These creamy tomato basil butter beans are an easy one pot dinner that will help you incorporate more beans into your diet this year! The sauce is made by blending blistered cherry tomatoes with beans, soft tofu, nutritional yeast, lemon juice and water, making this dish both dairy and nut-free. It comes together in under 30 minutes and is best enjoyed with toasted bread, or my homemade naan (check out the recipe here!).
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil, for frying
- 5-6 cloves of garlic
- 500g cherry tomatoes (about 17-18 oz)
- 2 cans of butter beans (400mL or 13.5 fl oz each)
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 150g soft tofu (5 oz)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/2 cup water
- Bunch of fresh basil leaves
- Toasted bread to serve
Equipment
- Non-stick frying pan
- Blender
Instructions
- Peel and mince garlic cloves.
- To a good non-stick frying pan on medium-low heat, add the olive oil and minced garlic, stirring often.
- After a few minutes, add the cherry tomatoes, continuing to stir often until they’ve blistered.
- Drain and rinse two cans of butter beans, setting aside 2/3 cup for the sauce.
- Once the cherry tomatoes have blistered, press them gently with the back of a wooden spoon until they pop.
- To a blender, add about 1/3 of the cherry tomatoes, 2/3 cup of butter beans, nutritional yeast, soft tofu, salt, lemon juice and water. Blend until smooth and creamy.
- Add the remaining butter beans to the pan with the cherry tomatoes, then add the sauce from the blender and bring to a simmer.
- Roughly chop basil leaves, then add it to the pan, saving about 1/4 as a topping.
- Remove from heat, dish up, top with the remaining chopped basil and enjoy! I love serving this with toasted sourdough bread.
Notes
*You could also serve this with a batch of homemade naan – check out the recipe here!
*Cannellini beans would also be delicious instead of butter beans in this recipe.
13 Responses
This looks so good! I really want to try it, but I can’t eat tofu (my belly rebels). What can I use instead of the tofu? TIA!
Hi Alexis!
You could omit the tofu or replace it with another 1/4 cup of beans 🙂
Enjoy!
-Mina
I tried making this tonight with crusty bread and it’s insanely flavorful. I added some pepper, but wouldn’t change a thing about this recipe otherwise. And it was so easy! I am already thinking about making it again. Thank you!
Hi Jessica,
Thanks for the lovely comment! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed this recipe 🙂
Warmly, Mina
I tried and love so many of your recipes!!! I never have soft tofu on hand, could I make it with firm tofu or would the texture be weird? Thanks ☺️
Hi Marie!
I’m so happy to hear that 🙂
You could try with about half the amount (75g) of firm tofu, and some extra water!
Mina
I made this tonight for the first time. It was SO delicious and easy to make. Definitely adding it to the dinner rotation! Thank you for a wonderful recipe.
Really good and easy to make. Use the large butterbeans for more texture. I bought 1 can of small and 1 can of large. I added some fresh kale with the sauce and cooked it until tender. Served with rotini noodles. Will make again! Thanks for a great recipie!!
If you don’t have nutritional yeast on hand can that be substituted for something else?
Hi Shannon!
You can easily omit it from the recipe if you don’t have it on hand 🙂
-Mina
I made this recipe for me and my mom and we found it delicious. I added a bit extra salt, as well as a bit of garlic powder and black pepper, and ate it with crusty bread. So amazing and satiating. I feel like it would be good blended up as a soup too!
I don’t normally comment on recipes but I make this one so often I thought I should. I make a few additions to this, like adding spinach, miso, tomato paste and onions just because I want it to have more bulk and a more tomatoey flavor, but this is probably my favorite meal, I think I was making it once a week for a few months, it’s so easy and delicious.
I’m so happy to hear you’ve been enjoying it!!
And those sound like fantastic additions 🙂
-Mina