Butter beans here are flat, creamy beige and about 1.5 inches long. They are Phaseolus lunatus, the same as limas but over here we don't use them green. I use canned. I'm not a great fan but DH loves them so we have them sauted lightly in with garlic and olive oil as a side.

I can't speak for butter beans, but dry and hard is an improperly cooked bean. There are great big honkin' lima beans which are very starchy and need a lot of cooks' help to make them taste good. Baby limas, which I rarely see fresh, are good from frozen, but you can also get them dried. They are delightful, except for the part where they love butter. I mean, that tastes delightful, but I don't think any of us exactly need to eat more butter. They cook like beans, until tender, but your definition of bean tenderness may be anywhere from somewhat firm to mooshy. Personally, I think pintos taste good mooshy, though I generally prefer beans to be firm enough to chew a bit. Baby limas, however, are best soft but short of mooshy.

I grew up eating limas in Indiana. Down here in Louisiana butter beans are king. They're the same bean.

https://www.camelliabrand.com/the-difference-between-lima-beans-and-butter-beans/

https://www.ranchogordo.com/products/large-white-lima-beans?_pos=1&_sid=ad7ed3547&_ss=r

They are the same - that is to say, the same species, Phaseolus lunatus (lunatus means "moon shaped"). But like many other legumes and vegetables in general, there are many different cultivars with different sizes, colors.

IME, butter beans tend to be on the larger end of the size scale (i.e.. gigante beans), are a pale, creamy white color and cook up to be soft, tender and very creamy.

Same thing.

I’ve always thought of them as lima beans but larger. Love them but I tend to love all beans.

Also a great fan of beans, using at least 6 varieties plus lentils in my delicious bean and ham hock winter soup. Unfortunately was unable to find the Lima/Butter beans recently...

I think they are also similar to Corona beans, but Corona beans do not take long at all to cook, but the end result is very similar to Lima beans. I've never used the term butter beans, and so I think it must be regional.

These are also similar to Prespon giant elephant beans, which are runner beans (Phaseolus multiflorus) or fasolia gigantes elefantes-prespon florinas in Greece. I have found the Prespon beans to be pretty much identical to Corona beans, and they cook at the same time and have a very creamy texture. This is one of my favorite beans.

Shaxhome, I would expect it to be easy to find the Greek giant elephant beans in Australia because of the large Greek population there.

Butter beans and lima beans are the same thing. There are many different varities. Big white, speckled. small green, etc. Just as there are many different tomatoes.

To clarify, when I said ”lima above, it was specifically about green colored beans. I don't know if that's a variety, an aged picked, or what, but it sounds like butter beans ar nicer than the large, green limas I know.

" I've never used the term butter beans, and so I think it must be regional. "

Not regional at all. Every decent sized grocer store I know of carries canned butter beans labeled as such - Von's, Safeway, Kroger's, Aldi's, etc.

I love lima beans, but my DW claims she has a texture issue with them. So, I make calico beans from limas, blacks, kidney, garbanzo and pork n beans when she is on the road out of town. Have a nice IP recipe for them, or I use the crock pot..

"Is There a Difference Between Butter Beans and Lima Beans? Other than what they're called and sometimes their color, butter beans and lima beans are exactly the same. Their species is called Phaseolus lunatus and the difference in their name is only a matter of geography.Jan 25, 2023

https://www.allrecipes.com/article/butter-beans-vs-lima-beans/#:~:text=Other%20than%20what%20they're,%2C%20they're%20butter%20beans.

Lars, thanks for the suggestion of Greek giant elephant beans. My quick check shows them to be large butter beans. Would love to get hold of some. Unfortunately, I live out in the boonies, and the nearest town's supermarkets don't carry such exotic goods! Even the 10 or 12 different Indian masalas that I use maybe 5 nights weekly, I have to order online from the city. I do grow and use broad beans (Fava in the U.S.). Butter beans are generally available here, just not recently.

Wikipedia says ”immature seeds are uniformly green”, so even the big green ones are immature. Stands to reason that accounts for any potential difference in flavor and/or texture.

I love 'em all - and fresh butter beans I've had from produce markets in the south were speckled. The thing I don't like about dried limas is that every time I've tried cooking them, the skins came off and they turned all mushy.

Butter makes everything better, IMO 😋

Butter beans are fully mature lima beans. The small green limas all grown up.

I'm not sure everyone is getting this. There are zillions of different kinds, colors and shapes of lima beans, which only refers to a bean species. Butter beans are just one type and not the same as the green limas. Just the same as tomatoes - a beefsteak is not the same as a cherry tomato or a plum. A cherry tomato does not "grow up" to be a beefsteak!!

Garden gal, they are the same thing. People just call them different names. I post a link to one of a zillion articles in a post above.

Cilantro, that is incorrect. Read my link above. Henderson's baby lima, which is a small baby butterbean, will not grow up to be the big white ones that are climbers.

Please reread what I wrote. Butter beans are the same bean species as lima beans but they are not the same thing. Butter beans are only one type in the lima bean species, just as beefsteak tomatoes are only one type of tomato but the same species as a cherry tomato. A beefsteak tomato is not the same kind as a cherry tomato and a butter bean is not the same type as a green lima bean.

My FIL always had a large variety of bean in the garden which he would cook with olives, garlic, serve with olive oil but I don't know exactly the variety. I've never found exactly the same bean offered in a store but they could have been something someone slipped into luggage coming back from Croatia. He served them frequently and somehow no one kept any for seed. Big, buttery, filling - quite good but then we like beans. We have a young man coming back to college from there end of next month, I wonder if I described them if his mother would know what I meant. I wonder too if I could keep the deer away from them, I remember them as being sizeable plants.

We like flageolet for a firm but creamy bean. I'm told those are picked before full maturity - not large like a butter bean but very good and becoming harder to find at least in my local stores which used to carry them dried and bagged Bob's Red Mill but not in the last couple of years.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. Those of us, 30+ year gardeners, know that baby green limas and small bean flagolettes are mature at green and tiny at harvest. Not at all young/picked early.They will never mature larger and white. My tiny French flagolettes are not at all picked young. They are mature 'tiny'. Harvested 'tiny'. Not harvested 'young' before a larger state. It is in the breeding stock. They are breed to be small.

Baby breed green limas are mature 'green' and small. It is a specific variety like a 'cherry'/'Grape' tomato. Not a young tomato before letting them grow larger.

I like and grow three beans. A big flat Italian and a small French and this year a small lima from RanchoGordo.seed . After years of gardening we grow what we like.

And always try one or two something new.

They are bush varieties that surpise early in my climate. Pole varieties can be iffy.

Thanks.

I do not shop for canned beans, and so I've never seen canned butter beans in a store.

I did soak some Greek giant elephant beans last night and will cook them today. It is so easy to cook dried beans that this is what I tend to buy, although I occasionally buy frozen beans, but dried beans are the easiest to store. The main thing I buy in cans is tomatoes - otherwise I do not visit the canned aisles in stores.

Agree - there are a number of different varieties of Lima type beans, and butter beans are one - they can be speckled or black too.

IMPE, they mostly taste about the same.

Cornbread and butter beans...the best thing on the table.

Cornbead and butter beans as much as you are able.

So goes the song.

Butter beans are one of many flat broad beans just as are limas. I find butter beans to be a softer cooked bean than are most limas but you could sub one for another quite nicely.

Butter beans are my favorite.

"Is There a Difference Between Butter Beans and Lima Beans? Other than what they're called and sometimes their color, butter beans and lima beans are exactly the same. Their species is called Phaseolus lunatus and the difference in their name is only a matter of geography.Jan 25, 2023

https://www.allrecipes.com/article/butter-beans-vs-lima-beans/#:~:text=Other%20than%20what%20they're,%2C%20they're%20butter%20beans.

What is a tomato plant classified as?tomato, (Solanum lycopersicum), flowering plant of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), cultivated extensively for its edible fruits. Labelled as a vegetable for nutritional purposes, tomatoes are a good source of vitamin C and the phytochemical lycopene.May 30, 2024

There are a lot of different VARITIES, but they are all a tomato

. Other than what they're called and sometimes their color, butter beans and lima beans are exactly the same. Their species is called Phaseolus lunatus and the difference in their name is only a matter of geography.

It is the same thing. They are all a lima, just a different variety.

Saw this on FB and thought of this thread.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ranchogordofanclub/permalink/1643304533132525

I want to apologize for returning to this late after posing a question with so many interesting responses. this is really been interesting.

One reason why I wanted to know is because I saw this recipe that called for butter beans and I wasn’t sure what exactly they were because I see various references to them and different descriptions as there are on this thread.

The other reason is that I have mixed feelings about lima beans. I might’ve said that. Sometimes I’ve had them and they seem just mushy and peely. I have really enjoyed the taste. I have never grown lima beans per se but when I read the words, “butter beans“ I was attracted to the image. I was attracted to the image because I grew some things from collected seed that had gone for too long and turned into nothing to use, but just what would be a shelled bean. This was in September or maybe October of one year when I’d let things get too large to use as green beans. They were those flat style green beans. That is what I planted and when they got too tough I ate the inside, the seed, not the outside green part.

So I brought a lot of the beans in and shelled them to get the inside mature looking bean, not housing, and I cookedthem right away. They were fantastic! They were the best thing I’ve ever had in that type of a bean – but of course they were fresh, not dried. I don’t know if I had ever done that before. I told my husband that they tasted buttery, they melted in my mouth. They were just fantastic., so delicious and tender and rich. He also liked them.

There were so many of these freshly shelled over-ripened Italian style green bean “beans“ that I actually frozen a few bags of them. They were just delicious after they were cooked in like a soup with pasta they were really fantastic. I saved some of the seeds out and let them dry. Maybe about 20 seeds in the next year. I planted those seeds. I know some people say don’t do this. You are not gonna get the same being or the same plant whatever, but I didn’t have anything to lose other than a little bit of time and space in the garden. And I miss much curious as I am practical and experimental.

These beans grew that next year and I again waited until they got overripe to cook as a green bean and harvested the interior and that was delicious. I made up a name for them so that I would know that they were not anything purchased but something that just came from an original Italian style green bean. I don’t know who sold the original package. I may have the packing. I dubbed them “Nine Acre Beans.”

I probably still have some of the seeds, but they are several years old and they probably won’t germinate although who knows but I grew these for several years and then had to do some other work and didn’t garden much and the garden overgrew and got filled with things other things.

So long story, long story that is what I thought butter beans might be — something like the beans that I liked, and kept growing the originated from some Italian style flat bean. And kept collecting and saving and planting and collecting saving replanting and so on.

By the way, I actually liked the dried or the shelled bean more than the whole Italian flat bean that I cooked as a green bean. (I started cooking these and growing these because I had a neighbor that was Greek American and she used to make this dish that was something like these Italian flat green beans cooked with some sort of meat and she told me to “cook it to death” it was a type of stew, where her mother grew up in Greece cooked all day on the back of the stove.

Thanks again for your many informative posts. I’m going to have to read it again and again and order some of the beans because the beans that sleeve orders, Camellia, sound very interesting.

PS please excuse the typos and speakos. I have a hard time using my hands to type so use a combination of voice to text and packing with my index finger.

There's a lot of different lima beans. Growing up, limas tended to mean the ones fresh shelled. Butter beans were the big ones like that, but they were the ones that came dry instead. They are the same, being big beans you eat shelled, but different varieties can be better in their fresh or dry forms. Personally, I'm not as fond of the fresh shelled ones- I am very fond of the dry shell ones.

Flat style Italian green beans are NOT any kind of lima/butterbean. They are Phaseoulus vulgaris. The flat Itaian beans are also called Roma or Romano.

https://www.thespruceeats.com/types-of-green-beans-4047242

ETA: If you can find the seed packet, it should have the scientific and common name on it.

Also, any fresh shelled is so much better.

Years ago I grew romano beans. They require more cooking than I care to do with fresh green beans.

Grew long beans this year. I won't bother again.

My Italian MIL used to make lima beans in a hot tomato based sauce. They were always hard and undercooked. Her family thought that was the way they were supposed to be. But, that is not a well cooked bean.

It was the fact that she cooked them in tomato sauce that is acidic. This acid interfered with cooking and the beans never got soft. If you plan on using tomato with them, best to first actually cook them and finish them in a sauce.

I find that acid like that will also affect rice in the same way.

I prefer butter beans to those small green limas. I buy my butter beans, and all beans, canned . but only one brand will I buy. I know some who declare that beans cooked from dried are superiour, but I find the quick availablily of canned beans and the good quality of them to be very valuable for meal prep. Sure, you can buy and cook some nice varieties of dried beans and I dont deny that. But, for everyday quick and nutritous and delicious meals, you cant beat a can of good beans. They are the most versatile pantry item ever!

If I were to get some nice smoked ham hocks or sausage or wanted to make something like a RedBeans n Rice, I would use dried beans.

My mom used to grow and put up snap peas and also crowder peas . You cant buy either of those in a can. She used fat back but dont know that she put in the canned ones. Along with some good non sweet cornbread.............awwww!!!!!!!

Claudia, those larger beans you call a butter bean ARE a lima. They are just a different VARIETY than the small ones.