Lupini beans substitutes

Not so much a substitute as the same thing under another name - tarwi is the Andean lupin, sold already debittered and packed in brine for Ecuadorian and Peruvian dishes. If your local shop is Latin American rather than Mediterranean, this is what you are looking for. What changes: very little. Tarwi beans are often slightly larger and a touch softer than Italian jarred lupini, and the brine may be less salty, but the flat shape, the firm skin and the dense interior are all the same. Rinse and use exactly as you would lupini.

Best for

eating cold as a snack, salads and mezze plates, ceviche de chochos and solterito, any recipe calling for jarred lupini

Look for jars or vacuum packs labelled chochos, tarwi or tarhui. As with lupini, taste one before you build a dish around them - properly debittered beans should be bland and faintly nutty, and any real bitterness means they were not processed fully.

The best swap that is not a lupin. Peeled favas share the two things that make lupini distinctive: a firm outer bite and a dense, faintly mealy-creamy interior that holds its shape rather than collapsing. What changes: favas taste noticeably more of something - green, grassy and slightly sweet - where lupini are close to neutral with a faint bitter edge, so a bowl of them reads fresher and more vegetal. They are also rounder rather than flat, and a fraction softer. In a salad the difference barely registers; in a snack bowl eaten one at a time you will notice.

Best for

snacking with olive oil, lemon and cumin, salads and grain bowls, mezze plates, cold bean dishes

Frozen peeled favas are far easier than fresh and just as good here - boil them for three or four minutes and cool them under running water so they stay firm. Skip the double-peeling step, since the skin is part of what gives you lupini's bite. Dried favas need a long soak and cook and come out much softer.

The universally available option, and completely respectable in a salad. Chickpeas are the right sort of size and they hold together in a dressing without turning to paste. What changes: texture, mainly. Chickpeas are soft, round and creamy inside with a thin skin that slips off, so where lupini snap between the teeth chickpeas give way. They also taste nutty and distinctly of themselves rather than neutral. A cold salad works beautifully; a bowl of chickpeas set out as a nibble with drinks is a different and less interesting proposition than a bowl of termos.

Best for

salads, grain bowls and cold dishes, anything dressed with olive oil, lemon and herbs, pantry substitutions

Rinse them thoroughly and dry them well, because the starchy canning liquid dulls a dressing. For a firmer, closer bite, drain the chickpeas and roast them at high heat for fifteen minutes with a little oil and salt - that gets you toward lupini's resistance, though at the cost of the moist interior.

The strongest substitute if what you want lupini for is a salty, high-protein thing to eat by the handful, which is why the bean has found a second audience among low-carb and high-protein snackers. Edamame is genuinely firm, holds a snap, takes salt well, and is comparably rich in protein and fibre. What changes: flavour and colour. Edamame is bright green and tastes sweet and grassy rather than neutral and faintly bitter, so it is unmistakably a different bean, and it needs to be eaten cold and well salted to sit in the same role. Nutritionally it is the nearest common legume on the high-protein axis.

Best for

eating by the handful as a snack, low-carb and high-protein snacking, salads, packed lunches

Boil or steam frozen shelled edamame for three minutes, drain, then cool it quickly and salt generously - underseasoned edamame tastes bland where lupini brine does the seasoning for you. Pods-on edamame is fun to eat but works less well as a lupini stand-in in a dish.

A good match for scale and appearance, and a natural choice for a mezze plate where the beans are dressed and served cold. Gigantes in particular are big, pale and handsome. What changes: they are markedly softer and creamier than lupini, with thin skins that split easily, so they are something you eat with a fork rather than pick up whole, and they will break down if you toss them hard in a dressing. Flavour is mild and buttery rather than neutral-bitter, which most people prefer but which is not what termos tastes like.

Best for

dressed cold bean salads, mezze plates, olive oil, lemon and herb preparations

Fold the dressing in gently with a spatula. Jarred Greek gigantes are better than canned butter beans here, being firmer and already well seasoned. Cannellini beans work too but are smaller and softer still.

The right choice when lupini were being served as a dry, salty, crunchy thing with drinks rather than as a moist bean. Habas fritas are fried and salted broad beans sold in Spanish and Middle Eastern shops and they are hugely satisfying to eat by the handful. What changes: everything about the moisture. Lupini are wet, cool and yielding inside a firm skin; these are dry and crunch all the way through, more like a nut than a bean. As a snack they do the same job at the table. In a salad or any dish with dressing they go soft and disappointing within minutes.

Best for

salty snacks with drinks, topping salads for crunch at the last moment, shelf-stable snacking

Add them to any dressed dish at the very last second, or keep them separate and let people scatter their own. Check the salt on the packet, since many brands are salted very heavily indeed.