Exploring Rancho Gordo Dried Beans

Updated October 21, 2025

I have mentioned many times that Ann and I must be Tuscan at heart. We are without doubt mangiafagioli, bean eaters: we love beans and they comprise a substantial source of protein in our diet. While our everyday diet heretofore had depended largely on canned beans (because when you are busy, you do not always have time to cook dried beans, or so my excuse went), we recognize that dried beans almost always taste better and come in a lot wider variety than the five or six kinds in cans at the grocery store.

Now that I am retired and time to cook dried beans is no longer an issue, I cook dried beans almost exclusively. In the past, Cannellini were the beans that we used the most, followed by Black Beans and Great Northern Beans. From time to time, I cooked dried Pintos or Mayocobas, largely for frijoles refritos. For refritos, I learned that I preferred Mayocobas to Pintos, but any leftover pot beans are likely to become refritos at our house because we love them so.

In late 2024, I started buying beans from Rancho Gordo in Napa, CA. Although I have known of them for decades thanks to a tip from chef Alice Waters, I never needed to order from them while I was in the restaurant business. On the East Coast, we had our own growers and small importers for wholesale quantities of beans.

My standard procedure for each new bean that we encounter is to soak it overnight in lightly salted water and cook it the next day in the slow cooker with minimal seasonings. For darker beans, the seasonings are usually a poblano, an onion, garlic, Mexican oregano, and some form of spice (chipotle, Chimayo chile, roasted green chile). We eat a bowl of pot beans with tortillas the first night and refried beans with the leftovers the following night.

Here are some notes about beans (updated with each reorder) that we have purchased from Rancho Gordo. They are mostly to refresh my feeble mind when it comes time to reorder, but they're out here for anyone looking for ideas as well.

One Haul from Rancho Gordo

Notes on Beans (alphabetical order)

Ayocote Morado. This is quite a large purplish runner bean that is somewhat similar to the Rio Zape. The beans are extremely creamy but not as flavorful as the Rio Zape beans. The skins are a bit thick as well. All in all, a tasty bean, but I prefer Rio Zapes.

Borlotti Stregoni. I have cooked with a lot of Borlotti and similar beans in my life (Bird Egg, Cranberry, and Dragon's Tongue all come to mind). When these Stregoni, a particular cultivar of Borlotti, arrived, I noticed that they are much bigger and darker than the Borlotti and kin beans that I have used in the past. I cooked them up in a slow cooker with garlic, bay, sage, thyme, and rosemary to use in a Christmas Eve pot of pasta e fagioli, a classic application for these beans in Tuscany. They cooked up into large, dark beans with a dark hearty broth, really too dark and too heavy for my light pasta fagioli. I liked these beans, but I will continue to use Cannellini or other light-colored and lighter-flavored beans for pasta fagioli. As Ann said, "Live and learn." The leftover beans made a fine batch of American chili. They also make fine refried beans.

Cassoulet Beans (Tarbais). These are the traditional French beans used for cassoulet and we used to get them in 10-kilo bags at the restaurant so I am very familiar with them. Heretofore, they have not been my favorite bean for cassoulet, however. That honor went to the Steuben Yellow Eye bean.

However, I made a mind-blowing cassoulet with these Tarbais beans and they were absolutely superb, holding their shape through 8-1/2 hours of cooking (90 minutes of par-cooking and 7 hours baking in the oven). It seems to me that this batch of American-grown beans is significantly better than any of the imported beans from France. It may simply be that they are fresher beans than the imported ones that I used at the restaurant. In any case, they are a winner and I reorder them when they are in stock.

Christmas Lima Beans. I have seen these beans in seed catalogs, but had never eaten them. I did not imagine that they were significantly different from any other form of lima beans. Ann loves dried limas so I got them for her. I grew up eating the fresh form, which in the South we call butterbeans, and don't have a lot of experience cooking the dried form.

Because the beans are reputedly meaty, I treated them like meat, braising them with bacon, onions, porcini mushrooms, and Pinot Noir à la boeuf bourguignon. I feel like this dish was a miss in two ways. First, I should have reserved the expensive treatment for meat. And second, I wasn't happy with these beans. After an overnight soaking and 7-1/2 hours of braising, only 2/3 of the beans were cooked through.

Although I'm leaning towards not reordering these enormously popular beans again, my cooking method is likely at fault. I did not par-cook these large beans after soaking overnight and maybe that accounts for their less than wonderful texture.

Domingo Rojo. These medium-sized red beans look similar to many red beans that I have cooked in the past, but the flavor is really much better. On tasting these beans, Ann said they would make a great chili and I have to agree with her. They would also make a pretty classic New Orleans-style red beans and rice some Monday. As a bonus, they are better tasting and have thinner skins than the traditional red kidney beans. The broth is rich and delicious, but absent any chocolate notes of the Rio Zapes. Definitely worth reordering.

Good Mother Stallard. I have heard of these beans for years, more so back in Virginia where these beans are said to originate. But until now, I have not been lucky enough to find them in stock. They are reputedly a fickle producer.

Good Mother Stallard Beans

These beans are speckled in cream and chestnut like many, but are much rounder than most and a fairly big bean too. They soaked up a lot of water overnight and became more round, if anything, after the soak. I cooked them in my usual fashion, as pot beans the first night and the second night, as refritos which we ate with tortillas. Hands down, these may be the most flavorful beans (Rio Zape, look out!) I have ever tasted. Moreover, they cook up exceptionally creamy and their thin skins lend them to incredible refritos.

Jacob's Cattle. I have heard of these beans almost all of my adult life, but April of 2025 is the first time that I have cooked with them. I bought them because I wanted to try them and because they are undeniably beautiful. 

Jacob's Cattle Beans

These beans are large and kidney-shaped with beautiful white speckles that have also earned them the name Appaloosa Beans. I really wanted to love these beans, but I do not. They are very soft, thin-skinned, and when compared to most of the beans discussed here, missing a lot of flavor. If I am honest, I am disappointed. I do not dislike them, but I see no need to reorder them.

King City Pink. When I read the description of these California heirlooms, I had to try them. They are a beautiful bean, medium-sized and uniformly light pink. I bought them hoping that they would be a replacement for the Santa Maria Pinquitos that were then out of stock. The little blocky pinquitos are a favorite here in my kitchen. King City Pinks are a totally different bean and not a pinquito replacement, but that is neither here nor there in my assessment of them.

These pink beans cook up slightly mealy even when fully cooked to soft. The flavor was fine, but not as good as many of the other beans that I regularly order from Rancho Gordo. For me, the quality to value of the King City beans is not there. At three times the cost per pound of chicken, they need to deliver. They will not be on my reorder list; I will leave these somewhat scarce beans for those who appreciate them more than I.

Large White Lima Beans. Large limas are one of Ann's favorites and a sometime staple in our pantry. These proved to be silky and delicious in a Lima Bean and Beef Stew. I will reorder them, but to my mind, they are not a super sexy bean, rather a common workhorse bean in my culinary lexicon, and so I am more likely to order rarer beans than limas.

Marcella (Cannellini). These are huge cannellini that are both creamy and delicious. I cooked them in the slow cooker with the remains of an Easter ham, leeks, garlic, dried porcini, and a sprig of rosemary. Super delicious and at the point of being overcooked and falling apart which is how I wanted them. I have not yet tried to cook them just to the point of doneness for use in salads or my usual shrimp or squid and white beans. For that, I would just boil them on the stovetop, which I think I will do with the next bag. These a definite pantry staple to reorder whenever they are in stock.

Moro. These small brown beans with dark streaks are really pretty and apparently somewhat obscure. They cooked up with a rich, dark broth that was delightfully flavorful and reminded me of Rio Zapes. This is a wonderful little bean that we enjoyed as a pot bean and would use again for just that. The next day's refritos were not the best we have had. I prefer several other beans for that.

Occhio della Capra. These so-called "goat's eye" beans remind me of oversized and more oval pintos. The coloration is the same, but the flecks of the pintos give way to stripes on the occhio beans. Cooked, they are thin skinned and creamy like pintos with a slightly richer flavor than pintos. These are a fantastic bean for refritos.

Rebosero Beans. I knew nothing about these small pinkish grey Mexican beans that resemble the seeds for Kentucky Wonder pole beans that we used to plant in our garden. I was also drawn to the name of these beans which, if my limited Spanish serves me, means shawlmaker, reboso meaning "scarf."

After cooking these somewhat nondescript-looking beans in what I am calling a "Mexican cassoulet," I am in love with these beans. They cook up beautifully soft and creamy and in a perfect world in which I had unlimited amounts of these beans, would quickly become my new favorites for making frijoles refritos. They far surpass my previous favorites, Mayocobas.

Rio Zape. This large purplish brown bean with dark stripes, splotches, and spots is also known as the Hopi String Bean. To me, it tastes like a Pinto on steroids with some dark chocolate notes in the broth. This is a great pot bean and that is how we eat it, soaked overnight in lightly salted water and cooked simply in the slow cooker with onion, garlic, poblano, chipotle, and Mexican oregano. The next day, they make the most excellent refried beans. Forget about Reboseros; there's a new king in town for refritos!

The last pound of Rio Zapes served us well for two dinners, the first as pot beans served with a bit of cotjia cheese and cilantro, and the second as refried beans served on house-made tostadas topped with Dungeness Crab salad.

Royal Corona Beans. Ann really likes the large white beans from Greece called, aptly enough, gigantes. Royal Coronas are supposed to be similar but larger, richer, and creamier than gigantes. What's not to love about that? I turned them into gigantes plaki, the traditional baked bean dish of Greece. They took longer to cook than I first thought, but in the end, I liked these beans a lot.

Santa Maria Pinquitos. I had never heard of this small, blocky, pink bean from the Central Coast of California that reminds me more of a field pea than a bean. They make good pot beans with a broth reminiscent of Pintos. They do not get as tender and creamy as some other beans, so I am guessing that they would work really well in salads as they hold their shape. Flavor is very good. The refritos that I made from the leftovers were pretty successful; keep in mind that I like some texture in my refritos. I am not a fan of blender refritos; pintos pureed to absolutely smooth is not my jam, tasty or not. I consistently reorder these beans; call me a fan.

Snowcap Beans. I got these beans because I had no idea what they are like and I liked their great looks. The name snowcap is honest: they are large cannellini-sized kidney-shaped tan beans with chestnut stripes reminiscent of Borlotti or Bird Egg beans, the whole draped with a seemingly hand-painted blob of white. With these highly attractive beans, I made a bean and chicken adovada along the lines of classic New Mexican carne adovada. The verdict on the Snowcap beans is that they are large, plenty creamy, and delicious enough to want to reorder time and again.

Yellow Eye Beans (Steuben). This was a workhorse bean at the restaurant, consistently cooking up creamy and delicious and was my go-to for cassoulet when I could not get Tarbais beans. Many people think that these are the original beans for Boston Baked Beans. I constantly reorder these beans and they end up in many dishes, including cassoulets and a Moroccan white bean stew called Loubia. If I have no other beans in the pantry, I have Yellow Eyes; they are that good and versatile for all white bean dishes.

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Stay tuned for more notes. There are many other bags of beans in the pantry to explore.