This £2 'Marry Me' Butter Bean Recipe Takes 15 Minutes And Contains Almost A Third Of Your Daily Fibre

Even the best midweek meal rotation needs a shake-up sometimes (I recently added Nigella Lawson’s 15-minute tuna pasta to my beloved list of favourites). 

And let’s face it; with the sun shining and the temperatures rising, most of us feel less and less in the mood to stand over a hot stove for long. 

I’m currently on a low-effort, high-fibre meal kick (about 90% of Brits fail to reach the NHS’s 30 g-a-day fibre recommendation, which is a shame as it can help to lower your risk of colon cancer). 

First, that resulted in my overnight cocoa chia oat breakfast. And recently, it gave life to my new quick-fix “marry me” butter bean recipe, too (my ingredients offered 9g of fibre a serving without bread and is perfect for a speedy dinner or lunch).

The base is simple 

TikTok’s viral “marry me” chicken recipe is actually older than you might think ― it’s a variation of “Tuscan”-style recipes (Mary Berry used the method before it got its catchy name).

The idea is simple: cook a tomato sauce around a protein and then add some form of dairy at the end to round it out. 

“Marry me” recipes often use sundried, rather than regular, tomatoes for an added flavour punch. The result is a moreish, deep flavour that tricks you into thinking you’ve spent hours cooking out tomatoes.

My butter bean recipe does that same, but it’s a lot faster and more wallet-friendly (it involves a 50p can of butter beans, roughly half a pound’s worth of fresh basil, about £1 of Parmesan, approximately 80p of sun-dried tomato, and 50p cream cheese, plus pennies of herbs and spices, onions, and garlic).

Let’s round that up to £2 a person (my recipe fed two).

Here’s how it’s made

Ingredients (for 2)

400g tin butter beans 4 cloves garlic Small onion, finely diced1 tablespoon oil (any is fine, though from the sundried tomato jar is best) About 4 sun-dried tomatoes, dicedHalf a teaspoon of chilli flakes  1 teaspoon oregano Fresh basil, chopped 75g cream cheese 50g grated parmesan SaltPepperCrusty bread (optional) 

Instructions 

Heat the pan to medium, and place the oil in it once hot. Place the finely-chopped shallots in oil along with a half teaspoon of salt once shimmering and keep simmering until translucent (about seven minutes). Add the chopped garlic and sun-dried tomatoes along with the chilli flakes and oregano and fry off for a minute or until fragrant, then pour in the butter beans with their water. Continue cooking for another 5 minutes or until the sauce begins to become jammy and thick. Add the cream cheese, Parmesan, pepper, and salt to taste at the end, stirring until well combined (do this off the heat). Serve and cover with chopped basil leaves. Eat with crusty bread if preferred.