Recipe: butter beans with ricotta and pesto

From creamy feta with spicy carrots to these butter beans with ricotta and pesto: beans are no longer the neglected child of the kitchen. In Bold Beans you’ll find 80 surprising recipes, finally giving these protein-rich all-rounders the spotlight they deserve. Versatile, nutritious and irresistibly delicious!

Amelia: “This is one of our most popular recipes, so it holds a special place in my heart! It can be served as
a quick weeknight dinner with a fresh salad, or topped with roasted tomatoes for an explosion of sweetness and colour. We’ve used a classic basil pesto here, but when wild garlic is in season, use that instead of the garlic clove. Choose the biggest, plumpest butter beans you can find.“

• For the pesto, blend the pine nuts, basil, garlic and cheese in a blender or food processor, together with 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Blend until smooth; you may need to add more oil to bind the mixture. You can also do this in a mortar and pestle for a coarser texture.

• Next, prepare the butter beans. In winter, we like to serve this as a broth, so we recommend saving some of the bean broth and heating it together with the beans in a pan. In summer, we prefer to keep it lighter, so drain and rinse the beans and don’t heat them.
• Spoon the beans onto a serving platter and distribute the ricotta over them. Spoon over the pesto and sprinkle with some lemon zest, plus a little lemon juice if you like some freshness! Finish with some black pepper and a final drizzle of olive oil for extra indulgence.

Tip: If you’re short on time, use store-bought red or green pesto: it will still be a delicious dish.