Lima beans have a bad reputation, I don’t know what they did to deserve it! They are buttery, delicious and generally inoffensive. Especially when baked in a secret sauce… Plus how can you resist the baby ones?
Baked Maple Dijon Baby Lima Beans
Ingredients: 2 C. dried baby lima beans (soaked overnight or with the quick soak method and rinsed), if you have an aversion to lima beans, any white bean will do, 1 small can tomato paste, 2 diced onions, 1/4 C. pure maple syrup, 3 T. dijon mustard, a bit of sea salt, 4 C. vegetable broth, 1 t. baking soda (reduces cook time and gas).
Method: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Meanwhile, on the stove top using a large lidded pot, water sauté onions until translucent, add all other ingredients except for salt and bring to a boil. Put lid on pot and put in the oven. Bake for 2-3 hours until sauce is thick and beans are cooked, add salt at this point to taste. I served these with sautéed collard greens and these fabulous marinated portobello strips.
why does the photo of my dinner look like it was taken in the 70′s?
I love baked beans and have nothing against Lima beans. What a delicious meal! I don’t do this often enough myself, but I always like ideas for how a recipe fits into a menu. Here the baked beans are deservedly the star!
Thanks Emmy! They certainly are the star
This looks so good!!
Peanut! It was so good, really easy too, hope you get a chance to try it
I admit it, I avoid Lima beans like the plague due to some unfortunate childhood experiences. But…your version looks so delectable, probably cuz I can’t tell those are Lima beans – what with all the yummy sauce
!
Aha! I knew someone would talk about an unfortunate childhood experience, but funny that I least expected it to be you
p.s. the sauce covers the beans so much you might not notice, but you could sub any white bean in this recipe.
Hehe, yeah. My mom loved lima beans and she loved (it hurts to say it) liver. Sometimes she’d pair the two. Can you imagine?! The horror. But – I need to man-up and try them again. Especially baby ones and especially w/ the sauce and especially since it’s your recipe.
The HORROR indeed! No wonder you are terrified of the poor things! My dad eats liver too. Ugh! Grody!
These beans look great and taste great too. All Legumes taste good to me. I really can’t think of ones that are not good…..
thanks for the post ps it’s maybe the orange colour that makes it look like the 70s…
Totally the orange color against the baby blue background. Wrong choice for the plate and presentation, haha, but how to make baked beans look good is the question? Glad you enjoy all your legumes Thom, I can’t think of any I don’t like either.
I’ve never had anything against lima beans. Plus, that looks delicious! Limas are incredibly high in potassium- I think twice as much as a banana.
I’m more interested in those mushrooms! Anything special with those?
Cool, I didn’t know that about the potassium! Keep those charlie horses at bay! Oh the mushrooms, yes they are super special, click on the wording, there’s a link to the recipe. After marinating them, I sauteed them until tender. YUM.
Hi Somer,
Back in the late 90s, I read a book by Annemarie Colbin called Food and Healing. In her book she talks about the negatives of Lima Beans; however, I cannot remember what she said. I think it had something to do with estrogen??? Ugh! I wish I could remember. Sorry. Whatever the case, your recipe above looks YUM-O-LICIOUS!
Interesting! You hear so many negative things about different foods that I try not to stress to much about it, especially since my diet is pretty varied. Glad you like the look of the beans, they were super tasty!
Baby Lima beans rule!
Yes! Glad you are feeling the love for them too bro!
I don’t have an aversion to lima beans, they are usually just ignored in favor of “the more popular” beans. I put them in soup sometimes and use leftovers in sauces.
Good on you! Lima beans are awesome!
p.s. did you see the awesome linkage to your radical ‘shroom marinade?
!
Oh yeah! How did you like them?
DELISH! I did 4 giant portobellos, we used the leftovers on pizza!
Awesome! Thanks for letting me know! I’ll tell everyone they are “Somer Approved”
Definitely “Somer Approved” Ha!
I adore Lima beans in every way and when playing around with my recent baked beans, enjoyed several versions with these babies!! Love love them!!
Ha! There they are, I seriously considered not posting this recipe at all since they were so unphotogenic, but I couldn’t resist because they really are so delicious! Plus I know I’ll be making them again and can always update the photo shoot if they decide to get “pretty”!
I never had a problem with lima beans, but I guess we didn’t have them often enough to dislike them. These look and sound wonderful – and I love it when I see a recipe with ingredients that I have readily at hand.
Thanks Heidi! It really is such a simple recipe, I think you’d really like it, now you’re going to have to choose between this one and the cowboy beans since two bean dishes in one weekend will be too much to handle
!
Especialy if you’re worried about greenhouse gas emissions.
Big fat grins and laughter over here!
I don’t eat lima beans enough- I really like them. I’m drooling over those portobello slices, though! Holy Moly- I want a plate of those!
Head on over to check out the marinade, really, really good, though I might decrease the balsamic vinegar by a tad next time.
Never had Lima beans before but I love beans in general so I’m sure I would love these! The sauce sounds delicious!!
In the recipe they just seem like a bigger version of white beans. But you’ve got to try them plain, they are also trickily called “butter beans” for a reason!
70′s or not, this meal looks deeeelish!
Thanks Brittany, we just need a disco light in the background!
I think this looks like a truly great meal! hearty, comforting and certainly delicious. Thank you for sharing with us!
You are so welcome! It was a really nourishing meal.
I LOVE limas! But the large ones are my favorite…so creamy and good! This looks great–nice and warming as the weather gets cooler
Courtney
Yay! You could totally use the larger beans with this recipe!!! But you may have to use a little more liquid and a longer bake time to compensate for the size of the bean. Awesome Courtney!!!
I have had a serious hate-on for lima beans ever since I can remember. I think it was because my mom used to serve them to me, cooked from frozen with nothing else done as a side dish to my dinner. They were dry and tasteless and just awful! I think I should give them another chance though, I’ll have to try your version
Oh man, I can see exactly where your hate on came from! Ew! Growing up I always had to have vegetables buttered or covered in sauce. Now I love them as they are, but even now I don’t think I would love plain reheated from frozen lima beans! :/
I was a lima bean hater. True, until my late sister-in-law made a pasta dish with them, and I wanted to be a good guest and ate them, but had my napkin handy under the table, just in case I had to ditch them.
Your 70′s cookbook shot still does this yummy dish justice.
Ha! Another hater! Awesome story about the napkin
Someday soon after MOFO I’ll make them again and re-photograph them. The photo still makes me cringe! Hehe!
I love how it totally looks like the 70s! Those don’t even look like lima beans, i so want a big bowl of these with a pretzel roll!
Oh my goodness, this needed a pretzel roll! Have you made them yet? So in love with them it’s ridiculous!
This looks YUMMY Somer! I would totally keep the olives in, and I must get myselfsome sriracha stat
Have great weekend! X
What a very special way to make tasty lima beans! I love this festive recipe a lot! Yummm! Somer, you are very creative too!
Thanks Sophie, they are really just a fancied up and healthier version of traditional baked beans, but we really like them
These look great! I never would have thought of making baked beans with lima beans. Yum!
To be honest, It’s the only white bean I had left in my pantry, so in it went!
It was REALLY good 
Love this idea. More than other beans, I feel like limas stand up really well to sweet and savory sauces.
I think you’re absolutely right!
This looks yummy.
Thanks!
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made these for dinner (mostly). they smelled like summer but felt like winter food. thanks friend.