Heirloom Beans Guide: The Varieties and What Each One Cooks Into

October 12, 2026

A bag of dried beans looks like a single ingredient, and a row of heirloom beans looks like a dozen versions of it. They are a dozen different ingredients. A Marcella bean cooks into something close to cream; a Christmas lima turns out velvety and chestnut-like; an ayocote keeps its shape through long cooking and turns starchy; a black bean gets its dark color from pigments in its coat. This guide goes variety by variety: what the skin does, what the broth is like, how the inside of the bean cooks, and the dish each one was made for. It does not repeat the method. The heirloom bean cooking guide covers soaking, salting and the pot, the dried bean buying guide reads the bag, and the dried bean questions guide answers storage, age and the rest.

A few terms first. A variety is a named, distinct type of a crop plant, the way Marcella and Midnight are both beans but different ones. A bean's skin is its seed coat, the thin outer layer around the seed; botanists call the two halves inside the cotyledons, the food store the young plant would have lived on. The broth, also called pot liquor, is the cooking water once the beans have flavored and thickened it. Heirloom, in the definition used by University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, means an old variety, typically 50 to several hundred years old, whose seed has been saved and passed down from one generation to the next. Heirlooms are typically open-pollinated, meaning the plants are pollinated naturally rather than by a breeder's controlled cross, and the same publication explains why that matters: the seed can be saved and will breed back true to type, so it grows the same variety again.

Three species in one bag

Most of the beans in this guide belong to one genus, Phaseolus. A genus is a group of closely related species, and scientists write each species with two Latin words, the genus first. The Crop Trust's Crop Wild Relatives Project, which studies the wild cousins of food plants, lists five domesticated Phaseolus species. Three of them matter here.

The common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris, which the Crop Trust calls one of the most economically important legumes in the world. Marcella, Midnight black, Good Mother Stallard, the cassoulet bean and alubia blanca are all common beans, according to their makers. So, by the maker's notes, are Rio Zape and Mayocoba. The enormous range of color, size and texture inside this one species is what makes a variety guide necessary.

The lima bean, Phaseolus lunatus, listed by the Crop Trust as the lima, butter or sieva bean. The Christmas lima is one.

The runner bean, Phaseolus coccineus, which the Crop Trust lists as the ayacote or scarlet runner bean. A 2017 study in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science describes it as a Mesoamerican species closely related to the common bean but different in its habits: it is a perennial (a plant that lives for several years) usually grown as an annual, it tolerates cooler climates than other Phaseolus species, and where the common bean pollinates itself, the runner bean is open-pollinated, taking pollen from other plants. The study's genetic data place its domestication among populations of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, the band of volcanoes across central Mexico, and record its name in the central states of Mexico as ayocote, a word from the Nahuatl language. The ayocote blanco in this guide is a runner bean, and so is the scarlet runner.

Two familiar legumes come from outside the genus entirely. Rancho Gordo notes that garbanzos (chickpeas) are not native to the Americas, and that black-eyed peas are a type of cowpea, believed to be native to Africa.

How to read a bean: skin, broth, inside

Three questions sort the varieties below, and the maker's own notes answer them for each bean.

How thick is the skin? In the maker's notes, thin skins go with a rich broth and a creamy bean, and a thick skin goes with a bean that keeps its shape through long cooking. The French government's specification for the Tarbais bean, the official rulebook for a protected bean from southwestern France, writes the skin into law: a fine skin is listed as a trait of the bean, backed by a study of the seed under a scanning electron microscope, and the specification notes that heating lets the coat come away easily from the cotyledons beneath. Rancho Gordo's notes make a similar link from the kitchen side: the thin skins of its cranberry and Midnight black beans help make their broth.

How much broth does it make? Some beans give a thin, clear liquid; others give a broth thick enough to eat as soup. Dishes built on the liquid, such as pasta e fagioli or red beans and rice, want the second kind.

What is the inside like? Creamy, dense, starchy, chestnut-like, potato-like. This is the texture in the mouth once the skin has given way.

Answer those three and the dish usually chooses itself.

Marcella: a skin that is barely there

Marcella is a small white cannellini, a type of Italian white bean. Rancho Gordo grows it in California from the seed of Sorana, a Tuscan cannellini, and named it for the Italian cookbook author Marcella Hazan, who encouraged the company to grow it. The story of how that happened is told in the Rancho Gordo producer guide.

Sorana itself is a protected Italian bean. Its consortium, the growers' association that guards the name, describes the Sorana white bean as small and slightly flattened, grown along the Pescia di Pontito river in the valley of the hamlet of Sorana, and its chief trait as a skin so thin it is practically not there. The consortium's own cooking advice is gentle: a soak of at least six hours in very soft water, then a low simmer with sage, peppercorns and a clove of garlic, with olive oil and salt at the end.

Rancho Gordo describes Marcella the same way: an incredibly thin skin and, cooked properly, an indulgent creamy texture, with the real creaminess coming from time and low, gentle heat. It suggests soups, pasta e fagioli, casseroles and dips, and says simple is often better.

Skin: very thin. Inside: creamy. Cooks into: Tuscan white beans with sage and olive oil, white bean soup, beans on toast, a white bean salad with tuna (the tuna and white bean salad recipe). The Tuscany pantry guide sets the bean in its region (shop Marcella beans).

Alubia blanca: the small white bean that holds

Alubia is a Spanish word for dried bean, and many traditional Spanish dishes call for alubias blancas, white beans, according to the product page. Rancho Gordo's alubia blanca is a small, versatile white bean with a creamy texture that holds its shape even through long, slow cooking. The maker notes that it has a thin skin but still keeps its shape, which suits it to salads, and uses it across cuisines, from Mexican to Tuscan to Yankee baked beans.

Beside Marcella it is the steadier of the two small whites. Both are creamy, but the maker's notes for alubia blanca stress the shape it keeps, and the notes for Marcella stress the creaminess.

Skin: thin, yet the bean holds its shape. Inside: creamy. Cooks into: traditional Spanish bean dishes, baked beans, soups where the beans should stay whole, white bean salads (shop alubia blanca beans).

Cassoulet bean: from Tarbais seed, for the oven

Cassoulet is a slow-baked casserole of white beans and meat from southwestern France. The Tarbais is a climbing bean from the same corner of France, protected by an IGP, the European Union's Protected Geographical Indication, a label that ties a food's name to the place it is made. The current specification, approved by the national committee of France's National Institute of Origin and Quality (INAO) on 4 June 2025 and made official by a ministerial order of 21 August 2025, limits Tarbais to communes in four departments of southwestern France, requires the climbing plants to be supported on maize stalks or on netting, and records that the bean goes into the local cassoulets of Castelnaudary, Toulouse and Carcassonne.

Rancho Gordo's cassoulet bean is grown on the West Coast from classic French Tarbais seed stock. The maker calls it the most famous bean for a traditional cassoulet, but versatile enough for an everyday pot, and sturdy enough to hold up to long, slow baking. For an extra-rich broth, it suggests a thick slice of pancetta or a ham hock in the pot.

Body: sturdy, from Tarbais stock. Inside: holds up to long, slow baking. Cooks into: cassoulet, casseroles, baked beans, soups, pasta e fagioli (shop the cassoulet bean).

Ayocote blanco: the runner bean that stays whole

Ayocote blanco is the runner bean, Phaseolus coccineus, in white. Rancho Gordo describes it as a dense, flavorful bean with a thick skin, which turns creamy and starchy with a mild, potato-like flavor when completely cooked. It traces the ayocote family to Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, as one of the first cultivated crops of the Americas, now grown across central and northern Mexico and most common in indigenous communities.

Where Marcella turns to cream, ayocote keeps its shape during extended cooking. The maker lists cassoulet and baked beans among its uses next to soups, salads, casseroles, dips and pasta e fagioli, pairs the starchy bean with bacon and pancetta, and names the cassoulet (Tarbais) bean as a similar bean.

Skin: thick. Inside: dense, then creamy and starchy, potato-like. Cooks into: baked beans, cassoulet, bean salads that must hold their shape, hearty soups with pork (shop ayocote blanco beans).

Christmas lima: the chestnut bean

The Christmas lima is a lima bean, Phaseolus lunatus. The product page calls it an unusual variation of the classic lima, with a rich, full-bodied flavor and a velvety chestnut texture, and records its other names: Fagioli del Papa, the Pope's beans, in Italy; Chestnut Lima and sometimes Calico beans in the United States. Like other limas, it is thought to have originated in Peru, hence the name, after Lima, the Peruvian capital.

The cooking notes describe a two-stage texture. There is a slightly grainy feel at first, and cooking past it turns the beans creamy. The flavor is strong enough to stand up to chile sauce or curry, and the notes single out ingredients rich in umami, the savory fifth taste of mushrooms, aged cheese and broth: the notes recall a memorable meal of Christmas limas cooked in a Gorgonzola sauce by Steve Sando, Rancho Gordo's founder.

Flavor: rich and full-bodied. Inside: chestnut-like, then creamy. Cooks into: bean salads, soups, baked casseroles, beans with mushrooms or in a cheese sauce, a curry (shop Christmas lima beans).

Good Mother Stallard: the broth bean

Good Mother Stallard is a common bean, most likely bred in Virginia and given its name in the 1930s, according to the product page. Its strength is the liquid. The product notes describe deep flavor, a velvety texture and a pot liquor the maker singles out as the bean's great strength, and they ask cooks to keep it simple: the bean, some onion and garlic, and a splash of olive oil.

The maker lists pot beans, refried beans, soups and chili, and also names charro beans, a brothy Mexican pot of beans, among its uses.

Broth: deep and velvety, the bean's strength. Inside: dense and velvety. Cooks into: a bowl of beans and broth with bread, refried beans, chili, charro beans (shop Good Mother Stallard beans). For a meatless pot built around that broth, see the guide to building flavor in beans without meat.

Midnight black: the ink bean

Midnight is a true black turtle bean, the classic black bean. Rancho Gordo says it holds its shape through lots of cooking yet keeps a creamy interior, and that its light, thin skin lets the flavor of the aromatics mix with the bean to make a good broth, which can go on to become soup or a liquid for poaching eggs.

The black is in the skin. Food scientists writing in the journal Food Chemistry in 2017 extracted anthocyanins, a family of purple-to-black plant pigments, from the coats of black beans to test as natural food coloring, and described black bean coats as a good source of them. The color lives in the coat, and the maker notes that the beans keep their black color better unsoaked, or, if soaked, cooked in their soaking water.

Skin: thin, dark. Inside: creamy, shape held. Cooks into: black bean soup, refried black beans, chili, salads, Brazilian feijoada, a black bean and pork stew (shop Midnight black beans).

Eleven more varieties, by job

The seven above cover the main textures. The product pages give each of these eleven a clear job of its own.

Cranberry bean: a thin-skinned borlotti type whose rich broth coats pasta, the natural bean for pasta e fagioli (shop cranberry beans).
Domingo Rojo: a small, dense red bean that holds its shape and makes a thick broth for New Orleans red beans and rice (shop Domingo Rojo beans).
Yellow Eye: mild and creamy, essential to New England baked beans (shop Yellow Eye beans).
Mayocoba: pale yellow, thin-skinned and very soft, also called Canario or Peruano; in Jalisco, Mexico, it becomes creamy refried beans (shop Mayocoba beans).
Rio Zape: a pinto-family bean with suggestions of coffee and chocolate, the bean Rancho Gordo says started the company; the maker suggests it for enfrijoladas, tortillas in a sauce of pureed beans (shop Rio Zape beans).
Moro: dense and richly flavored, first found in Puebla, Mexico, with a broth that the product page says could be eaten alone as soup (shop Moro beans).
Scarlet Runner: a big, beefy runner bean, firm and whole at first and creamy with longer cooking, and a good salad bean (shop Scarlet Runner beans).
Snowcap: large, with a potato-like flavor and texture, for chowders and soups with bacon or ham (shop Snowcap beans).
Large White Lima: creamy and savory, tasting more like a fresh vegetable than most beans, popular in the American South (shop Large White Lima beans).
Garbanzo: firm yet creamy and slightly nutty, for Middle Eastern, Mexican and European cooking (shop garbanzo beans).
Black-eyed pea: the cowpea of the Southern New Year's Day pot, eaten for luck in the coming year (shop black-eyed peas).

Dish first: which bean for which pot

The dish	What it needs	Beans that fit
Tuscan white beans, white bean soup, beans on toast	Thin skin, creamy inside	Shop Marcella Shop alubia blanca
Cassoulet, baked beans, casseroles	A bean that holds its shape through long, slow cooking	Shop the cassoulet bean Shop ayocote blanco
New England baked beans	A mild, creamy bean	Shop Yellow Eye
Pasta e fagioli	A rich broth that coats pasta	Shop cranberry beans Shop Marcella
A bowl of beans and broth	A deep, rich pot liquor	Shop Good Mother Stallard Shop Moro Shop Rio Zape
Refried beans	Soft, dense interior	Shop Mayocoba Shop Midnight black Shop Good Mother Stallard
Black bean soup, feijoada	Dark color, creamy inside, shape held	Shop Midnight black
Red beans and rice	Thick broth, beans that hold	Shop Domingo Rojo
Bean salad	Firm beans that keep their shape	Shop Scarlet Runner Shop alubia blanca Shop ayocote blanco
Beans with mushrooms, cheese or curry	Strong flavor that meets strong flavor	Shop Christmas lima
Chowder	Potato-like body	Shop Snowcap

Cooking times vary with the bean and, at a Denver elevation, with the air pressure; the guide to cooking at altitude explains why. For a finished dish that shows what a good broth can carry, the brothy beans with mushroom garum recipe is the place to start.

The variety is the first ingredient

A recipe that says "one pound of white beans" has left out its most important decision. The thin skin of a Sorana-type bean, the fine coat written into the Tarbais rules, the thick skin of a Mexican runner bean and the pigment in a black bean's coat are not details of flavor. They decide whether the pot ends as cream or as whole beans, as clear liquid or as soup. Choose the bean by what the dish has to become, and most of the cooking is already done.

Shop Rancho Gordo beans to set the varieties side by side.

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com.