Meatless Meals with Beans

Dinnertime is around the corner, and you are looking in your pantry to see what to fix. How about trying something new tonight, a meatless meal with beans!

Beans are a great addition to any weeknight meal. With their unique flavor and texture, beans can replace meat in multiple meals. Especially if you want to save money on your weekly meals! Beans contain nutrients like iron, fiber, protein, and potassium which help to provide us with a healthy lifestyle.

Whether it be tacos, salads, or burgers, beans can replace any type of meat in almost any recipe. This list can get you thinking of some other dishes that you may be able to replace with beans.

• Black beans are great replacements for ground beef in dishes like tacos, burgers, and chili.

• Garbanzo beans (chickpeas) add creamy textures to dishes like pasta salad, Greek salad and curry.    

• White beans (Cannellini beans) add good texture to soups like vegetable soup and creamy white bean soup. 

A great way to get beans into kids diets is to incorporate them into a dish that they are used to eating. Kids love burgers, and these Black Bean Burgers are similar to beef burgers, but I promise you won’t miss the beef! Black beans can have a meaty texture, which makes them great for this recipe. Try adding some toppings like avocado, or even something fun like a mango salsa on top!