Great Northern Beans substitute

Best substitute

Cannellini Beans

Use the same amount by volume or by tin as the great northern beans you are replacing

Best for soups

Close match

Cannellini beans and navy beans are both direct 1:1 substitutes for great northern beans, and in nine dishes out of ten nobody at the table will notice. Choose cannellini if the beans should stay whole and visible, since they are larger and firmer, and navy beans if the dish should go thick and creamy, since they are smaller and break down more. Butter beans or flageolet beans also work. The job a white bean does here is creamy starchy body plus mild neutral bulk that soaks up whatever the pot tastes like, and every white bean does that, which is why this is one of the safest substitutions in cooking.

Other great northern beans substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Navy Beans (Haricot Beans)
Different texture
Use the same amount by volume or by tin
Small oval white beans, the ones used in tinned baked beans.
What changes
Best for
baked beans, soups, senate bean soup, purees, creamy dips
Smaller than great northerns with a slightly thicker skin, and they break down more readily, so the pot ends up creamier and thicker with fewer distinct whole beans. Flavour is a bit sweeter and blander. This is a good thing in baked beans or a thick bean soup and less good in a salad, where you want beans you can see and spear.
3Butter Beans or Lima Beans
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume or by tin
Large, flat, very starchy pale beans.
What changes
Best for
stews, braises, casseroles, greek-style baked beans, sides
A real change in eating experience rather than a like-for-like swap. Butter beans are much bigger and their texture is soft, floury and almost custardy in the middle, so a spoonful is one or two beans rather than six. The flavour is slightly sweeter and more mineral. Excellent in a slow braise where the softness is welcome, and clumsy in a delicate soup. They also fall apart if stirred hard, so treat them gently.
4Flageolet Beans
Close match
Use the same amount by volume or by tin
Small pale green French beans, harvested slightly immature.
What changes
Best for
cassoulet, lamb dishes, bean salads, elegant sides
Texturally the best match of all for great northerns, firm but tender with a thin skin, which is why French cooks use them where Americans reach for great northerns. Two caveats: the beans are pale green rather than white, so a white bean dip or a white chili will not look white, and they are more expensive and harder to find outside good delis.
5Chickpeas (Garbanzo Beans)
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume or by tin
A different legume entirely, but a serviceable stand-in for bulk.
What changes
Best for
stews, soups, salads, curries, when nothing white is in the cupboard
Be clear that this changes the dish. Chickpeas are firm, dense and distinctly nutty, they never go creamy however long you cook them, and they are beige, so a white chili turns tan. What they do offer is the same protein-and-bulk role and they hold up beautifully in a long simmer. Fine in a rustic stew, wrong for a smooth white bean puree.
6Pinto or Cranberry (Borlotti) Beans
Close match
Use the same amount by volume or by tin
Creamy mottled beans that behave much like great northerns but change the colour.
What changes
Best for
chili, soups, refried-style dishes, stews, rustic bean pots
Pinto and borlotti beans are actually very close to great northerns in size and creaminess, so texture is barely affected and the flavour is only a shade earthier and rounder. The catch is entirely cosmetic and it matters more than you would think: they cook to a pinkish brown and tint the broth, so a white chicken chili made with pinto beans looks like a regular chili. Use them where colour is not the point.

What is Great Northern Beans?

Great Northern Beans is Great northern beans, also called great northern white beans, are medium-sized flat white beans with thin skins and a mild nutty flavour, sitting between the small navy bean and the large cannellini in the family of white beans.

Cooking tips

Understand what the bean is doing and this substitution stops being stressful. A white bean in a soup, chili or braise supplies three things: soft creamy starch that thickens the liquid, mild neutral bulk that absorbs the flavour of the pot, and protein that makes the dish filling. It contributes almost no flavour of its own. Every bean on this list does the first three jobs, so the only real decisions are how big the beans should be, how creamy the finished dish should get, and what colour it needs to be.
The three white beans people mix up are worth learning once, in order of size: navy beans are smallest and break down most, great northerns are medium and the best balance of holding shape and thickening, and cannellini are largest and firmest. Swapping up the scale gives you a chunkier, brothier dish and swapping down gives you a thicker, creamier one. That is the entire practical difference.
If a substitute holds its shape more than great northerns would have and your soup is too thin, scoop out half a cup of beans, mash them with a fork and stir them back in. This is far better than adding flour or cornstarch, because it thickens with the beans' own starch and keeps the flavour clean.
Tinned and dried beans are not equal by volume. One 15-ounce tin, drained, gives roughly one and a half cups of cooked beans, which is what about half a cup of dried beans yields. Rinse tinned beans well unless the recipe wants that starchy liquid, in which case keep a few spoonfuls of it to thicken the pot.
Never add salt-free acid early to dried beans of any variety. Tomatoes, vinegar and lemon juice all toughen the skins, so a pot of dried great northerns or their substitutes that has tomatoes in from the start can still be gritty after two hours. Cook the beans until tender first, then add the acid.
If you are canning or pressure-canning beans, do not improvise. Bean varieties differ in density and starch, and tested canning recipes are built around specific processing times and acidity levels. Substituting a different bean, or altering the acid in a canning recipe, can create conditions for Clostridium botulinum. Follow a tested recipe exactly, and consult the National Center for Home Food Preservation for current guidance. Substituting beans freely in ordinary cooking, freezing or refrigerated dishes is completely safe.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave the great northern beans out?

Usually not without changing the dish substantially, because the beans are typically the protein, the body and the thickening all at once. Leaving them out of a white chili or a bean soup leaves you with thin flavoured broth. If you genuinely have no beans of any kind, cooked pasta, potatoes, rice or barley can carry the bulk, though you will lose the creaminess and the protein.

What is the difference between great northern, cannellini and navy beans?

Size and how much they break down, mostly. Navy beans are the smallest, with thicker skins, and they cook down into a creamy thick mass, which is why they make baked beans. Great northerns are medium, thin-skinned and the best all-rounder, holding shape while still thickening the pot. Cannellini are the largest and firmest, with a slightly nuttier flavour, and they stay distinct in a salad. All three are white, mild and interchangeable 1:1.

What is the best great northern bean substitute for white chicken chili?

Cannellini beans if you want visible whole beans in a brothy chili, or navy beans if you like it thick and creamy. Both keep the dish white, which is the reason the recipe specified a white bean in the first place. Avoid pinto and borlotti beans here, not because they taste wrong, since they actually taste very close, but because they turn the whole pot pinkish brown and it stops looking like white chili.

Can I use dried beans in place of tinned, or the other way round?

Yes. Half a cup of dried great northerns, soaked and simmered, yields about one and a half cups cooked, which is one drained 15-ounce tin. Dried beans need soaking, ideally overnight, then 45 to 90 minutes of simmering depending on age, and they taste better and hold shape better than tinned. Going the other way, drain and rinse the tin and add it late, since tinned beans are already fully cooked and turn to mush with long simmering.

Do great northern beans and their substitutes cook in the same time?

Roughly, but not exactly. From dried and soaked, navy beans take about 45 to 60 minutes, great northerns 60 to 75, and cannellini 60 to 90 because they are larger. Butter beans are quick, around 45 minutes, and go from firm to collapsed fast, so check them often. Age matters more than variety: beans that have sat in the cupboard for two years can take twice as long as fresh ones and sometimes never fully soften.

Related substitutes

More legumes substitutes

Great Northern Beans substitute

Other great northern beans substitutes

2Navy Beans (Haricot Beans)

3Butter Beans or Lima Beans

4Flageolet Beans

5Chickpeas (Garbanzo Beans)

6Pinto or Cranberry (Borlotti) Beans