Brown Butter White Bean Purée

Why hello there from the caboose of the white bean train. (And thanks in advance for not abandoning this post after that intro, mmm’kay?) Last week was all about white beans (dip! epic sandwiches! crostini!), and you may have thought we’d leave well enough alone after the weekend. But here’s one more noteworthy recipe that you won’t want to miss: brown-butter white bean purée. It makes a warm, savory bed for everything from the reverse-sear pork chops pictured here to scallops to chicken to infinity and beyond. (Buzz Lightyear sold separately.)

Tip

You can use canned beans here or dried beans cooked from scratch.

How to cook beans

This recipe starts with cooked white beans. You can use canned, and that’s 100% fine, but beans cooked from scratch with lots of tasty aromatics really shine here too. (Here’s how to cook a pound of dried beans.) No presh either way. Just sayin.

Happy Monday, happy tail end of this riveting white-bean-intensive period of our lives, and talk to you soon.

Brown Butter White Bean Purée

Brown Butter White Bean Purée

Brown butter white bean purée makes a nice bed for pork chops, chicken or fish. You can make it in advance and reheat in the microwave if you're classy like that. (I know I am.)

Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 15 minutes
Serves 6

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 shallot, minced
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 4 cups cooked white beans (such as Great Northern or Cannellini)
  • 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 1 cup vegetable or chicken stock
  • Big squeeze lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons good salted, cultured butter (such as Kerrygold)
  • Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

  1. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a medium pot.
  2. Add shallot, garlic and thyme and cook, stirring occasionally, for about two minutes.
  3. Stir in beans and stock. Simmer for 5 minutes.
  4. Remove thyme sprigs and puree with an immersion blender until perfectly smooth.
  5. Stir in lemon juice.
  6. In a small skillet over medium heat, melt butter and then cook until foaming subsides and butter solids turn brown at bottom of pan. Swirling the pan gently can help you see what’s going on under there. 
  7. When butter is golden brown and smells spectacularly nutty, remove pan from heat.
  8. Stir brown butter into bean puree.

Nutrition Information

Amount Per Serving:

Calories:: 223 Total Fat:: 10.5g Carbohydrates:: 25g Fiber:: 6.9g Protein:: 8.4g