Recipes › Tomato (Cherry) › Quick Cherry Tomato Butter Beans with Crispy Capers and Lemon
Quick Cherry Tomato Butter Beans with Crispy Capers and Lemon
This is a weeknight stalwart — one pan, under thirty minutes, and the kind of dish that tastes far more considered than the effort deserves. Cherry tomatoes are crushed directly into a pan with garlic and olive oil until they form a rough, intensely flavoured sauce, then butter beans are stirred through to drink it all up. Capers fried until crispy in a little oil add pops of salt and texture, and a good squeeze of lemon at the end keeps everything bright.
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Ingredients
- 500 g cherry tomatoes
- 800 g butter beans, drained and rinsed (2 x 400g tins)or cannellini beans
- 5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 40 g capers, drained and patted dry
- 5 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp dried chilli flakes
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 15 g flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 pinch black pepper, freshly ground
- 4 good crusty bread, thick slices, to serve (optional)
Contains: milk, cereals gluten.
Method
- Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a small frying pan over a high heat until shimmering. Add the dried capers and fry, stirring occasionally, for 3–4 minutes until they are crispy and have burst open. Remove with a slotted spoon onto a plate lined with kitchen paper and set aside.About 4 min
- In a large, wide frying pan or sauté pan, warm the remaining 3 tablespoons of olive oil over a medium heat. Add the sliced garlic and chilli flakes and cook gently for 2 minutes, stirring, until the garlic is soft and fragrant but not coloured.About 2 min
- Add all the cherry tomatoes to the pan and increase the heat to medium-high. Season with half a teaspoon of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 8–10 minutes, using the back of a wooden spoon or a potato masher to crush the tomatoes as they soften. You want them fully burst and forming a thick, jammy sauce.About 10 min
- Add the drained butter beans to the pan, stir well to coat them in the tomato sauce, and cook for a further 3–4 minutes until the beans are heated through and have absorbed some of the sauce.About 4 min
- Remove from the heat. Squeeze in the lemon juice, taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed, then stir through most of the chopped parsley.
- Spoon into bowls or onto plates. Scatter over the crispy capers and the remaining parsley. Serve immediately, with crusty bread to mop up the sauce if you like.
Tips
- The capers must be completely dry before they go into the oil or they will spit dangerously and won't crisp properly. Press them firmly between two layers of kitchen paper.
- Don't rush the tomato crushing stage — the sauce needs to be genuinely thick and jammy before the beans go in, otherwise the finished dish is watery.
- A good drizzle of your best olive oil over the finished bowls makes a real difference here.
Ring the changes
- Stir 30g of roughly torn green or black olives through with the butter beans for extra briny depth.
- Crack two eggs into the sauce after adding the beans, cover the pan and cook for 4 minutes for a set-white, runny-yolk result — turns this into a very satisfying shakshuka-adjacent breakfast.
Keeping it
Keeps well in the fridge for up to 3 days. Reheat gently in a pan with a small splash of water to loosen the sauce. The crispy capers are best made fresh each time.
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