Spanish Butter Bean & Potato Stew | EASY One-Pot Heartwarming Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between lima beans and butter beans? ›

Well, rest assured; the two are actually one in the same. There's no difference between lima beans and butter beans, though sometimes they're sold at different stages of maturity. As a matter of fact, our Large Lima Beans packaging actually states Butter Beans in parentheses, just to clarify.

Butter Beans are a fantastically healthy ingredient – they're high in protein and fibre, and they're an excellent source of carbohydrates. Low in fat and calories but high in folate, starch and iron, they're one of the best store cupboard ingredients there is.

The best way to cook butter beans is to simmer them gently in a slow cooker. I find that cooking them from dry (ie without pre-soaking) helps prevent them from going soggy, so just tip them into the pot, add plenty of water to cover, a teaspoon of salt and cook until tender.

Lima Beans. While they're all the same bean botanically, butter beans have different names depending on the region. In the South and in the United Kingdom, they're typically referred to as butter beans. Elsewhere in the U.S., they're known as lima beans (named for Lima, Peru, the bean's point of origin).

Even though pulses contain carbohydrates, they don't give sharp rises to blood glucose levels compared to other carbohydrate-containing foods. The make-up of the carbohydrates in pulses, the fibre content and the fact that they are high in protein slows down the breakdown of the carbohydrates into glucose in the blood.

Beans are a diabetes super food, meaning they are good for your health and they have diabetes-specific benefits. They are a low-glycemic ingredient, and are high in protein and fiber. The American Diabetes Association advises people with diabetes to add dried beans or no-sodium canned beans to several meals each week.

All beans and peas can help lower blood pressure due to their high content of fiber, potassium, and magnesium.

Besides a sometimes-differing color palette, butter beans and lima beans are exactly the same. Yes, they're the exact same thing. It's kind of a tomato/tomahto situation (except with beans) that's related more to geography than anything else.

The most important member [of the wild bean species group] is P. lunatus, the moon-shaped or the lima bean. Its name does come from the Peruvian capital of Lima, even though perversely it is pronounced 'lime-uh' in English.

The Lima Bean Story

A favorite in the American South, limas are actually named after the capital of Peru, and they have more nicknames than any other bean: butter bean, Rangoon bean, Burma bean, Madagascar bean, and chad bean. Like common beans, they originated in Peru where they were cultivated even before corn.

Are butter beans another name for lima beans? ›

You'll see them labeled in different ways in the store, after all: frozen lima beans, canned butter beans, dried large limas—or is it dried large butter beans? Turns out, lima beans and butter beans are the same thing. Both terms refer to the same species, Phaseolus lunatus.