I tried 10 brands of butter beans – M&S’s £2.50 jar rivals the £5 brands

Fuelled by a wave of social media trends including ‘fibre-maxxing’ and protein packing, the everyday butter bean is no longer just a budget fallback sitting in a dusty corner of the pantry. Gourmet jars featuring heirloom varieties like Spanish gigantes or creamy judión beans are filling supermarket shelves and winning over home cooks, despite costing as much as ten times the price of a standard 45p tin. Clearly, the gap between basic and best has never been wider. I tasted eighteen popular butter beans in a range of formats and have concluded that whether you should opt for a cheap and cheerful can or a posh jar entirely comes down to how you plan to use them. The premium beans proved to be leagues ahead in texture and flavour, but are far too delicious for throwing into soups or stews and are best kept for tossing into salads, whizzing into creamy dips or eating straight from the jar with a swirl of good olive oil. Standard tinned beans (especially unsalted ones) are pretty dull on their own, but at such great value and with all the same health benefits, they’re brilliant for bulking out cassoulets and curries where bigger flavours do the heavy lifting. So, in search of the perfect bean, I spent some time testing the high street’s offerings – from basic to premium. Here are the results. Shorts Bold Bean Co Queen Butter Beans £3.25 for 570g jar Bold are the current darling of social media with endorsements from celebrity fans including Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver. Their Queen butter beans are Piękny jaś, grown in Poland, packed in Spain, and boast two Great Taste stars. The packing liquor is deliciously silky, with a long-lasting and balanced sweet and salty flavour, even more impressive considering that unlike most other jarred beans, these are additive-free and are cooked solely with water and salt. The beans themselves are large and caramel-coloured, with a tender, velvety texture – there are a few broken beans in the jar but who cares when they taste this good. 5/5 Perelló Judión Beans £4.50 for 700g jar These pale and creamy judión beans are from Spanish brand Perelló who are famously lauded for their olives. They’re very beautiful and uniform in appearance, without any splits or broken beans and have a slightly firm, less starchy texture which makes them a great choice for tossing into salads or serving straight from the jar. The liquor is clear and smooth but a little on the salty side. For those watching their carb intake, these clock up less than 9g per 100g, remarkably lower than other butter beans with counts as high as 15g per 100g. However, they do contain sulphites, making them slightly processed. 4.5/5 Belazu Judion Butter Beans £3.00 for 360g jar One of the few butter beans available in the UK that have been grown and packaged in Spain. These elegant white beans are smooth and creamy with a very delicate flavour that could be overwhelmed by matching with strong ingredients such as red onion or tuna. The 360g jar is a handy size and easier for using all in one go, unlike the larger sizes that can take some effort to use up. Unfortunately, these have a longer ingredient list than average and contain sulphites, acidity regulator and antioxidants and gram for gram, they work out to be among the priciest too. 4/5 M&S Collection Giant Butter Beans £2.50 for 490g jar Like Bold’s best-selling beans, these giant butter beans are also grown in Poland, packed in Spain and are free from additives. They’re not identical however; the liquor, while similar, is slightly thinner in texture and marginally sweeter. The beans themselves are fractionally smaller than Bold’s but with a thin skin and lusciously soft, creamy texture. 4/5 Epicure Giant Butter Beans £2.60 for 540g jar Plump and buttery giant beans sitting in sweet, relatively thin liquor. Packed in Spain, though the origin is not stated, these are among the best value premium beans at 48p per 100g. They do however contain antioxidants and sulphites. 4/5 Merchant Gourmet Giant Butter Beans £2.40 for 220g pouch These beans have been given a totally unique treatment from pouch-packaging supremos Merchant Gourmet. Drain-free, there’s no liquor at all (which may be viewed as a downside for those wishing to make soups or stews), these giant legumes are dressed in Italian olive oil and a little salt. With a slightly mottled appearance, they aren’t the prettiest or indeed the creamiest however, the flavour is deep and the texture, which features slightly thicker skin and a floury interior, is very satisfying to eat. They can be shaken into salads or quickly microwaved in the pack. 3.5/5 Epicure Butter Beans £1.15 for 400g tin Quite different from Epicure’s jarred butter beans, these are packed in Italy and are additive-free. Unlike other canned varieties, the brine is salty and silky without any metallic aftertaste. The beans themselves are tender and thin-skinned but are neither uniform in colour (creamy-grey) nor size. At £1.15 per tin, they’re not cheap. 3/5 55p for 430g jar Despite the smart jar and contemporary labelling, these butter beans from M&S are far closer in flavour, texture and price to standard tinned beans than top-tier varieties. Large and attractive with an even beige colour, these are firm and a little tough to bite through. They do, however, make a good choice for those watching salt levels and avoiding additives as they’re one of the few to contain nothing but beans and water (likewise, those from Aldi and Lidl). 3/5 Tesco Butter Beans 45p for 400g tin The best of the basic 45p supermarket own label tins, these beans are plump and tender enough, though as they’re packed in water rather than brine, they’re somewhat on the dull side. Great for cooking with but they do contain antioxidants and firming agents. 2/5 Essential Waitrose Butter Beans 55p for 400g tin Large, even-sized beans, these are smooth and tender within, though the skins are rather thick. They contain antioxidants and firming agents but no salt. Very similar to the Tesco offering, but 10p more expensive. 2/5