White bean dip is an easy recipe you can make in 5 minutes with seven simple ingredients and a food processor.

You can serve it as a dip or as a delicious spread in sandwiches, wraps, or for a quick pasta sauce.

white bean dip with bread

Check out our best appetizer recipe collection!

This easy white bean dip recipe is a creamy dip with cannellini beans or with other varieties of white beans.

Cannellini beans are excellent for this recipe because they are soft and with a thin skin, mild in taste, and naturally very creamy.

The bean dip is incredibly versatile. You can use it in many preparations, such as on toasted bread, crackers, with veggie sticks, in a sandwich, or with any of these 25 ways to eat dips and hummus.

Also, since white beans are pretty neutral in flavor, you can change things up by adding your favorite vegetables to the bean dip.

For example, we love making a bright pink dip by adding a ready-to-eat red beet or one with roasted red peppers. It’s such a colorful, easy, and delicious recipe.

White bean dip with a spoon

Ingredients

ingredients with white beans and bread

White beans

You can use any variety of white beans. We recommend canned cannellini beans, navy beans, and great northern beans.

You can also use dry white beans that you previously soaked and cooked yourself. Check out how to do it in the TIPS section below.

Lemon

Freshly squeezed lemon juice adds freshness and flavor.

Tahini

Tahini gives the bean dip that ultra-creamy texture and rich and nutty flavor. Try to get tahini from 100% hulled sesame seeds, light in color and ideally imported from the Middle East.

Cumin

Cumin adds a pleasant aroma. You can use ground cumin or cumin seeds.

Garlic

A bit of garlic makes this white bean dip extra zesty. However, we don’t recommend adding multiple garlic cloves as the garlic flavor intensifies as the bean sits in the fridge.

Salt and pepper

Opt for sea salt or kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper for aroma.

Garnish

You can serve the dip as is or top it with a drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley (or a pinch of finely chopped fresh rosemary), a pinch of red pepper flakes, and some grated lemon zest.

Serve with pita bread, pita chips, carrots, bell pepper, and cucumber sticks.

Instructions

To a food processor or blender, add drained and rinsed white beans, tahini, peeled and chopped garlic, lemon juice, cumin, salt, and black pepper.

cannelini beans in a food processor

Blend well till you have a thick and almost completely smooth bean dip.

Depending on the type of beans, you might need to add a couple of tablespoons of water to get the blender going. Then, add as much water as you need to reach your desired consistency.

White bean dip in a food processor

Taste, adjust for salt and lemon, then when you are happy with it, transfer it into a serving bowl and swirl it with a spoon.

Top with a sprinkle of chopped parsley. Optionally, add some extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of red pepper flakes or paprika, and grated lemon zest.

White bean dip and pita bread

Serving suggestions

Bean dip is basically a bean hummus that you can use as an appetizer to dip veggie sticks and pita bread, but it’s also great as a spread in wraps or sandwiches or as a sauce for pasta.

Sandwich with white bean dip

Bean dip sandwich with avocado

Try it with toasted bread, sliced avocado, spinach leaves, confit tomatoes, and a few capers. It’s a deliciously creamy spread.

Pasta with white bean dip

bean dip pasta

You can even use the leftover bean dip to make a quick pasta sauce.

Warm the bean dip on a skillet with a ladleful of pasta cooking water, sage leaves, salt, and pepper.

Toss in the pasta al dente, and sprinkle with some parsley, olive oil, fresh pepper, and leftover cannellini beans. It’s delicious this way, too, and perfect for a quick dinner.

Variations

White bean dip with beets

bean dip variations with red beet
white bean dip with red beet

You can easily vary this bean dip by following the same recipe and adding one ready-to-eat peeled and cooked red beet.

You can also add roasted red peppers as an alternative.

Storage

Store the white bean dip in the refrigerator for a couple of days, covered in foil. We do not recommend freezing it; it’s much faster to make it fresh.

Tips

How to cook dry beans

Cooking dry beans is very simple. All you need to do is to rinse the dry beans, then soak them in plenty of water for 12 hours with a teaspoon of baking soda (it helps soften the beans’ skin.

Next, drain and rinse them, add them to a large pot with plenty of water, then bring the water to a boil.

Once the water boils, lower the heat add a little salt, and cook the beans on a very gentle simmer for about 1 to 3 hours, depending on the type of bean and how long they soaked. 

In this case, our cannellini beans only took one hour of cooking after 12 hours of soaking. 

There’s no exact cooking time with beans, so you have to taste them to see if they are tender and cooked.

Store the beans for 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator in an airtight container without their liquid. They are perfect for meal prep. They also freeze well for up to 3 months.

bean dip in a white bowl

More recipes with beans

If you enjoy cooking and eating beans, take inspiration from these wholesome and delicious bean recipes:

More dips and spreads

Looking for a quick snack idea or inspiration for an appetizer board? These dip recipes are easy to make and with few ingredients:

  • Hummus with canned or dried chickpeas.
  • Avocado spread: a velvety smooth dip or sandwich spread idea!
  • Eggplant dip: Middle-Eastern-inspired dip recipe with roasted tender eggplant.
  • Lentil hummus: a 5-minute dip and snack idea perfect with pita bread.
  • Tzatziki: a greek garlicky yogurt sauce with cucumber.

For more condiment ideas, check out our dressing and sauces category page.

white bean dip with spoon

White Bean Dip

By: Nico Pallotta
5 from 4 votes
White bean dip is an easy recipe you can make in 5 minutes with seven simple ingredients and a food processor.
You can serve it as a dip or as a delicious spread in sandwiches, wraps, or for a quick pasta sauce.
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes
0 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Servings: 4 people
Course: Side dish, Snack, Starter
Cuisine: Mediterranean

Equipment

  • Food processor or blender

Ingredients

  • 2 cans (15 oz each) white beans cannellini, navy, or great northern beans (or 3 cups cooked beans)
  • 3 tablespoons tahini
  • 3 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 clove garlic
  • ¼ teaspoon cumin
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 2 twists black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons water

Toppings

  • good quality extra virgin olive oil
  • freshly chopped herbs flat-leaf parsley, mint, rosemary

Instructions 

  • To a food processor or blender, add drained and rinsed white beanstahini, peeled and chopped garliclemon juicecuminsalt, and black pepper.
    cannelini beans in a food processor
  • Blend well till you have a thick and almost completely smooth bean dip.
    Depending on the type of beans, you might need to add a couple of tablespoons of water to get the blender going.
    Then, add as much water as you need to reach your desired consistency.
    White bean dip in a food processor
  • Taste, adjust for salt and lemon, then when you are happy with it, transfer it into a serving bowl and swirl it with a spoon.
    Top with a sprinkle of chopped parsley. Optionally, add some extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of red pepper flakes or paprika, and grated lemon zest.
    White bean dip with a spoon

Video

5-minute White Bean Dip is an easy appetizer idea

Notes

Nutrition information is an estimate for one portion of white bean dip out of four, without pita bread and olive oil.

Nutrition

Calories: 203kcal, Carbohydrates: 28g, Protein: 10g, Fat: 6g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g, Monounsaturated Fat: 2g, Trans Fat: 0g, Cholesterol: 0mg, Potassium: 597mg, Dietary Fiber: 6g, Sugar: 1g, Vitamin A: 13IU, Vitamin B6: 0.1mg, Vitamin C: 5mg, Vitamin E: 1mg, Vitamin K: 4µg, Calcium: 106mg, Folate: 88µg, Iron: 4mg, Manganese: 1mg, Magnesium: 72mg, Zinc: 2mg
Tried this recipe? Leave a comment below or mention @theplantbasedschool on Instagram. We are also on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok.

If you liked this recipe, you might also like the following:

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You can serve it as a dip or as a delicious spread in sandwiches, wraps, or for a quick pasta sauce.” player-type=”default” override-embed=”default”]


Nico and Louise in the kitchen

Hi! We are Nico & Louise

Welcome to The Plant-Based School, a food blog with easy, tasty, and wholesome recipes.

Our aim is to help you and your family eat more veggies through delicious recipes with simple ingredients.

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Recipe Rating




4 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    Just made this quick and easy recipe for lunch. We put it on homemade bread and added microgreens, tomatoes and spinach. Yum. Thank you

    1. Fantastic, Teale – that sounds like a delicious (and beautiful!) lunch idea. Well done!

      Thank you so much for your feedback. All the best,
      Louise

  2. I love your recipes and am wondering what you would suggest I use instead of tahini ( allergies here !). Many thanks ! I can’t wait to continue to follow and make your recipes !

    1. Hi Jan, thanks so much for your kind comment! Tell me, what kind of foods are you trying to avoid?
      When we’re out of tahini, we’ve used these:
      – Greek yogurt (or vegan greek yogurt)
      – Other nut butters (cashew butter or sunflower seed butter)
      If you use yogurt, you might wanna add extra lemon juice for an added tangy flavor.
      I hope this helps. Let me know.
      Kindest, Louise