Wayne Gisslen

Kidney Beans

Appears in
Professional Cooking: 10th Edition
Professional Cooking

By Wayne Gisslen

Published 2025

  • About
Most of the many-colored beans in the illustrations are types of kidney bean. These are all varieties of one species of plant—the same plant that gives us the common green bean. Their flavors and textures vary slightly, but their cooking and handling characteristics are similar, although some may require longer cooking times than others.

A subgroup of this family is sometimes called haricot beans (haricot is the French word for “bean”). These are all varieties of green bean (haricots verts) that are allowed to ripen until the seeds are mature and dry. The members of this group are white beans of various sizes. The term kidney bean is then used for the remaining beans in this family, which have colors other than white.