin despite spending their entire life in a tin of water.

Taste/texture: Tesco’s website describes these beans as soft and creamy which is categorically incorrect. Straight from the tin, these butter beans - with added firming agent and antioxidant - taste like bland, chalky, malnourished pellets of sadness with a complicated after taste. 

Overall: With no information about where these beans are from, at 70p a tin they are a perfectly adequate filler as long as they’re surrounded by more interesting ingredients.

Rating: 1/5

Napolina 

Cost: £1.05 for a 400g tin

Stockist: Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda

Look: Slender and pale with average proportions but quietly confident in their own abilities.

Taste/texture: Soft and creamy with a reasonable amount of love, though these too have added firming agent, antioxidants and sulphites which make me suspicious. They satisfied my palate adequately, though I had higher expectations for a brand with a such a complicated font.

Overall: Being a sucker for seductive packaging I had high hopes for these beans and their black label, but after forgetting to take legible notes and in my abundant bean confusion I had to buy another tin to jog my memory, so there’s that. 

Rating: 3/5

Sainsbury’s 

Cost: 60p for a 400g tin

Stockist: Sainsbury’s

Look: Like they’ve been in the sun a little longer than Tesco’s mediocre offering. Slender, a smooth skin with a few rogue skins floating around the tin.

Taste/texture: These were angry tough skinned chalky bullets with a metallic aftertaste that I did not enjoy one bit. 

Overall: Several points deducted because the tin had no ring pull. I had to go drawer foraging for a long discarded tin opener that had started to rust. Once I eventually got into the tin I was as indifferent about these as I was about Tesco’s. Shove them in a sauce or puree them with garlic, olive oil and lemon juice and once you’ve removed the metallic taste your meal will be more than satisfactory.

Rating: 1/5. I don’t want to eat metallic beans and I want my tin to have a ring pull. 

While we’re on the subject of Sainsbury’s, I used to use their organic boxed beans which I enjoyed but haven’t been able to get hold of for months.

Mr Organic

Cost: £1.70 for a 400g tin

Stockist: Many places including Waitrose, Ocado, planet Organic, Eat17 and the Coop

Look: Like tiny beige weight lifters. The smallest of all the beans. 

Taste/texture: Straight from the tin these beans were quite delightful. Smooth, flavoursome, a little sweeter than the other tins and an absoloute relief to eat.

Overall: Like most organic produce they were smaller than their pesticide laden counterparts, but what they lacked in size, they made up for in taste. And given they were the most expensive of the tinned beans and less cost effective, they tasted far better. I would be more than happy to add these beans to a dish without disguising them heavily first. 

Rating: 4/5

THE JARS

Brindisa Monjardan 

Cost: An eye watering £3.80 for a 325g jar

Stockist: Ocado and Brindisa’s website where the cost escalates to £5.10 for the same size.

Look: Like pick ’n’ mix. These beans varied hugely in size and colour.

Taste/texture: Pretty firm and earthy but given the exorbitant cost I didn’t want my jaw to have to exert any more energy than necessary. The brine is much thicker than the other jars and they were very salty.

Overall: They were delicious but at £1.17 per 100g they were the most expensive jar and didn’t even taste the best. While these beans tasted much nicer than the tins, they weren’t the best of the jars but had the confidence and audacity of a straight white man.

Rating: 3/5

Perello

Cost: £3.75 for a 700g jar 

Stockist: Online and independent stores

Look: Surprisingly bright and the smallest of the jarred beans. 

Taste/texture: Melt in the mouth delicious. There was 0.7g added salt and the beans and liquid benefitted from this hugely. The balance was perfect.

Overall: Soft, creamy and like having mouth spa. I could easily eat these every day of the week even if I have to swear sunglasses to shield me from their glare. The beans are from Poland if you’re interested and were the best value. Delicious. 

Rating: 5/5

Bold Bean Co. 

Cost: £4 for 660g plus plus delivery unless bought in store. 

Stockist: Waitrose, many independent stores around the country and direct from Bold Bean Co. themselves. 

Look: A little darker than the other jarred beans giving the illusion (to me) of being more trustworthy. With water and salt as the only other ingredients, I think they might be. 

Taste/texture: My mouth didn’t have to work too hard but these had a little more bite than the other jarred beans. That’s not a bad thing at all. 

Overall: These beans taste like a self assured hipster rejoicing. Confident in their abilities and 97% certain they’re better than everyone else. There’s lots of info about their journey, where they’re from (Poland) and the packaging is cool enough to appeal to the greatest of pulse avoiders. 

Rating: 5/5

Brindisa Navarrico 

Cost: £5.50 for a 500g jar

Stockist: Ocado and other online retailers 

Look: A huge disparity in size. Some of the beans were the size of the tiny Mr Organic tinned beans and some the size of a small car. And they were very, very white. 

Taste/texture: Very soft and very creamy. Some had split. And they were very salty.

Overall: I can’t deny that these beans are delicious but there’s the same amount of salt in this 500g jar as there is in the 700g Perello jar. Far too much for me, though I still ate them and probably will again. 

Rating: 3/5

TO SUMMARISE

There is no doubt that jarred butter beans have had a lot more love and care gone into them. They are silky and flavoursome and enhance any meal. Best of all you don’t have to cook them at all if you don’t want to and can enjoy them straight from the jar - my two year old can confirm this. However, drowned in sauce the humbled tinned bean is more than adequate.

My favourite tin is Mr Organic and favourite jar is Perello closely followed by Bold Bean Co. 

Next time a recipe calls for a jar and nothing else, know that depending on which you choose, a tin will do just fine. 

Update: It’s been brought to my attention that the brightest of the beans achieve their brightness by using additive E223, sodium metabsulfite, which is highly unnecessary. With that in mind I’d like to crown Bold Bean Co. the best of the best of the jars, for being the purest and most transparent of the brands and tasting absolutely delicious.