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35 broad bean recipes for all your spring cooking needs

Spring's hero ingredient is at home in salads and braises, crushed and spread on toast or pulsed and turned into falafels and dips. Get shelling.
White bowl holding a mixture of short pasta, broad beans, asparagus and pancetta, with a steel fork inside, and a blue napkin to the side.
Casacrecce with spring vegetables
Ben Dearnley

Broad beans are the harbingers of spring. Sure, all that podding (and double podding) is fiddly, but the results, we think, are well worth the effort. They work beautifully in spring-ready salads and longer-form braises (Greg Malouf’s broad bean and chickpea stew is especially good), or crushed on toast for an easy breakfast or lunch solution. Plus, they’re an essential ingredient to falafel.

Cook them into fritters or flash-fry them quickly in a pan with chilli and toss them through orecchiette for a colourful pasta dish, broad beans are one versatile legume. Stir through risotto and top with a simple drizzle of olive oil for a complete meal, or smash and spread them on crunchy sourdough toast for a hearty breakfast.

Time to get shelling.

Falafel

Falafel

Australian Gourmet Traveller recipe for falafel.
Insalata primavera

Insalata primavera

This versatile spring salad mixes and matches seasonal green vegetables for the optimal combination of textures and flavours. Experiment to your heart’s content.

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