When it comes to cooking with beans, home cooks and chefs have a lot of options. You can choose dry or canned beans, and you can choose from among tens of types of beans.
The following chart describes ten of the most common varieties of beans available in both dry and canned form in U.S. supermarkets. The cooking time refers to the time needed to cook dry beans after you soak them.
If a recipe calls for white beans, you can use Great Northern beans, navy beans, or white kidney beans (also called cannellini beans).