Beans on toast is a super speedy and simple meal to make. This homemade version is a quick and easy alternative to using a can of baked beans and it tastes amazing too. Fabulous for breakfast, lunch or supper.
I’ll often make this sort of quick beans on toast when I get home from work. It requires little effort and is on the table in less than fifteen minutes.
Dive Right In
- Why Make Your Own Baked Beans?
- Beans On Toast Ingredients
- How to Make Beans On Toast
- Homemade Beans On Toast From Scratch
- Top Tip For Cooking Dried Beans
- Other White Bean Recipes You Might Like
- Keep In Touch
- The Recipe
Why Make Your Own Baked Beans?
Yes, the easiest way to make baked beans on toast is to open a tin of ready-made baked beans. But it’s somehow more satisfying and tastier too to make your own. And this recipe is a super quick one. Here are a few more reasons you might like to have a go.
- Ingredient Control – When you make your own baked beans, you have complete control over the ingredients you use. You can choose high-quality beans and experiment with different herbs and spices. It’s also easy to adjust the level of sweetness, acidity and spice to create the perfect balance for your taste buds.
- Healthier Option – Canned baked beans often contain added sugars, salt, and sometimes preservatives. If you cook your own, it’s easy to reduce or eliminate these unhealthy additives which makes homemade beans a more natural and wholesome choice. For example, I don’t use any sugar in this recipe – it doesn’t need it.
- Quick And Easy – It only takes slightly longer to make these homemade baked beans than it does to open a tin and heat the beans up. Yes, there’s a bit of chopping to do, but not much. The actual cooking time only takes five to six minutes.
- Personal Satisfaction – Preparing your own baked beans is fun. There’s something gratifying about creating a dish that’s such a well known convenience food. You can even make the whole thing from scratch, though that will take a bit of planning and more time.
- Serving Size – The amount I’ve given in the recipe is similar in size to a tin of baked beans. However, it’s much easier to make a smaller or larger amount, as needed, without having half tins of leftover beans.
Easy Baked Beans On Toast Ingredients
You only need five ingredients to make this easy version of baked beans. You’ll also need toast of course. I like to spread a little wild garlic oil or pesto on the toast first. However butter is another excellent option. It’s also particularly good with a drizzle or two of chimichurri sauce.
Alternatively, if you’re trying to cut down on fat, just leave your toast as is.
Haricot Beans
Haricot beans are ideal for this recipe. They’re the ones you’ll find in a traditional can of baked beans. However, if you can’t get hold of them, any white bean will work.
If using beans from a tin, I drain and rinse them before using as I don’t like the tinny taste of the bean water. However, jarred beans are a different beast and the flavour is a good one. So I add some of the aquafaba along with the beans to ensure the finished dish is not overly dry.
If I cook my own beans from dried, I’ll also use some of the cooking water in the “baked beans”. For drained tinned beans you’ll need to add a little water to the mix.
The jarred beans I favour are already salted, so if you use the same or something similar, you don’t need to add any salt to this recipe. If using unsalted or your own cooked beans, just add salt to taste.
Shallot
Shallots have a mild onion flavour, so are ideal for the quick cooking needed in this recipe. You can use ordinary shallots or banana shallots. If you don’t have any, then a small red onion will work too.
Garlic
Garlic has a strong and distinctive flavour that seems to be loved the world over. It adds a savoury complexity to the beans and creates the most tantalising scent as it cooks.
Harrisa
Harissa is one of my favourite spice mixes. I buy it as a dry blend as it’s not only cheaper, but more versatile. If you need it in paste form, you can always mix it with oil. However, it’s easy to purchase it as a paste if you prefer. You’ll find harissa or rose harissa in the world food aisle of most supermarkets.
But what is harissa you may well ask? Well, it’s a hot chilli sauce originating from Tunisia. It’s now widely used in North Africa and the Middle East. The main ingredient is roasted red chilli peppers which are blended with olive oil, garlic and spices such as paprika, cumin, coriander and caraway.
There’s also a version made with rose petals, which is slightly milder. It’s called rose harissa and it’s the one I use.
If you’re not too keen on hot chillies, use a smaller amount in the recipe. Alternatively, try red pepper flakes, smoked paprika or pul biber instead, with an optional quarter teaspoon of herbes de Province or other mixed dried herbs.
Tomato Paste
Tomato paste gives the umami flavour and bright red colour to these homemade beans on toast. Tomatoes are an essential ingredient in baked beans. However, tinned tomatoes or passata are too watery for this recipe and you’d be left with an annoying partly-used tin or jar taking up room in the fridge.
Tomato paste is a great standby. You can use it in lots of recipes and it lasts for ages if kept well sealed.
How To Make Easy Homemade Beans On Toast
It’s all in the timing with beans on toast. You want the toast ready, but still warm when it’s time to top it with your just cooked homemade “baked beans”.
Step 1. Prepare Veg
Peel the shallot, then dice it finely with a sharp knife.
In a small to medium saucepan, heat the olive oil over a medium-low heat. Add the diced shallot and fry for two minutes until soft and translucent.
Meanwhile finely chop the garlic. Add this to the pan and fry for a further minute, by which time the shallot and garlic should start to take on a little colour.
Step 2. Add Aromatics
Add the harissa and tomato paste and stir-fry for a further minute. This small step gives extra depth and makes quite a difference to the final flavour.
Step 3. Add Beans
Add the beans and a little of their cooking water. If using tinned beans, I prefer to drain and rinse the beans first then add a splash of water.
Bring the beans to a gentle simmer. Stir and allow them to heat up and soak up the flavours for a couple of minutes. If they look too dry, add a little more water. But be careful, you don’t want them too runny or they’ll make the toast soggy.
Step 4. Toast Bread
Meanwhile, slice your chosen bread and toast it under the grill, on a hot griddle pan or in a toaster until golden and crispy. You’ll need four slices for this amount of beans. I like to use wholemeal bread or sourdough.
If you like, spread your toast with butter, wild garlic oil or even pesto. This isn’t necessary, but gives added richness and flavour. I’ve used my homemade wild garlic oil here.
Step 5. Serve Beans On Toast
Whilst the toast is still hot, or at least warm, top it with the beans. Eat straight away. For a bit of extra pizzaz, scatter some chopped parsley or snipped chives over the top of the beans first.
If you don’t eat all of the beans, any leftovers will keep in a sealed container in the fridge for a couple of days. When you’re ready to eat them, just reheat in a saucepan until the beans are bubbling. You may need to add another splash of water to prevent the beans sticking to the pan.
Homemade Beans On Toast From Scratch
Of course, if you really want to, you can go the whole hog and cook everything from scratch. It’s actually very easy to cook dried white beans, you just need to remember to soak the beans overnight before you want to cook them.
You’ll need around 100g dried beans. Place them in a bowl, cover them with water then place a plate over the bowl. Leave them to soak overnight or for at least eight hours.
Drain the water away and rinse the beans well. Place them in a lidded saucepan, pour in enough water to cover, then bring to the boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook with the lid on for about an hour or until soft.
Once the beans are soaked and rinsed, you can also cook them in a pressure cooker for speed or a slow cooker for efficiency.
Top Tip For Cooking Dried Beans
Add a bay leaf or a piece of kombu seaweed to the beans whilst they cook. Either of these helps to make the beans more digestible.
As for the toast, there’s nothing quite like freshly baked homemade bread for both flavour and nutrition. There’s many a way to make bread and it really depends on what you like as to what recipe you use. But here are three of mine: rye sourdough bread, malted wholemeal and rye loaf (made with yeast) and no-knead spelt bread.
I even have a post on how to make homemade butter if you want to have a go at that.
Other White Bean Recipes You Might Like
- Bunny chow: white bean curry in a bread bowl
- Chunky vegetable soup with white beans
- Greek butter beans in tomato sauce with greens
- Homemade white bean burgers
- Roasted tomato & white bean dip
- White bean salad: Spanish style
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this easy recipe for beans on toast, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or advice for making quick bean meals?
Please rate the recipe. If you post pictures of your creations on social media, use the hashtag #tinandthyme so I can see them.
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If you’d like more recipes for things on toast, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Homemade Beans On Toast
Easy Homemade Beans On Toast
Ingredients
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 large shallot or small red onion – finely diced
- 1 clove garlic finely chopped or minced
- 1 tsp harissa spice mix or paste (I use rose harissa)
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 250 g cooked white beans (equivalent to a 400g tin of beans) – haricot or cannellini are best for this dish
- pinch sea salt (optional)
- 4 slices toast
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, fry the shallot over a medium heat for a couple of minutes to soften.2 tsp olive oil, 1 large shallot
- Add the garlic and fry for a further minute.1 clove garlic
- Add the harrisa and tomato paste and stir-fry for a further minute.1 tsp harissa spice mix, 1 tbsp tomato paste
- Add the beans with a splash of water and bring to a gentle simmer. Stir and allow to heat up and soak up the flavours for a couple of minutes.250 g cooked white beans
- Taste test and add salt, if needed.pinch sea salt
- Meanwhile, toast your bread. For added richness and flavour spread with butter, pesto or wild garlic oil.4 slices toast
- Spoon the beans over the still warm toast and enjoy.
Katie says
I love this beans on toast recipe. It’s so flavorful and easy to make. I will definitely be making them again!
Choclette says
Glad you like them Katie. It’s a great standby for when you need something tasty and satisfying but don’t have much time.
Tandy | Lavender and Lime says
I much prefer home made to tin and the addition of harissa is excellent 🙂
Choclette says
Thank you Tandy. I’m totally with you on the homemade beans v tinned.
Erin says
This beans on toast recipe is a new one to me, but one that will be a favorite! Love the flavor and texture!
Choclette says
I suspect beans on toast is a very British thing. It’s good to hear you’ve tried it and liked it.
Tavo says
Hey there! Just tried out your Beans On Toast recipe and it was a delightful treat. The simplicity combined with the flavors made it a hit in my home. Thanks for sharing such a straightforward and delicious recipe!
Choclette says
Thanks for your feedback Tavo. Beans are brilliant for a quick and healthy meal.
Mary says
I like the little bit of heat to give them a bit of pep. Nice side dish as well.
Thanks Choclette :))
Choclette says
Yay, a fellow heat lover. I have to confess, sometimes we do open a tin of baked beans, but when we do, we always add chilli sauce. It makes them so much more interesting.
sherry says
I love beans on toast esp. with some cheese – put under the grill…
Choclette says
You know I’ve never tried adding cheese and grilling. I surely will now.
Helen Portas says
These sound delicious! I’ll be making these for sure!
Choclette says
Lovely. Hope you enjoy them Helen and let me know what you think.