White Kidney Beans

White kidney beans are a large, oblong, cream-colored bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) with a smooth texture and mild, nutty flavor. In the US they're most often sold and used interchangeably with cannellini beans, though some seed catalogs treat cannellini as a slightly smaller, more delicate Italian variety within the same white kidney bean group.

Common beans were domesticated in the Americas, with the Andean region long credited as one center of origin, and spread to Europe after the Columbian Exchange, where cannellini became a staple of Italian cooking such as pasta e fagioli.

White kidney beans are used in soups, stews, casseroles, salads, dips, and spreads, and are a good source of protein, fiber, and complex carbohydrates. Dried beans should be soaked several hours or overnight before cooking, which improves digestibility, then simmered, boiled, or baked until tender.