Fresh, green butter beans. What a southern summer time delight! Served alongside fried chicken with cornbread and sliced tomatoes on the side, butter beans are a perennial favorite at many a southern table.
I’ve read many opinions about butter beans and Lima beans and whether they are the same thing. It appears that they are.
However, they certainly don’t taste anything alike to me. Lima beans, in my opinion, have a horrible mealy quality that I dislike. Butter beans, on the other hand, have a luscious creamy texture. Limas are pale grey to white when cooked and butter beans keep their pretty green color.
We had a garden most years when I was a child, and we always grew butter beans. We shelled and cooked them from fresh during the summer and froze the excess to enjoy the rest of the year. I still “put up” some butter beans almost every summer, so I have them on hand whenever we want them.
These were frozen last summer and are still just as delicious as they were fresh.
Old-time southern cooking has a bad reputation when it comes to preparing fresh vegetables. We tend to cook our vegetables for a longer time and season them more highly than other regions of the country. I like them both ways.
Southern butter beans cooked in the slow cooker. Serve with fried chicken, sliced fresh tomatoes, and cornbread for a very traditional southern dinner. Click To Tweet
I like the bright taste of quickly cooked vegetables, but I also enjoy the homestyle taste of longer cooked, well-seasoned vegetables. In my opinion, butter beans are one vegetable that really need the hours long cooking time.
Because of the long cooking time needed for the butter beans, I cook them in a slow cooker. They can happily cook away for the afternoon with little to no attention from me.
In traditional southern cooking, butter beans are seasoned with a bit of fat back or a smoked ham hock. To cut back on the fat, I use chicken bouillon and a butter substitute for my seasonings.
For a truly delicious, real southern dinner, serve these Southern Butter Beans along with fried chicken, fried okra, and cornbread. That is one yummy meal!
How to Cook Southern Butter Beans:
Place butter beans, butter substitute, chicken bouillon, and water to cover in a small slow cooker. Cook on high for 1 ½ hours.
Turn cooker to low and cook for another 2-3 hours or until butter beans are tender.
Add a small amount of additional water during cooking only if needed.
They cooked all afternoon and are still pretty and green and firm. If you can get your hands on some fresh, green southern butter beans (not Limas!), give this method of cooking a try. It also works very well for field peas.
Enjoy!
Update: Since this post was published, several people have emailed me with comments about the differences between Lima beans and butter beans.
They each insist that the big, white mealy beans are known as butter beans and the small green tender beans are called Lima beans. Well, where I’m from in the south, it’s the exact opposite.
The big, white beans are called Lima beans and the little green ones as I have shown in the blog post are called butter beans. That’s what I’ve heard them called all my life. Everyone that I know calls them the same thing.
Yes, I’m aware that they are related. Butter beans and Lima beans are, horticulturally, the same.
Perhaps the post wasn’t written clearly, but the point I was trying to make is how different they seem. Not that they are actually two different unrelated things. Can we let this rest, please?
Southern Butter Beans
Ingredients
- 1 quart shelled, fresh or frozen, butter beans
- 2 tblsp. butter substitute (such as Butter Buds)
- 1 1/2 tblsp chicken bouillon
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- Water
Instructions
- Place butter beans, butter substitute, chicken bouillon and water to cover in a small slow cooker.
- Cook on high for 1 1/2 hours.
- Turn cooker to low and cook for another 2-3 hours or until butter beans are tender.
- Add a small amount of additional water during cooking only if needed.
Notes
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Nutrition Information:
Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 4063 Total Fat: 377g Saturated Fat: 233g Cholesterol: 977mg Sodium: 10250mg Carbohydrates: 153g Sugar: 8g Protein: 44g
Related Posts on Never Enough Thyme:
butter bean Recipes From Other Bloggers:
- Southern Butter Beans with Bacon from Southern Bite
- Southern Butter Beans from The Blond Cook
- How to Cook Butter Beans from Southern Food and Fun
- Southern Lima Butter Beans with Ham Bits from Genius Kitchen
Looks lovely!! This would go great mixed into a salad. Yum!
I want some of those butter beans right now, Lana!!! Man, they look good. I wonder if I can even find FROZEN ones up here. Gotta look the next time I am off island. You have made me so hungry for Southern food, I might just have to open up some more Stripling sausage and cook some biscuits. Love you!
What is stripling sausage?
Stripling’s is a store in south Georgia that makes its own homemade sausage. Stripling’s is the name of their brand.
You can’t fool me. I know that you have okra and tomatoes as the other side dish on that plate. Tell these folks how to cook that. You will be thanked!
Miss P
stewed tomatoes n okra was a every week end dish at mom n dads mom was calif daughter of a German immigrant butcher who sold chicken eggs to alaskan gold rush miners dad grew up as a N Carolina orphan of bootlegger single parent (mother) with his tiny garden in our Coronado, CA .small backyard so dinners were sparse and varied but pretty good just as it to much resembled animal parts like cow tongue, or tripe etc. hence I got pretty good at making excuses. being a paralyzed senior now now , never paid attention growing up to their culinary endeavors That I now regret so hearing of online southern cookin makes me drool on the keyboard like Pavlov’s dog thanks to all for your comments okra in tomatoes and soups reminds me how much I miss those days (50’s) thx
I just LOVE butter beans!
Now look what you did – there’s a big pile of drool on my floor ;). I’m from the south but now live in Michigan, and I definitely miss access to butter beans. When I was visiting my parents in December, I brought back a bunch of frozen ones from the local market. I’ve never tried cooking them in a slow cooker, but it sounds like a great idea!
My mother is a big fan of butter beans, served with pulled pork at one of her favorite restaurants. But you’ve convinced me that we need to try them in our garden next year. Especially if they play nice in a slow cooker. What could be better?
Anyway, I found you on TasteSpotting and am writing to say that if you have any photos that aren’t accepted there, I’d love to publish them. Visit my new site (below), it’s a lot of fun! I hope you will consider it.
Best,
Casey
Editor
http://www.tastestopping.wordpress.com
as a native son of the south (alabama),
i am a huge fan of fresh butter beans.
this recipe looks delish and simple.
congrats!
Oh yum. I love butter beans and your post brings back memories of sitting under the shade tree with my grandmother, shelling them. Also of my brother passing his under the table, a few at a time, because he hated them, I loved them, and he had to clean his plate before he could get dessert.
Congratulations on your great blog!
Okay, now I’m inspired. I saw speckled butter beans in the frozen food section at the grocery store, do you think that would be suitable? Or maybe I need ot head out to the farmer’s market and try to get some fresh ones…
Growing up in the south my parents loved butter beans and we had them often…I was not a big fan until I had some homemade ones on my visit back at families this past June…and yours look wonderful!
I love your blog. You are doing a great job with it.
Now that I have buttered you up. Smiling.
I have a question about your header. Would you drop me a line at [email protected]? Maybe you can direct me how to resolve the issue. Thanks.
Chaya
Do I ever have photos that they have rejected!?!?! Loads of them. I saw your site a couple of days ago and thought it looked like fun. I just may send some things your way!
Thanks for this! I just got some fresh Butter Beans this week. I used your basic recipe and technique. We’re having them for dinner tonight. I can’t wait!
i get been following your posts for a while in the present circumstances all i can announce ‘
is they are great . I look forward to reading more from you.
I was just looking for a recipe for cooking fresh butter beans and Google had your post listed. I love your recipe and cooking in a slow cooker is a perfect idea! Thanks :)
I love using the slow cooker for butter beans and for field peas. Hope you enjoy the recipe!
A quick question – Can I use butter vs the butter substitute?
Sure. However, I used the butter substitute just to cut down on calories. If I wasn’t going to use the butter substitute, I’d add bacon grease instead of butter.
Having family over Monday for Labor Day and I will be using your butter bean recipe for the frest ones I picked up today from the market. I will let you know how they turn out. Thanks
I need to know how to cook green northen beans,I planted some for the first time & just got done shelling them,do I cook them as green butter beans(lima beans)?Thanks very much,a southern girl.
Gosh Kathleen, I don’t even know what “green northern beans” are!
I love your recipes! But “great northern beans” are white beans with ham as we say down here in Tennessee! LOL! Don’t know why they call them northern lol!
I just found this receipe. Gosh, this makes me miss having a garden.
Love butterbeans!! I want to make this but add corn to it for a simpler succotash? Any suggestions on how to incorporate that in?
I’d just add the corn right along with the butterbeans. Corn holds up well to long, slow cooking.
You’re correct about corn holding up. It has a cell structure that is very resilient and often holds up to the “very end!” :P
I’m not 100% sure about slow cookers, but I’ve eaten butterbeans as a guest of some fairly accomplished regional chefs and more than once have eaten their “hard” beans. Their problem (I never said a word because it would have been rude) was that they added salt in the beginning stage of cooking. This will make all beans hard and never tender! Wait until near the end, after the beans are tender to season them with salt. Just my opinion, that of a middle aged country boy who grew up in (usually somebody else’s) garden.
As a child I grew up in Arkansas and spent a part of the summer shelling butter beans. Now when I return during the summer I find there are few places to purchase fresh butter beans. Do you know of a source where I can purchase fresh butter beans online?
Ethel – I’m sorry I don’t know of an online source for fresh butter beans. I always get them when I go back home to south Georgia.
I want to buy fresh butter beans. I live in NYC is there another name for them, what do I ask for? I remember helping my Mom preparing them as a child. Please help! PS I don’t like Lima beans.
Hi Brenda. Sorry, but I don’t know of any other name for butter beans. I have no idea where you’d look for them in New York.
Got fresh butter beans off the farm in south ga… have them in the c pot as I type this can”t wait..Thanks your for recipe…………btw i’m from way up north..VERMOMT no butter beans up there..
Glad you found some butterbeans, Sandi! Enjoy!
I grew up in Louisiana and my grandma butter beans was pale white and creamy love me some butter beans with hot skillet cornbread.
I’ve been craving fresh butter beans and came across your recipe. I’m from the south too, and have always called the little green beans “butter beans” and the big white beans “lima beans”… it’s a southern thing that I’m proud of! :-)
Thank you Jesus!! Finally a Butter Bean recipe with the GREEN Butter Beans! Ok, I am from NC .. and THESE are butter beans! Haha! I needed a refresh on how to make them because it had been SOO long and I am cooking these for Thanksgiving!
Thank you! Thank you!
You’re welcome, Meagan! I love using this method for cooking green butter beans. Hope yours turn out good. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
I love you, and your blog. I’ve commented before that finding you has brought me back to a place that reminds me of my grandmothers, my aunts and my mom. BUTTER BEANS is something that I remember eating since forever. I was almost brought to my knees when my 7 yr old niece said at Thanksgiving this year that “butter beans are my most favorite thing ever to eat”, in fact I made them again for my birthday dinner in December because I knew she was going to be there, and she hugged me and said “you made these just for me didn’t you, because you love me”, seriously I could have died at that very moment and never been happier. As a Southern girl, I have shelled these straight from my grandparents fields since I was very little and to this day, I love them as a part of my past, my culture and my family’s history. Thank you (again) for the “2013 look back”, your blog is so special to me. Happy New Year!
Thank you so much, Angela, for your very sweet comment. I’m always especially pleased when my recipes bring back fond memories for someone. A very happy and prosperous New Year to you!
I just found your blog about “southern” butter beans. I’ve been gone from Mississippi for more than 40 years, but still yearn for butter beans cooked slow and long with a little fat back. My mother and grandmother always added a bit of sugar to their pot, so I like mine slightly sweet. I, too, remember sitting on the back porch or under a shade tree and helping to shell butter beans from my grandmother’s garden. We always called the small green ones butter beans and the big white ones “lima beans”. We used lima beans as dried beans. The green ones were cooked fresh or frozen and canned for later use. Out here in California today I find that I can substitute the frozen green “baby limas” for butter beans.(In fact, I am sure the baby green lima is the same thing as butter beans). I agree with you, the big limas have a mealy, chalky taste…as dried beans. I grew “baby limas” (as the seed packed called them) last year in my garden….when I cooked them fresh when green, they were butter beans. Those that dried on the vine turned into white colored “baby limas!” The bigger lima beans are just a different variety of the same plant. My opinion is that in most parts of the country they are all called “limas” , whether big or small, but in the South, we call the small ones butter beans and the big ones limas. Thanks for your blog.
When do you add the salt? I don’t see that in the instructions. I’m making this today. It’s in the crockpot now. I left the salt out and may not need it.
I add the salt at the beginning of cooking, but you can toss it in most any time. It doesn’t make much difference.
I agree that butterbeans and lima beans are two different things. I’m sorry for those of you who’ve never had a good plate of butterbeans. My grandmother used to cook them with sweet corn and they’d be the highlight of our summer lunches. I’m not much of a gardener, but I just bought some real butterbeans at a farmers market and can’t wait to cook them up!
Hello, I’m also Southern but we call the large light colored beans butterbeans not limas which are the smaller green ones. What I’m cooking today using your delicious sounding recipe are speckled butter beans
I live in Terre Haute, Indiana, I have been searching for dry butter beans for over a year now. I too grew up on butter beans. My mother use to servebutter beans with fried potatoes and cornbread and apple butter. Oh the memories. It is really sad that I can’t go to the store and purchase a bag of dry butter beans. If there is anyone out there that can tell me where to find fresh dry butter bean please please let me know.
Lima Beans.. Butter beans.. Whatever you want to call it I’ve made this recipe with both & there’s no complaints at the dinner table !
I from the north and grew up with the larger white lima beans. Which some people called butter beans. The smaller green ones which I found about 10 years ago are called baby lima beans which taste great too. Mom used to cooked the white lima beans with salt and bay leaves and always thought them the best. The small green ones, I get frozen, I just cook with some butter. Will be trying this way soon.
I grew up in South Carolina…We would have butter beans, sliced tomatoes, corn on the cob and fried chicken for Sunday dinner. I have been looking for a recipe without using salt park and I think you have it!! I brought back to Nebraska some frozen butter beans from my cousin. Just wanted a “taste of home”!
Will give this a try! Thanks for the posting!!
I’m with you – Butter beans and Lima beans are NOT the same! Lima beans are gross – they have a chalky taste. Butter beans are delicious! I have actually “almost” argued with people at our Farmers Market about this – usually people who were not raised here! Just got some butter beans today and am going to try your crock pot method!
Thank you for the crock pot variation on these yummy beans! I’m from NE Tennessee and I was always taught that butterbeans were the bigger, paler beans and limas were the smaller, greener type… REGARDLESS, I agree with your opinion on quality! The small, greener variety are MUCH better tasting than the bigger, mushier ones (no matter what you call them! – “A rose by any other name” etc.) :)
Sounds good, but use real butter, you need the fat for your body. Also, a small slab of fat back, and or six sauteed strips of bacon (drained) and a finely chopped sauteed onion are good too. If you want real fancy a touch of garlic and some Bay seed.
My mom insist that if they aren’t fresh shelled they’re not butter beans, but frozen taste great too.
Omg!! I love butter beans :)
If I don’t have a slow cooker may I use a regular pot? If so do you have any suggestions?
Thank you!
Of course. Add your ingredients to a large pot. Bring it to the boil and then turn it down to low or so that it keep a low simmer. Cook until done – about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Thank you so much! I’ll be making this soon :)
You’re not stupid. I can’t stand it when people call someone stupid, because they say things different. I grew up in Alabama. I’ve always called the large white ones butter beans. I love them. My grandmother and mother made them for me. Now my husband does. I never could make them right. Butter beans over crumbled cornbread with either sweet pickle relish, or sweet pickles or green onions. I have stage 3 chronic kidney disease and I can’t have the pickles or anything pickled anymore. I miss them. :( We called the green ones green butter or lima beans. I don’t care for the green ones unless they’re cooked and seasoned right. Now I’ve got a hankering for them. “Oh sweet heart I need to put in an order.” Ha Ha He’s to good to me.
Butter beans and Lima beans are the same bean. The Phaseolus lunatus. So…..
I 100% agree with you on the difference between limas and butter beans. They are NOT the same to me, and where I’m from, butter beans are the smaller of the 2. Thanks for the recipe!
I do not think you are stupid. People in different areas call things differently, for their areas. I am from NE Alabama, and the green ones we called lima beans and the big ones, we called butterbeans. Doesn’t matter if they are cooked right, they are all good!!!
Oi. I had this problem when I wanted to recreate a stew I ate growing up. I accidentally bought butter beans (Fordhooks) when what I wanted were baby lima beans. The taste, texture, color – everything was all wrong. Finally found I could get baby lima beans in the frozen section and have been a happy camper since.
” (Lima Beans)… come in two main varieties: baby lima and Fordhook. The latter is the larger and more common variety in the U.S. Although the Fordhook might appear to be a mature baby lima, the two are, in fact, separate varieties.”
Lima beans are butter beans. Baby lima beans are not.
I really enjoyed your post. I am from Georgia, and we always used the names for lima beans and butter beans interchangeably. I really wish people would really learn to keep their mean spirited and rude comments to themselves. It is so easy to sit behind a computer and ridicule someone. Like I said, I really enjoyed your post and will be using your method to cook my Lima/butter beans!!
Hi Lana. Growing up in Georgia (as kind of a picky eater as a kid) I practically lived off of these delicious little guys. But I could never find “butter” beans in the store as an adult and asked my mom if Lima and Butter beans are the same. The answer is yes and no. So, you’re right, Lima Beans are the big white mealy beans. but my mom informed me that BABY Lima beans are the little green ones. So just so you don’t think you’re going crazy, they SEEM different because they kind of are. Now i can find Baby Lima Beans in the frozen food section sometimes. But rarely canned. Great simple recipe. Thanks!
You have stirred up great memories of my mothers wonderful home cooking. She cook large white Lima beans with a creamy gravy that we all called butter beans. Seasoned with smoked pork, preferably ham or bacon. Being good Texans we then spooned them over tamales with corn bread on the side. Don’t laugh until you try it. Oh what a grand meal.
Can these be done in an Instant Pot?
Hi Martha. I would think they could be, but I’ve never tried that so I don’t have info on times or anything.
I’m from Georgia. At the foot of the Appalachia mountain range. Butter beans have always been the larger, more “buttery” looking and Lima beans are the younger, greener and firmer texture. I was always told they were the same, one a younger variety of the other.
Yet there is still no clear answer if they are the same or two varieties of the same type bean.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_lunatus
Hi Lana! My grandparents always grew butter beans every summer, and my mom and I would always bring back loads whenever we went to visit them; first time my mom made butter beans for my father (a Yankee from western NY state), he sucked down his bowl of beans and asked her “Where’s the rest of dinner?” She just looked at him like he had two heads, because whenever she had butter beans for dinner as a kid… That was usually it. Just a bowl of butter beans!
I would like to know what variety of butter bean you plant, and where you get the seed – I’ve been looking for butter bean seed for the last few years, and everyone directs me to lima beans (blerg). No one believes me when I insist that butter and lima are NOT the same!
Hi Charlene – I don’t grow them these days. I get my yearly supply when I go home to south Georgia during the summer. Fortunately, there are several places there where I can buy as many as I want already shelled!
The best beans! The chicken bouillon made all the difference. Thank you
I am a Southern gal myself and have always considered “butterbeans” to be the big whitish beans and the smaller green ones as Limas. You can buy frozen Limas here at the grocery store and add a bag of frozen Limas with a bag of frozen corn and voila you have succatash. My grandmother raised me and she would cook and serve a big pot of Butter beans (the big whitish bean. We never heard the term Lima back then (in my family that is).
Lana,
Honey you just ignore those haters out there making rude comments to you about whether or not butter beans and lima beans are the same!
I grew up in the south as well and I am in a hundred percent agreement with you. They ARE VERY different! These are southern butter beans!!!
Delicious recipe! I made some today. Yummmmy! Thanks so much for sharing!
:-)
Butter beans and lima beans are the same thing butter beans u use the large lima beans instead of the navy beans (small lima) and this recipe is interesting bc this is no where near how we cook butter beans in the south
Yes, they are the same thing. One is a more mature version of the other. I have lived in the deep south my entire life (63 years worth) and have always known the green, young version to be butter beans and the large, white, mature ones as lima beans. And this method, with a few adaptations, is how everyone I grew up with cooks butter beans. I never knew anyone who cooked the large white lima beans so I can’t comment on them.
I grew up North of the Mason-Dixon line and now live South of it. You are correct – the smaller ones are butter beans, the larger are limas. Either way, they’re delish!