Greek Gigantes are, not surprisingly, GIANT beans! In this recipe, the gigantes are slow cooked in a rich tomato sauce until perfectly creamy and tender. Serve over toasted crusty bread for an easy vegetarian meal!
How fun are these gigante beans!? I’m a little bit obsessed with them.
I remember eating these big beans on my trip to Athens, but I didn’t know the name and it took be a few years to remember them and look them up (<— this is why I’m so bad at texting back). #DistractasaurasRex
Okay, so about the Greek gigantes. Huge in size, and huge in flavor. You can find them on Amazon (see below), or substitute Lima beans.
I’m super lazy about beans, so I decided to make this a slow cooker recipe. Just throw everything in, turn it on, and walk away. SO EASY.
This is an intensely comforting and satisfying dish. It’s also incredibly versatile. You can serve it as a stew-like main course, as a side dish, or even as part of a spread of small plates or appetizers. Check out my collection of Greek recipes if you need some pairing ideas.
In the interest of full disclosure, two of my friends and I ate these leftovers for breakfast one morning after we’d had too much beer the night before. See? SO versatile.
In the winter, a dash of cinnamon added to the mix would be heavenly.
If you think I’m crazy, just give it a try and join my cinnamon-crazy-train. It’s one of my favorite “secret” ingredients for a dish like this gigantes recipe. It adds a very special-something to the flavor profile!
I soaked my beans overnight, but I frequently forget to do this while slow cooking beans. If this is the case, you can usually get away with adding an extra hour (on high) or two (on low) to the cook time.
Cooking these Greek beans on low produces a better result, in my opinion, as it doesn’t aggressively boil the beans which can cause a lot of bean-skin separation. Not a huge deal by any means, but that’s totally up to you! If you’re a work-outside-the-home type of person, throw these in before work and let them simmer all day.
I love to place a slice of toasted crusty bread in the bottom of a bowl and then ladle the beans and sauce in on top. That didn’t look very nice for the pictures, however.
Oh, the life of a food blogger.
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Here’s the Recipe!
Greek Gigantes
Greek Gigantes are, not surprisingly, GIANT beans! In this recipe, the gigantes are slow cooked in a rich tomato sauce until perfectly creamy and tender. Serve over toasted crusty bread for an easy vegetarian meal!
Ingredients
- 1 pound dry gigantes beans, soaked overnight
- 2 medium yellow onions, peeled and chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
- 2 (14.5-ounce) cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes
- 2 cups vegetarian chicken broth (or water)
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- Crusty bread, black pepper, and more olive oil for serving
Instructions
- Place all of the ingredients in the bowl of a large slow cooker. Cook for 4-6 hours on high, or 8-10 hours on low. Taste and add more salt as needed.
- Serve with toasted crusty bread. Garnish with freshly ground black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.
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Nutrition Information
Amount Per Serving Calories 80 Total Fat 7g Carbohydrates 1g
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Comments
I used Instant Pot, slow cooker mode. I found that the amount of liquid provided for in the recipe was too much. I was looking for beans, and got a bean soup instead. Next time, I’ll cut the amount of tomatoes in half, and cut the broth some too.
I know this varies by the individual lot of beans, but mine was not done after 6 hours. I let it ride for another 4 hours after that. If I was home, I probably would have taken them off after a total of 8 hours.
This was great. My local grocery store doesn’t have gigantes beans, so I just simmered the broth for ~30 minutes then added canned great northern beans at the end, just to heat them up. It had such an amazing flavor I ended up using the leftovers for the base of a minestrone soup. I love minestrone soup but have found most recipes to have no flavor, so this was perfect. Made extra broth (tomatoes, veggie broth, spices – skipped onions/garlic out of laziness and there were plenty in the leftovers), then added zucchini, blanched green beans, and tortellini near then end and mixed it all together with the beans and original broth. It’s amazing. Thanks!
If I use canned butter beans does the fluid amount or cooking time change?
Yes, canned beans are already cooked so I would just add them to the tomato sauce in the last 30 minutes of simmer time. Drain and rinse them first to remove the excess salt!
I assume you mean dried oregano, you didn’t specify as you did dried thyme.
That’s correct! Thanks for letting me know, I’ll fix the recipe card 🙂
Love it. I am a big bean fan, in both senses of the phrase. I’ll have to cook my own tomatoes; I’ve not seen salt free in Thailand and I am assuming salt free to avoid the problem of salt when cooking beans.
I’ve never had any trouble with beans becoming tough with cooking them with salt. I do avoid adding vinegar until the end of the cooking, however.