Beans, lentils, chickpeas, peas and soy: the main kinds

Legumes, pulses and beans

Beans, lentils, chickpeas and peas all belong to the legume family: plants that carry their seeds in pods. In everyday speech the words overlap, and a recipe may call almost any of them a bean. It helps to know how the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) sorts them, because its definitions line up with the way they behave in a pot.

In its handbook on food balance sheets, the FAO defines pulses as annual legume crops harvested for their dry grain only. Under that definition, the dried beans, lentils, chickpeas and peas sold in bags and jars are pulses. Two groups are left out on purpose. Legumes picked green for eating, such as green beans and green peas, are counted as vegetables. Legumes used mainly to extract oil, with soybeans as the FAO's example, are excluded as well.

The FAO's list of pulse crops gives a sense of the range: common beans, broad beans, lentils, chickpeas, peas, pigeon peas, cowpeas, lupins, and a group that includes black gram and mung beans. This site uses "pulses" for those dry seeds, "soybeans" for soy, and "legumes" when it means all of them together.

Dry beans

Dry beans are the largest and most varied group. The cooking tables published by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and University of Maine extension services list black beans, red kidney beans, pinto beans, navy beans, Great Northern beans, cranberry beans, yellow eye beans and large lima beans, also sold as butter beans, among others. They come in many colors and sizes, but they are handled in broadly the same way.

• They are usually soaked. Both extension services describe soaking dry beans in water before cooking. Soaking lets the beans take up water and shortens the cooking that follows. The soaking guide sets out the three methods.
• They take a long simmer. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln says most beans take from 45 minutes to 2 hours to become tender after soaking. Its table puts kidney, navy and pinto beans at the long end, at 90 to 120 minutes.
• Some need extra care. Raw or undercooked red kidney beans contain a natural toxin, a lectin called phytohaemagglutinin. The US Food and Drug Administration gives a specific soak-and-boil rule for them, explained in the kidney bean guide.

The two extension tables do not agree exactly on times, and both ask the cook to check a few beans for tenderness, by tasting or mashing one, rather than trust the clock. That is the habit worth building: the times are a starting point, and the beans themselves are the test.

Lentils

Lentils are small, flat seeds and the easiest pulse to cook from dry. Both the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Maine say lentils do not need soaking, and the Maine table gives them about an hour of simmering. Because they skip the soak, they suit a weeknight in a way that most dry beans do not.

Lentils are sold in several colors and forms. This guide does not give separate times for each, because its sources do not. A simple approach is to start tasting well before the hour is up and to stop when they reach the texture the dish needs: firm enough to hold their shape in a salad, or soft enough to fall apart in a soup.

Chickpeas

Chickpeas are round, firm pulses. FoodData Central, the US Department of Agriculture's food-composition database, lists them as "chickpeas (garbanzo beans, bengal gram)", which covers the three names cooks most often meet. They are handled like dry beans: sorted, rinsed, soaked and simmered. The University of Maine table gives soaked chickpeas from half an hour to an hour of simmering, which is short for a bean of their size, so test them rather than assume.

FoodData Central also lists a chickpea flour, under the name besan, and home-prepared hummus and falafel among its legume products. The world cuisines guide describes some of the forms legumes take.

Dry peas and black-eyed peas

Dry peas are the mature seeds of the pea plant, dried rather than picked green. Split peas, which have been divided into halves, are the most familiar form. Like lentils, split peas need no soaking according to both extension services.

Black-eyed peas are a little confusing. In the FAO's list they belong to the cowpeas, a separate crop from peas, and FoodData Central files them as "cowpeas, common (blackeyes, crowder, southern)". In the kitchen they behave like a quick-cooking bean. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln lists them among the legumes that do not need soaking, and the University of Maine table gives them half an hour to an hour of simmering.

Soybeans

Soybeans sit apart from the other legumes in three ways that matter to a cook.

• Composition. Per 100 grams cooked, FoodData Central lists boiled mature soybeans at 18.2 g of protein and 8.97 g of fat. The cooked pulses in this site's nutrition table sit at roughly 8 to 9 g of protein, and only chickpeas reach more than 1 g of fat. The FAO leaves soybeans out of the pulses because they are used mainly for oil.
• Form. Soybeans can be cooked whole, and they are also the base of many other foods. FoodData Central lists tofu, tempeh, miso and natto among its legume products.
• Allergy. The FDA names soybeans as one of the nine major food allergens in the United States. Anyone cooking for others should know whether soy is in a dish and say so.

Fresh green beans and peas

Green beans and fresh green peas come from legume plants, but they are picked young, while the pod or seed is still green. The FAO counts crops harvested green for food as vegetables, not pulses. They are outside the scope of this site, which is about the dry seeds and the foods made from them.

The kinds at a glance

The table brings the main kinds together. Soaking advice comes from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Maine. Simmering times are from the University of Maine table, for soaked beans where soaking applies; the Nebraska table gives somewhat different times for some of them.

The University of Maine table separates dark red kidney beans (1½ to 2 hours) from light red ones (1 to 1½ hours); the row above combines them. The red row is shaded because red kidney beans are the one kind on this list with a specific federal safety instruction.

Choosing and keeping dry legumes

Dry legumes keep for a long time if they stay dry. The University of Maine advises storing them in a cool, dry place away from heat and humidity, in a resealable plastic bag or a tightly covered non-metal container, and using them within a year. The storage guide covers cans, cooked beans and the freezer.

Before cooking, both extension services recommend picking out small stones, debris and any discolored or shriveled beans, then rinsing the rest under cold running water. The University of Maine suggests spreading the beans on a clean towel to make the stones easier to see. It takes a minute and can save a broken tooth.

Once you know which kind you have, the next step is the same for almost all of them: sort, rinse, soak if needed, and simmer gently until tender. The next guide walks through it.

Next from the pantry: Soaking and cooking dry beans, step by step