Greek style baked beans, often known as Gigantes or gigandes plaki, uses a "giant" form of lima bean that's baked with an olive oil-heavy tomato base and topped with garnishes such as feta cheese and parsley.
Since I wanted to keep this recipe in the category of simple dinner ideas, I opted to use a jarred pasta sauce for my tomato base. I used La Regina di San Marzano marinara sauce. I *love* this sauce. The ingredients for the basic marinara are simple, just peeled tomato purée, olive oil, onions, sea salt, sliced garlic, basil, black pepper, and oregano.
Notice how olive oil is the second ingredient on the list. If you didn't already know, ingredient lists on product labels include the items in order from largest to smallest quantity in the finished product. Also, notice that the calorie count is a bit higher for a ½ cup serving than many jarred sauces - this is also due to the heavy-handed olive oil, which makes this sauce simply delicious and -perfect- for recipes when that olive oil flavor should be front and center.
And that includes any Greek recipes! And if you can't find true giant lima beans at your regular grocery store, don't worry. Go ahead and use butter beans or whatever kind of lima beans you can find and it'll be fine.
While prepping this meal is quick and easy, it does need some time to cook properly. You'll need to soak your beans for at least 6 hours (or overnight), boil for about 35 minutes, and then bake for an hour. So it may not be ideal when you're strapped for time and getting home late for the evening, but it's still totally easy.
Greek Style Baked Lima Beans
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 1 hour 35 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 45 mins
- Yield: about 8 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 1 lb gigantes or large lima beans, soaked 6+ hours, rinsed, and drained
- 1 large jar (28 - 30oz) marinara sauce * SEE NOTES!
- ½ cup vegetable or chicken broth
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Crumbled feta cheese and/or parsley for garnish
Instructions
- Place the soaked, rinsed, and drained beans in a large pot and cover with water that reaches about 2 inches above the beans. Bring to a boil and allow to boil for about 35 minutes (the beans will not be totally tender at this point) About halfway through the cooking process, Preheat oven to 350F.
- Reduce heat to medium-low and add the jar of sauce, olive oil (if using, see notes), and broth. Add salt and pepper and taste, adjust as needed. Since all jarred sauce will be different, you can add other seasonings as well such as oregano, thyme, onion/garlic powder etc.
- Pour into a large casserole dish (9x13 works fine) and bake uncovered for about an hour or until beans are nice and tender.
- Serve with crumbled feta and/or parsley.
Notes
The sauce I used is already heavy in olive oil, but please check the ingredients list of your sauce. If it doesn't use plenty of olive oil (enough that you can taste it when tasting just the sauce) add olive oil to the mixture 1TBS at a time, stirring and tasting after each addition until it has a great Greek-y (yes, that's a word) olive oil flavor.
GIVEAWAY TIME!!
If you want to try out the La Regina di San Marzano sauces for yourself to use in both your Italian AND your Greek recipes, this is a giveaway you'll love! One randomly-chosen winner will receive:
-
Exclusive San Marzano Cooking Apron
-
One of each of the following Italian pasta sauces:
-
Marinara
-
Arrabbiata [spicy]
-
Four Cheese
-
Use the widget below to enter! Contest ends one week from today!
Save this recipe to your dinner boards! Share on Pinterest using the pretty graphic below. Just hover your mouse over the image and click the button that pops up.
Disclosure: I was provided a sampling of sauces to review and share with you. Giveaway prize pack will be provided by La Regina Di San Marzano. All opinions are my own.
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★★★★★
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★★★★★
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★★★★
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★★★★
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★★★★★
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★★★★★
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★★★★★
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★★★★★
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★★★★
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★★★★
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★★★★★
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★★★★★
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★★★★★
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