butter beans
Also known as: lima beans
A large, flat, starchy bean with a buttery texture, sold fresh, dried, or most often frozen. "Butter bean" and "lima bean" are used interchangeably in much of the South, though butter bean often means the large pale ones and baby lima the smaller, creamier green ones.
Buying guidance
Frozen baby limas are the best everyday choice -- creamier than the larger Fordhook type, and better than canned for anything simmered, since canned are already fully cooked and turn to paste over a long cook.
Substitutions
- Frozen Fordhook limas -- bigger and mealier; fine, slightly less creamy.
- Frozen speckled butter beans -- traditional in Southern cooking, and excellent.
- Canned butter beans, drained and rinsed -- usable, but stir them in near the end of cooking rather than at the start, or they dissolve.
- Dried limas, about half the frozen weight -- soaked overnight and simmered separately until tender; most work, best texture.
- Frozen edamame or broad beans -- right texture, different flavor.
- Cannellini or great northern beans -- the emergency swap.
Tips & common mistakes
Dried butter beans that have sat in storage too long can stay firm no matter how long they simmer, so beans that won't soften after a reasonable cooking time are usually old rather than needing more heat; frozen baby limas added straight from frozen to a fast-cooking pot can turn mushy on the outside before the centers thaw and cook through, so thawing them first gives a more even result.
Storage
Frozen butter beans keep their texture far better than beans that have been thawed and then refrozen, so it's worth splitting a bag into usable portions up front rather than thawing the whole thing each time and refreezing what's left over.