A creamy canary beans curry made with coconut milk, spices and yellow canary beans. You can sub out other beans like kidney beans or pinto beans in this recipe.

As much as I cook with beans and lentils, and love them, I had never before tried canary beans, although I'd seen them often enough at the grocery store.Canary beans, I'm guessing, are so called because of their lovely yellow color. I used these to make a curry, Maharashtrian style, with coconut milk.

I must say I loved these beans. They hold their shape beautifully when cooked, but dissolve creamily in your mouth. They were perfect in this curry, but doubtlessly I will be looking for more recipes to make with these in the future.
I've been having a busy weekend, so I'm just going to get on with the recipe. Sometimes, I guess, you deserve a break from my babble. Enjoy the last few hours of the weekend, everyone!
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Canary Beans Curry
Ingredients
- 1 cup canary beans (cooked until tender. Soak overnight if possible if using dry beans. If using canned beans, use 2 14-oz cans after draining the brine)
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 large onion (chopped)
- 1 tablespoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- 5 cloves garlic (minced)
- 1 inch knob ginger (chopped)
- 2-3 green chili peppers (like serrano or jalapeno)
- 2 tablespoon jaggery (available in Indian stores. You can substitute with 2 tablespoon sugar)
- Juice of ½ lemon
- ½ cup cilantro (minced)
- ½ cup coconut milk
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a saucepan.
- Add the onions and saute until translucent, about five minutes on medium heat.
- Grind together the ginger, garlic, green chilies and the coriander and cumin powders into a fairly smooth paste.
- Add the paste to the onions and saute until the mixture is rather dry and does not smell raw, about 5 minutes.
- Add the beans and turmeric. Add salt to taste and a cup of water and bring to a boil. If the curry gets too dry at any time, add more water, a little at a time.
- Simmer on low heat about 5 minutes.
- Add the coconut milk, jaggery and lemon juice and heat through.
- Turn off the heat and garnish with coriander leaves.
- Serve hot with rice.
Teresa
Just made this yesterday and it is so delicious! We didn't feel like venturing to more than one grocery store because covid so we subbed 2 jalapenos for the green chiles and it worked quite well. Thank you for the great recipe and I can't wait to explore your website for more ideas!
Anonymous
I'm in the process of making this recipe and I've run into a problem. You say to bring it to a boil and to simmer for 5 minutes. But you have not mentioned any liquid! Your step of adding 4 oz of coconut milk comes after this step. Please respond and tell me how much liquid you used. EileenFrances@earthlink.net
Vaishali Honawar
Anon, add water a little at a time if the curry is too dry. You should have had some water from boiling the beans too.
Mark
See step 5
Anonymous
I'm making this tomorrow. How many servings does this recipe make?
Patrick B.
Made this last night. It was terrific. The step where you add the beans is a bit confusing. Where does the liquid for boiling come from? I just used enough water to cover the beans and it worked well.
Vaishali
FayeHilary: glad you pointed it out-- you need 1/2 cup of canned coconut milk. Mix the milk in the can before using it because it tends to separate with the thick layer on top and thin on the bottom. Hope that helps 🙂