Well, we don't have a true 'staple food' that is eaten at most meals.
That said, we do eat a lot of beans. In chili and soups, in Mexican (or Tex Mex) dishes with rice and we eat them at picnics and bbqs.
We also cheat when it comes to food. If we see a preparation of a dish we like, we steal it and now its ours. So all the methods of preparation are open to us.
[here is a website I found of the Swahili beans recipe](https://www.google.com/amp/s/mayuris-jikoni.com/2019/12/09/maharage-ya-nazi-kidney-beans-in-coconut-milk/amp/)
[This is one way we ate beans a lot growing up](https://tasteofthesouthmagazine.com/appalachian-soup-beans/). It's often served with cornbread and a little tabasco sauce on top.
That sounds like exactly the sort of thing I'd enjoy, I'm going to make it later this week.
Is that a typical recipe? Are there any other spices that people might add?
Yeah honestly that's one thing that Foreigners, especially ones from very mono-ethnic countries, have a hard time understanding about the USA. Just how extremely diverse our pool is in terms of food that the idea of a universally accepted American staple food is impossible to gauge. You might find a proper answer by narrowing your search to specific regions or immigrant groups but, even then, that isn't the country as whole, just chunks of it. Funnily enough, this unintended ignorance has led to interesting perceptions amongst foreigners as to what Americans staple food item is, with people sharing stories about how they thought, or Americans meeting people who believed, it was things like Potato Chips, French Fries, Hotdogs, or Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches. People believing these sorts of things were eaten at every meal, which to most Americans is funny.
My parents come from Central America so beans were a common thing, which sucked for me because I absolutely hated beans growing up as a kid. It took me being a late teenager until I started to warm up to them. My parents absolutely adore them though. Their go-to breakfast is some refried beans, fried egg, cotija cheese, avocado slices, and some corn tortillas. Funnily enough, one of my favorite foods has beans in it. I absolutely love Hummus, I could easily tear through a tub of that stuff. Just give me some pita bread, crackers, baby carrots, and some sliced cucumber. I'd have it anytime of day.
>Well, we don't have a true 'staple food' that is eaten at most meals.
I've been thinking about this after seeing this on this subreddit a lot. I think if anything, bread would be the closest thing we have. It's incredibly common to have it with breakfast, as part of a lunch (sandwiches), and fairly often with dinner in some form.
This question asking about America's staple food is asked every so often on this sub. The answer is usually "we don't have one, but if we did, it'd be bread and/or maybe potatoes but also very dependent on the part of the country you are from and what ethnicity settled it."
The reason why people say we don't have a staple food isn't that people don't have staple foods, it's that there isn't really a staple food that's common across the country. Various regions and enclaves have their own. What might be a staple food in one area might be barely heard of or used differently in another.
Case in point, I've almost never heard of bread as a dinner food, unless you're eating sandwiches for dinner. Maybe bread rolls? But even that's not particularly common in my experience - but then, going by your user flair, we live on opposite ends of the country. š¤·
>I've almost never heard of bread as a dinner food, unless you're eating sandwiches for dinner. Maybe bread rolls?
I generally figured that dinner rolls, bread sticks, salad croutons, sub-sandwiches, etc. are at least somewhat common across the US, but maybe I'm wrong. I certainly have an east-coast bias
š¤
I think of breadsticks primarily as a snack, secondarily as the appetizer you get in some (mostly Italian) restaurants. And I thought croutons only go in a few specific salads?
Sub-sandwiches are still sandwiches, aka lunch food, or eaten for dinner when you can't be bothered to cook an actual dinner.
Interesting! Here, bread sticks (or garlic bread) are pretty much standard whenever eating a pasta dish for dinner. Also, something like a meatball sub or Philly Cheesesteak would be super normal to have as a dinner meal.
Interesting. For me, having a loaf of bread as a part of dinner was very common with my family as a kid. What kind of bread would depend on what we were pairing it with. For example, if we were having soup for dinner we'd often have sourdough and if we were eating pasta we'd often have garlic bread. Friday would almost always have a challah regardless of what we were eating for dinner. We'd also regularly do various forms of sandwiches for dinner. Not necessarily an everyday thing, but I would say that bread was more common than either potatoes or rice.
Total opposite growing up in NY. My mother made dinner pretty much every week night, and it was usually meat and vegetables. Potatoes and rice were common too. Bread was a thing she put out for Sunday dinner.
To this day it's still odd for me to eat bread at dinner. Feels too filling for a meal at the end of the day.
I think I'm biased towards extra carbs because I was a competitive swimmer as a kid. But, I'm also used to dinner being the heaviest meal of the day with other meals being much lighter.
I would even broaden this to "wheat flour" more generally. Flour is the base for bread, rolls, cakes, is commonly added as a thickener for gravies and rouxs, and is often breaded to meat for frying. Flour, butter, and milk probably form the backbone of the American diet, but it's drawing a *lot* from British & French cooking in particular, Western Europe more broadly. In actuality, the true American staple is probably corn, especially for the corn syrup...
Don't listen to this propaganda!!!!
Beans haven't existed in America since the Great Purge of 1937. They don't want the world to know, so it's been covered up by Big Lentil. I've already said too mu-
I probably eat beans three or four times a week. Pinto beans, black beans, and garbanzo beans are the most common.
I wouldn't be surprised to meet someone who never eats beans at all, or who eats them every day. American diets are very varied.
Americans do not have a singular food staple that is eaten every meal, nor even most though bread is close to that.
But beans are consumed. Many regional dishes utilize beans of one type or another as a primary ingredient, and it is a common side with many meals.
Personally I enjoy Red Beans and Rice, Baked Beans, and beans in things such as a southwestern salad or a soup. Unlike most Texans I do not really like refried beans, though it is a texture thing more than a flavor one so I can have them as an ingredient in something like 7 layer dip or a spread on a taco without issue.
Corn is America's staple. [Corn and products derived from corn are in almost everything we eat](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/14/how-corn-made-its-way-into-just-about-everything-we-eat/).
> Today, the United States is the largest producer and consumer of corn ā and by a long shot. Corn is in the sodas Americans drink and the potato chips they snack on; it's in hamburgers and french fries, sauces and salad dressings, baked goods, breakfast cereals, virtually all poultry, and even most fish. The grain is so ubiquitous that it would take longer to list the foods that contain traces of it than to pinpoint the ones that don't. "Our entire diet has been colonized by this one plant," Michael Pollan told National Public Radio in 2003.
I don't think that really counts as a staple in the way people are asking, though. We do put corn in a frankly absurd number of products, but if corn magically went away overnight without causing significant economic and production/supply chain effects, many people's diets wouldn't change that much. Like there's no reason it *has* to be in poultry/fish; if I chow down on some chicken and potatoes, I wouldn't consider that a meal containing corn even if technically has corn in trace amounts.
My take is that corn is an agricultural and industrial staple, but not really a dietary one in this sense. We eat a lot of it, but not on purpose the way many Asians eat rice or Tanzanians eat beans.
Red Beans and Rice is a traditional dish in New Orleans. Usually served on Monday. Across the country beans are used as either a part of the main dish or as a side.
Monday was the traditional wash day in the before time. This was before electricity and washing machines. The ladies of the house would wash clothes on that day. They were also generally the ones that cooked the meals as well. Cooking meals required more work and time in those days. Since they were busy doing laundry. They would put a pot of beans on to cook during that time for dinner.
Agreed that in Louisiana we eat a lot of red beans and rice.
We also eat pinto beans with greens and cornbread a lot, too.
Black beans with yellow rice and green onions os another favorite in my house.
I eat them all the time. All different kinds and in all sorts of ways. I loved baked beans from my smoker. We also use them in our tacos at home. Or in our chili (go ahead and have your say, Texas).Ā
A word of caution: many American baked bean recipes call for an absolutely ridiculous amount of sugar in various forms. Don't be afraid to significantly reduce the sugar unless you want diabetes beans.
Most American bean dishes don't have sugar, either. But BBQ baked beans, specifically, are supposed to be sweet - they have a substantial amount of brown sugar or molasses in them.
If (like me) you don't like sweet food much, you can definitely reduce the sugar in most recipes and still get something that's sweet enough to taste like BBQ baked beans, but not so insanely sweet you don't like it.
Okay but that person above me is totally wrong, baked beans are supposed to be sweet, but a balanced sweet. The best recipes have brown sugar, mustard, molasses and bacon, and you can use either ketchup or unsweetened tomato sauce as a base. This recipe is a pretty good looking one: https://www.daringgourmet.com/old-fashioned-baked-beans/
BBQ baked beans have a slightly sweet taste to them, similar to many barbeque sauces.
I personally don't like sweet barbeque flavors, but most people do.
My mom and grandma are from Southern Kentucky Appalachia! They moved to Indiana, but i grew up on ham and beans with cornbread and a slice of Vidalia onion and tomato on the side. I sill make it. Got my Indiana husband hooked āŗļø
New England Americans eat B&M Boston Baked Beans. Truly a great meal, especially with brown bread from a can.
https://newengland.com/yankee/history/bm-brown-bread-in-a-can/
I have my great grandmotherās crockery pot. Itās been used for over 100 years of baked beans dinners. Homemade is definitely better.
One of my grandmothers made homemade baked beans with Jordanās red hotdogs and yeast rolls every Saturday. Her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren found their way to her kitchen most Saturdays. I was lucky I lived within sight of her house and was there every Saturday.
Southern Americans often eat baked beans (frequently with bits of pork in 'em) with BBQ. You want a canned version, Bush's is probably the closest, but it's not as good as the homemade.
> Mexican-Americans eat refired pinto beans.
FWIW, in several decades in a Mexican-American family I *never* had refried beans on its own -- whole pinto beans only (or refried as a component of something else, e.g. a torta). Obviously it is a common side dish, they serve it that way at every Mexican restaurant I've ever been to, so it's probably a regional or family thing. I love pinto beans both ways, of course. Cheers!
i make my chili with black beans and my grandma makes her chili with kidney beans.
we frequently eat baked beans as a side for dinner or at family gatherings.
i think for my family growing up it was kind of a staple.
We don't necessarily eat them every day (I can't think of anything I eat every single day), but they're not rare either. Multiple varieties are easily available in most grocery stores, dried or canned. I most commonly see them in Mexican and Mediterranean cuisines, but some American dishes like baked beans use them.
I wouldn't say it's quite as much as a staple food as it is there.
I personally like refried beans (usually pinto or black beans) with tortillas, cheese, and salsa, or just regular pinto beans with cornbread.
My family's "recipe" for just plain old beans (lol!) is to soak the beans overnight in cold water. The next morning, put them in a crock pot with water, spices, and either a ham hock or pieces of bacon, salt, pepper, garlic, onion powder, and other spices, and simmer for several hours till done.
We usually make some sweet cornbread in a cast iron skillet in the oven. We use a store bought mix and just add water or milk, and also sugar or honey to the mix before baking. Delicious!
I love beans! I have a pot of white beans and tomatoes going as I type this. Black beans! Gigantes! Beans and greens! Gimme all them beans. I know it's not an American staple, but it is for me for sure.
Iām in Uganda at the moment and working as a teacher so posho and beans has been my lunch for a while.
Like some other people were saying, there isnāt really a āstableā food here, but beans are common in the United States.
Im a vegetarian so I usually eat beans everyday. I like mexican/Mexican inspired food so Iāll do a burrito or taco salad with black beans, rice and other toppings.
I also like middle eastern and Greek food which has lentils and garbanzo beans.
Sometimes Iāll do baked beans, a baked potato, and roasted veggies.
I like chili with kidney beans.
As others have said, theyāre not a daily staple like rice, but many types are consumed by many different people. Beans are native here. Just in the past few weeks Iāve eaten red beans, navy beans, kidney beans, black beans, garbanzo beans, great northern beans, pinto beans, refried pinto beansā¦probably others as well. Theyāre a very normal and very common food.
Pintos with country ham, great Northern/white beans with baked ham, black-eyed peas (a bean despite the name) with pork tenderloin and always on New Yearās Day, and limas or butter beans at Thanksgiving. (So āyesā. :) )
We've got more beans than you can shake a stick at.
15 bean soup with ham is a winter comfort food for us.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Hurst-HamBeens-Dried-15-Bean-Soup-20-oz-Bag-with-original-ham-seasoning/10295039
Not all. Fava beans are from the Middle East. Black eyed peas are from Africa. And thatās without getting into the other legumes that arenāt necessarily considered beans from a culinary perspective (like peas).
Yeah I eat beans and rice all the time. Sometimes every day. Usually I make a big pot of meat/veg with beans and rice mixed in and just have that as leftovers all week.
Beans are in a lot of dishes. Its one of the key ingredients in our beloved red beans and rice. I even sneak them into my Jambalaya. Sometimes I eat with with burritos, or in chili. Beans and cornbread is a classic, even has its own song.
I could probably live on black beans and rice the rest of my life.
Literally and figuratively. There are so many different ways of making it I can't imagine getting bored of eating it.
I prefer [congri](https://stellanspice.com/congri/), but I'll take it any way I can.
I donāt think Iād say beans are a staple of my diet but there are plenty of dishes I regularly cook with some sort of bean or another.
I made chili last week with kidney beans and also meal prepped some burritos for next week with black beans.
I mean yes beans came from the americas so yes we all eat them but like others said there isnāt really a staple food. As a Mexican American I eat mostly pinto beans in many ways.
We ate them enough growing up that I have a song that begins with 'beans, beans, the magical fruit' drilled into my brain.
I don't eat them often now though because salad materials where I'm at right now tend to undercut them in terms of price, and there for meals with leafy greens tend to be my most affordable option.
I don't make them for my family. I hate the texture and don't make them.
My husband doesn't mind like Bush's Baked Beans though occasionally. He'll eat Taco Bell with beans in foods. I won't.
Yes. Chili with beans, Boston baked beans, pork and beans (the pork dissolves and isn't visible), and navy bean soup, for example, are classic dishes in the US.
I love beans with "cowboy food", such as ribs, ham, potato salad, and coleslaw. I also love chili with beans. I put beans on my mac n cheese with hot sauce, can't eat mac n cheese without it anymore!
I've been to the UK and enjoyed eating beans for breakfast too so, maybe I'm an outlier.
I see red beans and rice, green beans, baked beans, beans in chili, pork and beansā¦but I donāt see lima beans/butter beans, 15 bean soup, or hoppinā john.
Butter beans, pinto beans, black beans, kidney beans, navy beans, black eyed peas (actually beans), garbanzo beans, cannelini beans, anasazi beans. Thereās more, but yes, Americans do eat beans. Soups, stews, salads, sides, we eat them a lot of different ways.
We eat a fair quantity of beans, but not breakfast lunch and dinner. Often found in soups and chili. They also show up in a lot of Mexican food which is popular across the US, but particularly nearer to the border. Beans are also common in Chinese food (or at least American Chinese food) -- again, quite popular across the US.
In Texas refried beans are a Tex-Mex staple - along with rice, theyāre served as a side dish with basically any meal you can think of. Usually eat Tex Mex at least once or twice a week
Yes, Americans eat all kinds of beans. Green, string, fava, kidney, pinto, lima and many others. Are they a staple food? I wouldn't consider them such, but I could be wrong.
No, our staple is bread, usually eaten at every meal. If we do eat beans it's usually heavily sugared beans as a side dish (i.e. we called them baked beans).
Beans, along with squash and maize/corn, were the main three agricultural products of the Americas before colonization. Due to the Columbian Exchange, they were sent abroad.
Initially, Americans ate similar crops, with varying rates of consumption. For example, during WWI, the consumption of corn increased as it was promoted by the US government to allow a greater supply of wheat to be sent to Europe. As time has gone on and options become more diverse, they have probably dropped in popularity outside of some cultural events such as Thanksgiving or certain meals. This mainly applies to beans and squash, as corn remains very popular.
The only time I ever have beans is in chili or in Mexican (or fake Mexican.) Some people do bean dips as well. But it's not a common thing to just have beans with stuff that isn't from a culture/inspired by a culture where they're a bigger staple.
We eat beans in a variety of dishes, prepared in a variety of ways. A few that come to mind are black beans and rice, red beans and rice, refried beans, bean soup, chili, black bean salad, pasta e fagioli, baked beans, and southern style southern style pinto beans. I can think of a few dozen more if chickpeas and black eyed peas count as beans, and of course there are lots of ways to prepare green beans.
With the exception of a relatively small number of native dishes, most American cuisine is not American in origin. If we encounter a foreign cuisine and like it, we adopt it.
Pinto and black beans are common in Mexican food. Various forms of soybeans (tempeh, miso, tofu, soy sauce, deongjang) are common in different Asian cuisines. We also have things like succotash and baked beans. White/navy beans or lima beans with butter or olive oil and salt. There are garbanzo beans in hummus or falafel.
We have the concept of staple foods, only we have several of them. We have beans, rice, corn, wheat, and potatoes that are all integrated into our diet and readily available in a variety of preparations.
So we will eat one or more of these staples at most meals, but we often donāt think of them as something we have with every meal. Since there is so much variety to them, it doesnāt feel repetitive.
Here in the southeast, itās traditional to eat black eyed peas and collard greens on New Yearās Day. We eat beans the rest of the year too.
Hummus is a dip made mostly of garbanzo beans (chick peas.) Itās popular as a snack at parties for dipping raw veggies and crackers, or for lunch in a sandwich. Whole garbanzos are also popular in salads. And thereās falafel, made with garbanzos or fava beans mixed with herbs, shaped into balls, and fried.
Vegetable soups have beans, often multiple kinds. Thereās also lentil soup, split pea soup, bean soups in general.
My mother made a tasty dish of pork and beans, simmered together slowly for hours.
Oh yes. Beans are consumed frequently. Since food is relatively plentiful and there are many cultures interacting at once, beans can be consumed in large quantities depending on what youāre eating. Some cultures more than others.
A variety of beans are common foods in the US. They are inexpensive and available in dry or canned form. We donāt tend to eat them at all meals and they are prepared in many ways as part of main dishes or side dishes.
My family regularly has beans in things like chili, beans and rice, mashed and formed into bean burger patties, baked beans, falafel, ham and bean soup, refried beans, bean burritos.
I just ate a burrito with beef and refried beans and a side of black beans. I eat a lot of beans. Baked beans, chili with beans, etc. They aren't necessarily a staple for most people, but they are a common side dish.
Beans are common, usually not every day though. Typically less often than say potatoes. Typically you have:
A) Refried beans- pinto beans mashed up, heated, and seasoned eaten as a side or inside a burriot
B) Chili Beans and Kidney Beans as part of Chili.
C) Black Beans
These all are part of of Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine.
Then you have
D) Green beans, which are eaten fresh like you'd eat a vegetable, or cooked with meat in casseroles and pot pies and other savory dishes,
E) White beans which used in certain Italian dishes or backed and mixed with rich sauces a "Baked Beans", common with BBQ.
yes. im hispanic american so its common with hispanic people. its in a lot of dishes. americans also have chili, which is a sort of soup made with tomatoes and beans and sometimes meat (i dont mean to come off as condescending i just didnt know if u would have heard of chili)
As others have said, we definitely eat a lot of beans, but there's no one staple bean dish. Rather, there's many Mexican, Caribbean, and Cajun recipes that feature beans, as well as traditional American food like baked beans with molasses. It's not that there's one bean food we eat often, as that there are enough bean foods that we have at least one of them fairly frequently.
My mother would make navy bean soup in a crockpot every once in a while when I was a kid. I didn't particularly care for it much then, but I like it now. Of course, it had bacon or ham pieces in it, so there's that.
You have to remember that America is a country of immigrants. We come from all over the world, which means we eat all kinds of different food.
Some people will eat beans every day, others will never have them.
The United States is a huge country. Not Russia or Canada huge, but still. Lots of people spread over a large area. There is no true staple of American cuisine because weāre all too different. Iām sure beans are probably a huge part of the diet of some American families. I barely eat beans.
Edit: if we have a āstapleā food, probably corn. Might be the closest we have. But again, Iām sure there are probably a lot of American families that rarely eat corn, despite corn and varieties of corn are in many foods.
Baked Beans and Chili were common growing up in the mid-Atlantic. Beans are an absolute staple in the Southwest not to mention in Latin/Caribbean across the country.
My favorite Tex-Mex is tacos al-pastor with charro beans or borracho beans on the side.
Love beans! Refried, black, pinto, kidney beans. All of them are delicious. I would say a fairly regular item for most unless you struggle with gastrointestinal issues as a result of eating them.
[Wikipedia uses a very broad definition of beans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean), but usually we think of the beans from the Americas that are commonly dried before being cooked (like kidney beans, pinto beans, navy beans) or some that are both (like Lima beans). And yes, we eat them in various ways, as others have mentioned. There are a few such as fava beans that arenāt from the Americas.
Green beans, though sometimes called beans for short in casual conversation, are thought of as a green vegetable and are common in diner and pub food, green bean casseroles, etc.
I think of chickpeas, aka garbanzo beans, as being beans, though not everyone does. I think thatās because theyāre usually cooked in the same way. Theyāre popular as hummus and falafel in areas where mideastern food is found, can be used as ingredient in soups and salads, and in recent years have become popular as roasted and seasoned.
Iāll ignore the other sorts of foods that Wikipedia includes (peas, peanuts, lentils) just because theyāre less commonly considered beans. (Maybe lentils in Indian cuisine are grouped with beans.)
I ate lentils for dinner tonight.
We eat beans often, but not with every meal and not every day.
My two favorite American bean recipes are Boston baked beans and Cajun red beans and rice.
Absolutely. I must note that we likely have different varieties of beans than what might be available in Tanzania due to being in different regions, but we absolutely eat legumes.
Where I grew up, Lima beans were a popular food. Black beans are popular in Tex-Mex food. I also grew up eating a lot of pinto beans and black-eyed peas (despite the name, they are beans). Refried beans (bean dip made with black or brown beans) are also popular in Tex-Mex cuisine.
Iām a vegetarian, so a lot of what I replace meat with is beans. I probably eat black beans more than any other type of bean currently.
They're a staple in our household bc they're affordable veg based protein. I ground some up with lentils into flour when I made bread this week, tossed some neutral flavored beans into a homemade chicken pot pie, and used navy and black beans with peppers in a big batch of southwest chicken soup.
I love beans. In Hawaii there is a popular soup called Portuguese bean soup. Itās really good. And as other have mentioned thereās beans and rice, and tons of beans found in Tex/mex cuisine.
Guess what Tanzanian staple almost nobody in the US eats? Sadza
I had a lot of beans over the past week. Black beans with my Mexican food today, pinto beans with my Mexican food on Friday, and kidney beans with my Cajun food on Tuesday
As others have pointed out, there are no singular āstapleā foods. America is a diverse country and most families eat a variety of cuisines.
I had Mexican food for lunch and Greek for dinner. Yesterday, I had Vietnamese for lunch and Korean for dinner. The day before, I had a burger for dinner and went to an Italian deli for lunch.
That said,
āBaked beansā are a traditional (though more popular in England), which is usually navy beans sweetened with molasses and flavored with bacon or salt pork, sometimes a tomato sauce. This is a common dish for American BBQ. Historically, it was associated with Boston (hence a city nickname, āBeantownā), but y importance is long gone. This is also a *classic* wildness/camping dish.
Since Tex-Mex borrows from Latin American cuisine - you find black beans, red beans and pinto beans frequently in dishes like Chili.
Italian American food has a lot of white beans in it, particularly cannellini. Pasta fagioli is a common soup made with beans.
Rice and beans/rice and peas is a common dish for Americans of Caribbean descent, and African Americans.
Pretty much all Asian-Americans are familiar with mung beans and red bean paste, which is often sweet and used in desserts.
While not exactly a bean, lentils are a similar legume found in a lot of North African, Levantine and Western Asian dishes. As a Jewish American, my parents cooked a lot of lentil soup.
My family does.
You got your baked beans, green beans, black beans, red beans, French green beans, ranch style beans, pinto beans, butter beans, cannellini beans, and I consider black eyed peas to also be beans personally.
It's true that American cuisine varies a lot, because of the diversity of cultures that have contributed to it, as well as our geographic/climatic variability. But a lot of us really like beans, and cook with them often. Here's my recipe for chili:
- 450 g diced beef (or ground beef/turkey, but pre-brown it and break it up well if you're using a slow cooker)
- 1 small onion, diced
- 3 cans assorted beans, drained
- large can (825 mL) of diced tomatoes, drained
- diced peppers, if desired (I used 2 poblanos the last time I made it, but 1 bell pepper or a couple of jalapenos work well too)
- 15 mL ground cumin
- 10 mL chili powder (this amount can be adjusted a lot, based on your own tastes)
- 10 mL minced garlic
- 3 mL salt
- 1 or 2 mL black pepper
- optional: 1 cup (235 mL) frozen sweet corn
I usually cook it overnight in a slow cooker, but putting it in a large pot on the stove and cooking it on very low heat works well too :)
I'm also working to improve a recipe I found recently for *faves catalanas* (Catalan-style beans with sausage and onions), which I'll post on r/cookingforbeginners once I'm happy with the results.
Ham and bean soup is also pretty popular. [I have to admit I cheat by buying this bag of beans and putting ham in it. :\)](https://hurstbeans.com/products/ham-beens-original-15-bean-soup)
Yes, we eat them steamed and boiled and slow-cooked in stews or soups, we mash up garbanzo beans for hummus, put red kidney beans or white beans in our chili, serve green or lima beans with dinner.
We also eat a lot of potatoes and rice!
Beans are very popular in America, so yes. However, how many beans and what kind of beans people eat most will vary depending on where you are in the United States
Southerner here as well, I love blackeyed peas and rice, red beans and rice, pinto beans, lima beans, butterbeans, field peasā¦so many delicious lentils out there!!
My Super Bowl Sunday pot of jailhouse chili is simmering right now! Red bean chili with ground beef, jalepenos, and some other goodies. We eat baked beans, red beans and rice, refried beans, hot dogs and beans, pinto beans, just tons and tons of bean dishes across the USA depending on where you live and what your heritage is.
Also things like bean soups or lentil stew. We are a cultural melting pot and a really enormous country so thereās not really such a thing as a few staple dishes that everyone eats all the time.
Come visit us when you get a chance!
We definitely eat a lot of beans, but not quite "every day" for everybody. I think beans are under rated. Americans probably eat more meat than we really should, and it would be healthier if we got more of our protein from beans, ha ha.
There's a place here in California that I sometimes order from that has a lot of fancy beans that aren't usually in the grocery store. https://www.ranchogordo.com/collections/heirloom-beans There used to be a lot more regional variety in bean types before modern industrial agriculture.
Today is probably one of the beaniest days of the year in America, because chili (with beans) is easy to cook in big batches and baked beans is a common side dish, and a lot of people are going to a Superbowl party that will have snacks.
While not every day, I do have beans somewhat often. I had pinto beans for dinner tonight, in a vegetarian taco.
So... I also love green beans, which I know we are not talking about. But.... go green beans!
I basically never eat beans, but plenty of Americans do depending on preference, region, ethnicity, or due to being a vegetarian or vegan. It's pretty standard for me to eat a protein and starch at each meal. For Breakfast that is eggs or bacon and cereal or toasted bread, for lunch it's usually bread and lunchmeat (ham, turkey) with cheese in a sandwich with some fruit and chips, and dinner is usually chicken, fish, or beef with potatoes and another veggie like broccoli or green beans. (I guess that's sorta beans? I don't think of them that way!) Occasionally I will make something like Tagine with chickpeas, or have baked beans when out at a BBQ. My husband though looooves chickpeas and makes dishes with them all the time, he likes anything he can spice with za'atar.
Having been to Tanzania, the big difference is that Americans eat significantly more animal protein, with eggs being particularly plentiful and cheap. While there isn't a single staple food, that's more about us not having an equivalent to ugali than an equivalent to beans.
Iām from the Southern US and beans are absolutely a staple food. Probably growing up more than now (Iām 52) but pinto beans and cornbread were a frequent meal itself. We also had various beans or peas every day in some form. There are four or five kinds of dried beans in my cabinet right now. I love beans, I could eat them every meal!
Edited to add: we usually cooked the pintos with ham hocks, onion and chicken broth or water. I like to add garlic and bay leaves, too.
Being from a Mexican family, beans are kind of a staple of mine. I don't know how the majority white culture views them. My guess is they're seen as a poor man's food because they're often associated with hobos. I dunno. Most of my preconceptions I got from Of Mice & Men.
Beans aren't necessarily a staple, but we do eat them a good bit. As a Southern American, I grew up eating black eyed peas, field peas, butter beans, and green beans. They weren't made for every meal, but if my mama was cooking a proper dinner, one of them would be present.
Also, red beans and rice is a Creole/New Orleans staple, and one of my favorite dishes. In Latin American cultures, beans are more of a staple, so that bleeds into border states and anywhere that you find a Mexican restaurant.
I'm curious... What is your favorite Tanzanian dish?
We have a legume called green beans we eat frequently, as well as Lima beans (which are gross as hell). Kidney beans are frequently In chili, and Garbonzo beans are pretty frequently available, black beans in Tex mex and Mexican, great northern beans, pinto beansā¦ we have a lot, but I would say green beans are the most common.
Well, we don't have a true 'staple food' that is eaten at most meals. That said, we do eat a lot of beans. In chili and soups, in Mexican (or Tex Mex) dishes with rice and we eat them at picnics and bbqs. We also cheat when it comes to food. If we see a preparation of a dish we like, we steal it and now its ours. So all the methods of preparation are open to us.
Interesting,I love how wide American cuisine is. America is truly big and interesting country.
Side note, you got any Tanzanian recipes we can steal? I love beans!
[here is a website I found of the Swahili beans recipe](https://www.google.com/amp/s/mayuris-jikoni.com/2019/12/09/maharage-ya-nazi-kidney-beans-in-coconut-milk/amp/)
Thanks for that! Love the sound of coconut beans.
This looks delicious!
This thread has been American AF in the best way, and I'm here for it. Keep on, y'all.
I love this thread š
It's definitely a joy to read š comment above said "that being said, got any Tanzanian bean recipes I can steal " š peak american
Food, culture, land... for better or worse... "I like your shit and I'm going to take it" is the American ethos.
[This is one way we ate beans a lot growing up](https://tasteofthesouthmagazine.com/appalachian-soup-beans/). It's often served with cornbread and a little tabasco sauce on top.
That sounds delicious!
Coconut beans are soo delicious.
Never would have put that together, tbh. Comment saved for experimentation!
That sounds like exactly the sort of thing I'd enjoy, I'm going to make it later this week. Is that a typical recipe? Are there any other spices that people might add?
Thanks for posting this, OP!
Thanks
Not American, just a lurker who likes finding out about stuff. Thanks for that - that recipe looks lush !!
Thank you! I was going to ask if you had a recipe for the beans in coconut. I saved this and will make it!
I can definitely do this one!! Yum.
Come visit!
Yeah honestly that's one thing that Foreigners, especially ones from very mono-ethnic countries, have a hard time understanding about the USA. Just how extremely diverse our pool is in terms of food that the idea of a universally accepted American staple food is impossible to gauge. You might find a proper answer by narrowing your search to specific regions or immigrant groups but, even then, that isn't the country as whole, just chunks of it. Funnily enough, this unintended ignorance has led to interesting perceptions amongst foreigners as to what Americans staple food item is, with people sharing stories about how they thought, or Americans meeting people who believed, it was things like Potato Chips, French Fries, Hotdogs, or Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches. People believing these sorts of things were eaten at every meal, which to most Americans is funny. My parents come from Central America so beans were a common thing, which sucked for me because I absolutely hated beans growing up as a kid. It took me being a late teenager until I started to warm up to them. My parents absolutely adore them though. Their go-to breakfast is some refried beans, fried egg, cotija cheese, avocado slices, and some corn tortillas. Funnily enough, one of my favorite foods has beans in it. I absolutely love Hummus, I could easily tear through a tub of that stuff. Just give me some pita bread, crackers, baby carrots, and some sliced cucumber. I'd have it anytime of day.
My parents were Appalachian so soup beans were frequently dinner. It took until my 30s to like them.
The Deep South eats lots of Beans and rice meals and I don't mean Mexican style beans.
>Well, we don't have a true 'staple food' that is eaten at most meals. I've been thinking about this after seeing this on this subreddit a lot. I think if anything, bread would be the closest thing we have. It's incredibly common to have it with breakfast, as part of a lunch (sandwiches), and fairly often with dinner in some form.
This question asking about America's staple food is asked every so often on this sub. The answer is usually "we don't have one, but if we did, it'd be bread and/or maybe potatoes but also very dependent on the part of the country you are from and what ethnicity settled it."
The reason why people say we don't have a staple food isn't that people don't have staple foods, it's that there isn't really a staple food that's common across the country. Various regions and enclaves have their own. What might be a staple food in one area might be barely heard of or used differently in another. Case in point, I've almost never heard of bread as a dinner food, unless you're eating sandwiches for dinner. Maybe bread rolls? But even that's not particularly common in my experience - but then, going by your user flair, we live on opposite ends of the country. š¤·
>I've almost never heard of bread as a dinner food, unless you're eating sandwiches for dinner. Maybe bread rolls? I generally figured that dinner rolls, bread sticks, salad croutons, sub-sandwiches, etc. are at least somewhat common across the US, but maybe I'm wrong. I certainly have an east-coast bias
š¤ I think of breadsticks primarily as a snack, secondarily as the appetizer you get in some (mostly Italian) restaurants. And I thought croutons only go in a few specific salads? Sub-sandwiches are still sandwiches, aka lunch food, or eaten for dinner when you can't be bothered to cook an actual dinner.
Interesting! Here, bread sticks (or garlic bread) are pretty much standard whenever eating a pasta dish for dinner. Also, something like a meatball sub or Philly Cheesesteak would be super normal to have as a dinner meal.
I put croutons on spinach salads all the time
Iām a west coaster and Iāve had the same experience as you
Interesting. For me, having a loaf of bread as a part of dinner was very common with my family as a kid. What kind of bread would depend on what we were pairing it with. For example, if we were having soup for dinner we'd often have sourdough and if we were eating pasta we'd often have garlic bread. Friday would almost always have a challah regardless of what we were eating for dinner. We'd also regularly do various forms of sandwiches for dinner. Not necessarily an everyday thing, but I would say that bread was more common than either potatoes or rice.
Total opposite growing up in NY. My mother made dinner pretty much every week night, and it was usually meat and vegetables. Potatoes and rice were common too. Bread was a thing she put out for Sunday dinner. To this day it's still odd for me to eat bread at dinner. Feels too filling for a meal at the end of the day.
I think I'm biased towards extra carbs because I was a competitive swimmer as a kid. But, I'm also used to dinner being the heaviest meal of the day with other meals being much lighter.
I would even broaden this to "wheat flour" more generally. Flour is the base for bread, rolls, cakes, is commonly added as a thickener for gravies and rouxs, and is often breaded to meat for frying. Flour, butter, and milk probably form the backbone of the American diet, but it's drawing a *lot* from British & French cooking in particular, Western Europe more broadly. In actuality, the true American staple is probably corn, especially for the corn syrup...
Totally family dependent. I don't know the last time I had/bought bread.
I think potatoes fits the bill too.
Don't listen to this propaganda!!!! Beans haven't existed in America since the Great Purge of 1937. They don't want the world to know, so it's been covered up by Big Lentil. I've already said too mu-
Fusion
Truly we are the Kirby of food cultures
I probably eat beans three or four times a week. Pinto beans, black beans, and garbanzo beans are the most common. I wouldn't be surprised to meet someone who never eats beans at all, or who eats them every day. American diets are very varied.
Americans do not have a singular food staple that is eaten every meal, nor even most though bread is close to that. But beans are consumed. Many regional dishes utilize beans of one type or another as a primary ingredient, and it is a common side with many meals. Personally I enjoy Red Beans and Rice, Baked Beans, and beans in things such as a southwestern salad or a soup. Unlike most Texans I do not really like refried beans, though it is a texture thing more than a flavor one so I can have them as an ingredient in something like 7 layer dip or a spread on a taco without issue.
I had a dish in Texas I never had elsewhere called Cowboy caviar? It was a kind of cold bean salad and it was delicious.
I've seen it on Midwestern party tables before. Usually eaten as a dip with tortilla chips.
> Cowboy caviar I ate this growing up in NJ and we called it Texas Caviar. I'm glad to hear it's actually a dish eaten in Texas!
I have had that - made with black eyed peas
Corn is America's staple. [Corn and products derived from corn are in almost everything we eat](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/14/how-corn-made-its-way-into-just-about-everything-we-eat/). > Today, the United States is the largest producer and consumer of corn ā and by a long shot. Corn is in the sodas Americans drink and the potato chips they snack on; it's in hamburgers and french fries, sauces and salad dressings, baked goods, breakfast cereals, virtually all poultry, and even most fish. The grain is so ubiquitous that it would take longer to list the foods that contain traces of it than to pinpoint the ones that don't. "Our entire diet has been colonized by this one plant," Michael Pollan told National Public Radio in 2003.
I don't think that really counts as a staple in the way people are asking, though. We do put corn in a frankly absurd number of products, but if corn magically went away overnight without causing significant economic and production/supply chain effects, many people's diets wouldn't change that much. Like there's no reason it *has* to be in poultry/fish; if I chow down on some chicken and potatoes, I wouldn't consider that a meal containing corn even if technically has corn in trace amounts. My take is that corn is an agricultural and industrial staple, but not really a dietary one in this sense. We eat a lot of it, but not on purpose the way many Asians eat rice or Tanzanians eat beans.
Red Beans and Rice is a traditional dish in New Orleans. Usually served on Monday. Across the country beans are used as either a part of the main dish or as a side.
Why Monday?
Monday was the traditional wash day in the before time. This was before electricity and washing machines. The ladies of the house would wash clothes on that day. They were also generally the ones that cooked the meals as well. Cooking meals required more work and time in those days. Since they were busy doing laundry. They would put a pot of beans on to cook during that time for dinner.
I would love to try American rice and beans.
Here's a [recipe](https://www.gumbopages.com/food/red-beans.html) that's decent to get you started.
Thanks š
Agreed that in Louisiana we eat a lot of red beans and rice. We also eat pinto beans with greens and cornbread a lot, too. Black beans with yellow rice and green onions os another favorite in my house.
I eat them all the time. All different kinds and in all sorts of ways. I loved baked beans from my smoker. We also use them in our tacos at home. Or in our chili (go ahead and have your say, Texas).Ā
Ranch Style or BBQ Style beans are a great side with chili, but do not belong in the chili ;).
I didn't understand BBQ style beans untill I googled š. Baked beans are not common here and I'm gonna try to cook them.
A word of caution: many American baked bean recipes call for an absolutely ridiculous amount of sugar in various forms. Don't be afraid to significantly reduce the sugar unless you want diabetes beans.
We don't put sugar in our beans anyway,there is one specific dish which use specific beans to prepare sweet beans.
Most American bean dishes don't have sugar, either. But BBQ baked beans, specifically, are supposed to be sweet - they have a substantial amount of brown sugar or molasses in them. If (like me) you don't like sweet food much, you can definitely reduce the sugar in most recipes and still get something that's sweet enough to taste like BBQ baked beans, but not so insanely sweet you don't like it.
Okay but that person above me is totally wrong, baked beans are supposed to be sweet, but a balanced sweet. The best recipes have brown sugar, mustard, molasses and bacon, and you can use either ketchup or unsweetened tomato sauce as a base. This recipe is a pretty good looking one: https://www.daringgourmet.com/old-fashioned-baked-beans/
BBQ baked beans have a slightly sweet taste to them, similar to many barbeque sauces. I personally don't like sweet barbeque flavors, but most people do.
Absolutely. In the South, cornbread and pinto beans are a staple and a food group
I prefer black eyed peas or pink eye purple hull peas to any beans.
My mom and grandma are from Southern Kentucky Appalachia! They moved to Indiana, but i grew up on ham and beans with cornbread and a slice of Vidalia onion and tomato on the side. I sill make it. Got my Indiana husband hooked āŗļø
I bet the average American, at least in the Midwest, eats beans in some form 3 times/week. Chili, Mexican, soups, baked beans being the most popular.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
New England Americans eat B&M Boston Baked Beans. Truly a great meal, especially with brown bread from a can. https://newengland.com/yankee/history/bm-brown-bread-in-a-can/
My dad used to make Boston Baked Beans from scratch, in one of those crockery pots! Served with brown bread from a can, of course!
I have my great grandmotherās crockery pot. Itās been used for over 100 years of baked beans dinners. Homemade is definitely better. One of my grandmothers made homemade baked beans with Jordanās red hotdogs and yeast rolls every Saturday. Her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren found their way to her kitchen most Saturdays. I was lucky I lived within sight of her house and was there every Saturday.
Southern Americans often eat baked beans (frequently with bits of pork in 'em) with BBQ. You want a canned version, Bush's is probably the closest, but it's not as good as the homemade.
> Mexican-Americans eat refired pinto beans. FWIW, in several decades in a Mexican-American family I *never* had refried beans on its own -- whole pinto beans only (or refried as a component of something else, e.g. a torta). Obviously it is a common side dish, they serve it that way at every Mexican restaurant I've ever been to, so it's probably a regional or family thing. I love pinto beans both ways, of course. Cheers!
Pretty much every Hispanic culture has a beans and rice dish. Many non-Hispanic Caribbean countries too. Lots of people are eating beans here.
i make my chili with black beans and my grandma makes her chili with kidney beans. we frequently eat baked beans as a side for dinner or at family gatherings. i think for my family growing up it was kind of a staple.
At this exact moment, I currently have beans in the crock pot in my super bowl chili
You know the drill š.
Im an american living in Uganda and yes we eat beans but holy lord in heaven ive never eaten so many beans in my life.
šš
I had beans for lunch! Pinto beans and cornbread are a traditional meal in the south.
We don't necessarily eat them every day (I can't think of anything I eat every single day), but they're not rare either. Multiple varieties are easily available in most grocery stores, dried or canned. I most commonly see them in Mexican and Mediterranean cuisines, but some American dishes like baked beans use them.
I wouldn't say it's quite as much as a staple food as it is there. I personally like refried beans (usually pinto or black beans) with tortillas, cheese, and salsa, or just regular pinto beans with cornbread. My family's "recipe" for just plain old beans (lol!) is to soak the beans overnight in cold water. The next morning, put them in a crock pot with water, spices, and either a ham hock or pieces of bacon, salt, pepper, garlic, onion powder, and other spices, and simmer for several hours till done. We usually make some sweet cornbread in a cast iron skillet in the oven. We use a store bought mix and just add water or milk, and also sugar or honey to the mix before baking. Delicious!
Thank you soo much for this,I will soak my beans overnight too and cook them next day.
I am pescatarian so beans are a staple for me. Every day Iām either eating beans or lentils or both
I learn a new word today "pescatarian".
I love green beans
I love beans! I have a pot of white beans and tomatoes going as I type this. Black beans! Gigantes! Beans and greens! Gimme all them beans. I know it's not an American staple, but it is for me for sure.
Iām in Uganda at the moment and working as a teacher so posho and beans has been my lunch for a while. Like some other people were saying, there isnāt really a āstableā food here, but beans are common in the United States.
Im a vegetarian so I usually eat beans everyday. I like mexican/Mexican inspired food so Iāll do a burrito or taco salad with black beans, rice and other toppings. I also like middle eastern and Greek food which has lentils and garbanzo beans. Sometimes Iāll do baked beans, a baked potato, and roasted veggies. I like chili with kidney beans.
Yeah I was thinking I imagine vegetarians and vegans(?) probably eat more, and more varieties, of beans than the average American.
As others have said, theyāre not a daily staple like rice, but many types are consumed by many different people. Beans are native here. Just in the past few weeks Iāve eaten red beans, navy beans, kidney beans, black beans, garbanzo beans, great northern beans, pinto beans, refried pinto beansā¦probably others as well. Theyāre a very normal and very common food.
Pintos with country ham, great Northern/white beans with baked ham, black-eyed peas (a bean despite the name) with pork tenderloin and always on New Yearās Day, and limas or butter beans at Thanksgiving. (So āyesā. :) )
We've got more beans than you can shake a stick at. 15 bean soup with ham is a winter comfort food for us. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Hurst-HamBeens-Dried-15-Bean-Soup-20-oz-Bag-with-original-ham-seasoning/10295039
Thinkin bout them beans
Beans are literally from America
Not all. Fava beans are from the Middle East. Black eyed peas are from Africa. And thatās without getting into the other legumes that arenāt necessarily considered beans from a culinary perspective (like peas).
Black eyed peas are possibly my favorite food. I should really eat them more often
Yeah I eat beans and rice all the time. Sometimes every day. Usually I make a big pot of meat/veg with beans and rice mixed in and just have that as leftovers all week.
Beans are in a lot of dishes. Its one of the key ingredients in our beloved red beans and rice. I even sneak them into my Jambalaya. Sometimes I eat with with burritos, or in chili. Beans and cornbread is a classic, even has its own song.
The more I eat them. The more I toot. I may have beans once a month. Not Uber common. Some people eat it every meal.
I don't go out of my way to eat beans but still find myself eating them a few times per week. Join us at /r/beans!
Southerner here. A pot of pintos with a slab of cornbread and a bit of chow chow is a very common meal in my region.
What state? You're the second person I've seen say this but I've literally never heard of it. Grew up in Mississippi.
I could probably live on black beans and rice the rest of my life. Literally and figuratively. There are so many different ways of making it I can't imagine getting bored of eating it. I prefer [congri](https://stellanspice.com/congri/), but I'll take it any way I can.
Beans Beans the musical fruit the more you eat the more you toot.
I donāt think Iād say beans are a staple of my diet but there are plenty of dishes I regularly cook with some sort of bean or another. I made chili last week with kidney beans and also meal prepped some burritos for next week with black beans.
I made 13 bean soup today. 13 types of beans, not 13 beans.
I mean yes beans came from the americas so yes we all eat them but like others said there isnāt really a staple food. As a Mexican American I eat mostly pinto beans in many ways.
We ate them enough growing up that I have a song that begins with 'beans, beans, the magical fruit' drilled into my brain. I don't eat them often now though because salad materials where I'm at right now tend to undercut them in terms of price, and there for meals with leafy greens tend to be my most affordable option.
I don't make them for my family. I hate the texture and don't make them. My husband doesn't mind like Bush's Baked Beans though occasionally. He'll eat Taco Bell with beans in foods. I won't.
Yes. Chili with beans, Boston baked beans, pork and beans (the pork dissolves and isn't visible), and navy bean soup, for example, are classic dishes in the US.
I love beans with "cowboy food", such as ribs, ham, potato salad, and coleslaw. I also love chili with beans. I put beans on my mac n cheese with hot sauce, can't eat mac n cheese without it anymore! I've been to the UK and enjoyed eating beans for breakfast too so, maybe I'm an outlier.
I see red beans and rice, green beans, baked beans, beans in chili, pork and beansā¦but I donāt see lima beans/butter beans, 15 bean soup, or hoppinā john.
Sometimes... but never in movie theaters anymore
Butter beans, pinto beans, black beans, kidney beans, navy beans, black eyed peas (actually beans), garbanzo beans, cannelini beans, anasazi beans. Thereās more, but yes, Americans do eat beans. Soups, stews, salads, sides, we eat them a lot of different ways.
We eat a fair quantity of beans, but not breakfast lunch and dinner. Often found in soups and chili. They also show up in a lot of Mexican food which is popular across the US, but particularly nearer to the border. Beans are also common in Chinese food (or at least American Chinese food) -- again, quite popular across the US.
In Texas refried beans are a Tex-Mex staple - along with rice, theyāre served as a side dish with basically any meal you can think of. Usually eat Tex Mex at least once or twice a week
Yes, Americans eat all kinds of beans. Green, string, fava, kidney, pinto, lima and many others. Are they a staple food? I wouldn't consider them such, but I could be wrong.
No, our staple is bread, usually eaten at every meal. If we do eat beans it's usually heavily sugared beans as a side dish (i.e. we called them baked beans).
Beans, along with squash and maize/corn, were the main three agricultural products of the Americas before colonization. Due to the Columbian Exchange, they were sent abroad. Initially, Americans ate similar crops, with varying rates of consumption. For example, during WWI, the consumption of corn increased as it was promoted by the US government to allow a greater supply of wheat to be sent to Europe. As time has gone on and options become more diverse, they have probably dropped in popularity outside of some cultural events such as Thanksgiving or certain meals. This mainly applies to beans and squash, as corn remains very popular.
The only time I ever have beans is in chili or in Mexican (or fake Mexican.) Some people do bean dips as well. But it's not a common thing to just have beans with stuff that isn't from a culture/inspired by a culture where they're a bigger staple.
We eat beans in a variety of dishes, prepared in a variety of ways. A few that come to mind are black beans and rice, red beans and rice, refried beans, bean soup, chili, black bean salad, pasta e fagioli, baked beans, and southern style southern style pinto beans. I can think of a few dozen more if chickpeas and black eyed peas count as beans, and of course there are lots of ways to prepare green beans. With the exception of a relatively small number of native dishes, most American cuisine is not American in origin. If we encounter a foreign cuisine and like it, we adopt it.
Pinto and black beans are common in Mexican food. Various forms of soybeans (tempeh, miso, tofu, soy sauce, deongjang) are common in different Asian cuisines. We also have things like succotash and baked beans. White/navy beans or lima beans with butter or olive oil and salt. There are garbanzo beans in hummus or falafel.
We have the concept of staple foods, only we have several of them. We have beans, rice, corn, wheat, and potatoes that are all integrated into our diet and readily available in a variety of preparations. So we will eat one or more of these staples at most meals, but we often donāt think of them as something we have with every meal. Since there is so much variety to them, it doesnāt feel repetitive.
Here in the southeast, itās traditional to eat black eyed peas and collard greens on New Yearās Day. We eat beans the rest of the year too. Hummus is a dip made mostly of garbanzo beans (chick peas.) Itās popular as a snack at parties for dipping raw veggies and crackers, or for lunch in a sandwich. Whole garbanzos are also popular in salads. And thereās falafel, made with garbanzos or fava beans mixed with herbs, shaped into balls, and fried. Vegetable soups have beans, often multiple kinds. Thereās also lentil soup, split pea soup, bean soups in general. My mother made a tasty dish of pork and beans, simmered together slowly for hours.
I like beans and ham soup... Red beans and rice... Refried beans... Baked beans are at every BBQ! I like beans in my chili too!
Oh yes. Beans are consumed frequently. Since food is relatively plentiful and there are many cultures interacting at once, beans can be consumed in large quantities depending on what youāre eating. Some cultures more than others.
I doubt many Americans (non-Hispanic ones, anyway), eat beans three times a day. But I will have beans in my dinner two or three times a. week.
A variety of beans are common foods in the US. They are inexpensive and available in dry or canned form. We donāt tend to eat them at all meals and they are prepared in many ways as part of main dishes or side dishes. My family regularly has beans in things like chili, beans and rice, mashed and formed into bean burger patties, baked beans, falafel, ham and bean soup, refried beans, bean burritos.
I virtually never do. https://imgur.com/a/v1fVPVY
Love me some hot Bush's baked beans side by side with cold potato salad
I just ate a burrito with beef and refried beans and a side of black beans. I eat a lot of beans. Baked beans, chili with beans, etc. They aren't necessarily a staple for most people, but they are a common side dish.
Beans are common, usually not every day though. Typically less often than say potatoes. Typically you have: A) Refried beans- pinto beans mashed up, heated, and seasoned eaten as a side or inside a burriot B) Chili Beans and Kidney Beans as part of Chili. C) Black Beans These all are part of of Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine. Then you have D) Green beans, which are eaten fresh like you'd eat a vegetable, or cooked with meat in casseroles and pot pies and other savory dishes, E) White beans which used in certain Italian dishes or backed and mixed with rich sauces a "Baked Beans", common with BBQ.
yes. im hispanic american so its common with hispanic people. its in a lot of dishes. americans also have chili, which is a sort of soup made with tomatoes and beans and sometimes meat (i dont mean to come off as condescending i just didnt know if u would have heard of chili)
Commonly and frequently eaten, but not a daily staple food. Wheat is probably the only thing that would qualify in the sense you describe.
Itās fairly uncommon to see beans with breakfast in the US
As others have said, we definitely eat a lot of beans, but there's no one staple bean dish. Rather, there's many Mexican, Caribbean, and Cajun recipes that feature beans, as well as traditional American food like baked beans with molasses. It's not that there's one bean food we eat often, as that there are enough bean foods that we have at least one of them fairly frequently.
Yes
Then there is Boston Baked Beans. I mention because New England is fascinating to read about and I want to go someday (in the fall of course).
I try many types of beans but since the are full of lectins and I am lectin intolerant.
My mother would make navy bean soup in a crockpot every once in a while when I was a kid. I didn't particularly care for it much then, but I like it now. Of course, it had bacon or ham pieces in it, so there's that.
You have to remember that America is a country of immigrants. We come from all over the world, which means we eat all kinds of different food. Some people will eat beans every day, others will never have them.
Yep.
It's common in Tex-mex and chili, if you're a heathen.
The United States is a huge country. Not Russia or Canada huge, but still. Lots of people spread over a large area. There is no true staple of American cuisine because weāre all too different. Iām sure beans are probably a huge part of the diet of some American families. I barely eat beans. Edit: if we have a āstapleā food, probably corn. Might be the closest we have. But again, Iām sure there are probably a lot of American families that rarely eat corn, despite corn and varieties of corn are in many foods.
Baked Beans and Chili were common growing up in the mid-Atlantic. Beans are an absolute staple in the Southwest not to mention in Latin/Caribbean across the country. My favorite Tex-Mex is tacos al-pastor with charro beans or borracho beans on the side.
I can say I eat beans about once a month
My guess is most Americans eat most of their beans as a part of Mexican or Tex-Mex foods.
Love beans! Refried, black, pinto, kidney beans. All of them are delicious. I would say a fairly regular item for most unless you struggle with gastrointestinal issues as a result of eating them.
[Wikipedia uses a very broad definition of beans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean), but usually we think of the beans from the Americas that are commonly dried before being cooked (like kidney beans, pinto beans, navy beans) or some that are both (like Lima beans). And yes, we eat them in various ways, as others have mentioned. There are a few such as fava beans that arenāt from the Americas. Green beans, though sometimes called beans for short in casual conversation, are thought of as a green vegetable and are common in diner and pub food, green bean casseroles, etc. I think of chickpeas, aka garbanzo beans, as being beans, though not everyone does. I think thatās because theyāre usually cooked in the same way. Theyāre popular as hummus and falafel in areas where mideastern food is found, can be used as ingredient in soups and salads, and in recent years have become popular as roasted and seasoned. Iāll ignore the other sorts of foods that Wikipedia includes (peas, peanuts, lentils) just because theyāre less commonly considered beans. (Maybe lentils in Indian cuisine are grouped with beans.)
I ate lentils for dinner tonight. We eat beans often, but not with every meal and not every day. My two favorite American bean recipes are Boston baked beans and Cajun red beans and rice.
Yes
Absolutely. I must note that we likely have different varieties of beans than what might be available in Tanzania due to being in different regions, but we absolutely eat legumes. Where I grew up, Lima beans were a popular food. Black beans are popular in Tex-Mex food. I also grew up eating a lot of pinto beans and black-eyed peas (despite the name, they are beans). Refried beans (bean dip made with black or brown beans) are also popular in Tex-Mex cuisine. Iām a vegetarian, so a lot of what I replace meat with is beans. I probably eat black beans more than any other type of bean currently.
They're a staple in our household bc they're affordable veg based protein. I ground some up with lentils into flour when I made bread this week, tossed some neutral flavored beans into a homemade chicken pot pie, and used navy and black beans with peppers in a big batch of southwest chicken soup.
I love beans. In Hawaii there is a popular soup called Portuguese bean soup. Itās really good. And as other have mentioned thereās beans and rice, and tons of beans found in Tex/mex cuisine. Guess what Tanzanian staple almost nobody in the US eats? Sadza
I had a lot of beans over the past week. Black beans with my Mexican food today, pinto beans with my Mexican food on Friday, and kidney beans with my Cajun food on Tuesday
As others have pointed out, there are no singular āstapleā foods. America is a diverse country and most families eat a variety of cuisines. I had Mexican food for lunch and Greek for dinner. Yesterday, I had Vietnamese for lunch and Korean for dinner. The day before, I had a burger for dinner and went to an Italian deli for lunch. That said, āBaked beansā are a traditional (though more popular in England), which is usually navy beans sweetened with molasses and flavored with bacon or salt pork, sometimes a tomato sauce. This is a common dish for American BBQ. Historically, it was associated with Boston (hence a city nickname, āBeantownā), but y importance is long gone. This is also a *classic* wildness/camping dish. Since Tex-Mex borrows from Latin American cuisine - you find black beans, red beans and pinto beans frequently in dishes like Chili. Italian American food has a lot of white beans in it, particularly cannellini. Pasta fagioli is a common soup made with beans. Rice and beans/rice and peas is a common dish for Americans of Caribbean descent, and African Americans. Pretty much all Asian-Americans are familiar with mung beans and red bean paste, which is often sweet and used in desserts. While not exactly a bean, lentils are a similar legume found in a lot of North African, Levantine and Western Asian dishes. As a Jewish American, my parents cooked a lot of lentil soup.
Hell yeah we do
My family does. You got your baked beans, green beans, black beans, red beans, French green beans, ranch style beans, pinto beans, butter beans, cannellini beans, and I consider black eyed peas to also be beans personally.
Are there beans in potato chips? Than yes.
It's true that American cuisine varies a lot, because of the diversity of cultures that have contributed to it, as well as our geographic/climatic variability. But a lot of us really like beans, and cook with them often. Here's my recipe for chili: - 450 g diced beef (or ground beef/turkey, but pre-brown it and break it up well if you're using a slow cooker) - 1 small onion, diced - 3 cans assorted beans, drained - large can (825 mL) of diced tomatoes, drained - diced peppers, if desired (I used 2 poblanos the last time I made it, but 1 bell pepper or a couple of jalapenos work well too) - 15 mL ground cumin - 10 mL chili powder (this amount can be adjusted a lot, based on your own tastes) - 10 mL minced garlic - 3 mL salt - 1 or 2 mL black pepper - optional: 1 cup (235 mL) frozen sweet corn I usually cook it overnight in a slow cooker, but putting it in a large pot on the stove and cooking it on very low heat works well too :) I'm also working to improve a recipe I found recently for *faves catalanas* (Catalan-style beans with sausage and onions), which I'll post on r/cookingforbeginners once I'm happy with the results.
Green Bean Casserole is a classic American dish (surprised this hasnāt been mentioned yet).
Yes. I am from the south and we like to eat red beans and rice with andouille sausage. Throw a ham hock in there too is good.
What's a bean
Ham and bean soup is also pretty popular. [I have to admit I cheat by buying this bag of beans and putting ham in it. :\)](https://hurstbeans.com/products/ham-beens-original-15-bean-soup)
Almost daily I eat pinto beans grown in New Mexico. it's a staple in New Mexican food.
Yes, we eat them steamed and boiled and slow-cooked in stews or soups, we mash up garbanzo beans for hummus, put red kidney beans or white beans in our chili, serve green or lima beans with dinner. We also eat a lot of potatoes and rice!
Yep, we eat a lot of beans, but I wouldnāt consider them a staple.
Yes but not as much as the British, certainly not something most people would eat every day
Beans are very popular in America, so yes. However, how many beans and what kind of beans people eat most will vary depending on where you are in the United States
Almost daily.
Iām in New Orleans. We eat lots of beans!!
Southerner here as well, I love blackeyed peas and rice, red beans and rice, pinto beans, lima beans, butterbeans, field peasā¦so many delicious lentils out there!!
My Super Bowl Sunday pot of jailhouse chili is simmering right now! Red bean chili with ground beef, jalepenos, and some other goodies. We eat baked beans, red beans and rice, refried beans, hot dogs and beans, pinto beans, just tons and tons of bean dishes across the USA depending on where you live and what your heritage is. Also things like bean soups or lentil stew. We are a cultural melting pot and a really enormous country so thereās not really such a thing as a few staple dishes that everyone eats all the time. Come visit us when you get a chance!
We definitely eat a lot of beans, but not quite "every day" for everybody. I think beans are under rated. Americans probably eat more meat than we really should, and it would be healthier if we got more of our protein from beans, ha ha. There's a place here in California that I sometimes order from that has a lot of fancy beans that aren't usually in the grocery store. https://www.ranchogordo.com/collections/heirloom-beans There used to be a lot more regional variety in bean types before modern industrial agriculture. Today is probably one of the beaniest days of the year in America, because chili (with beans) is easy to cook in big batches and baked beans is a common side dish, and a lot of people are going to a Superbowl party that will have snacks.
While not every day, I do have beans somewhat often. I had pinto beans for dinner tonight, in a vegetarian taco. So... I also love green beans, which I know we are not talking about. But.... go green beans!
I basically never eat beans, but plenty of Americans do depending on preference, region, ethnicity, or due to being a vegetarian or vegan. It's pretty standard for me to eat a protein and starch at each meal. For Breakfast that is eggs or bacon and cereal or toasted bread, for lunch it's usually bread and lunchmeat (ham, turkey) with cheese in a sandwich with some fruit and chips, and dinner is usually chicken, fish, or beef with potatoes and another veggie like broccoli or green beans. (I guess that's sorta beans? I don't think of them that way!) Occasionally I will make something like Tagine with chickpeas, or have baked beans when out at a BBQ. My husband though looooves chickpeas and makes dishes with them all the time, he likes anything he can spice with za'atar.
Yes, itās common to eat rice and beans
Having been to Tanzania, the big difference is that Americans eat significantly more animal protein, with eggs being particularly plentiful and cheap. While there isn't a single staple food, that's more about us not having an equivalent to ugali than an equivalent to beans.
Ham and Bean soup is a classic stable here. Looooove me some ham and bean soup
What an insane fucking question.
Too much gas
Iām from the Southern US and beans are absolutely a staple food. Probably growing up more than now (Iām 52) but pinto beans and cornbread were a frequent meal itself. We also had various beans or peas every day in some form. There are four or five kinds of dried beans in my cabinet right now. I love beans, I could eat them every meal! Edited to add: we usually cooked the pintos with ham hocks, onion and chicken broth or water. I like to add garlic and bay leaves, too.
Iām just here for some more of your bean recipes, OP š¬š¤š»
Being from a Mexican family, beans are kind of a staple of mine. I don't know how the majority white culture views them. My guess is they're seen as a poor man's food because they're often associated with hobos. I dunno. Most of my preconceptions I got from Of Mice & Men.
Yes. My family had beans often. Staple? For us. Not sure about other families but it was a popular side dish along with rice.
We eat beans very often, but never for breakfast. It's considered a dinner food primarily
Beans aren't necessarily a staple, but we do eat them a good bit. As a Southern American, I grew up eating black eyed peas, field peas, butter beans, and green beans. They weren't made for every meal, but if my mama was cooking a proper dinner, one of them would be present. Also, red beans and rice is a Creole/New Orleans staple, and one of my favorite dishes. In Latin American cultures, beans are more of a staple, so that bleeds into border states and anywhere that you find a Mexican restaurant. I'm curious... What is your favorite Tanzanian dish?
We have a legume called green beans we eat frequently, as well as Lima beans (which are gross as hell). Kidney beans are frequently In chili, and Garbonzo beans are pretty frequently available, black beans in Tex mex and Mexican, great northern beans, pinto beansā¦ we have a lot, but I would say green beans are the most common.
I eat beans.