The Trader Joe's Canned Beans You Just Shouldn't Bother Buying

The versatility of canned beans is unmatched. Simply drain and toss them into a salad, mix them into a veggie orzo soup, stir them into a comforting chili recipe, or add to a casserole to boost the protein content and textural density of your homemade dishes in an instant. The array of grocery-store canned beans available, such as garbanzo, kidney, and black beans, provides plenty of bandwidth to experiment with fiber and flavors. However, there's one variety of Trader Joe's canned beans you shouldn't bother buying — the organic pinto beans.

The loser in our list of 10 Trader Joe's canned beans, ranked worst to best, these pinto beans were found to be bland and flavorless by our taste-tester. While there was a slight salinity to their taste, due to the presence of the sea salt in the packing liquid, they still had a dull and uninteresting character. Moreover, their texture was far too soft and mushy, which meant the beans at the bottom of the can were crushed by the weight of those on top. This isn't so much of a problem if you plan on mashing your can of pintos into a batch of refried beans, but it certainly is an issue if you want to include them in a pot of bubbling chili to provide body and heft. Beans are naturally dense and it's this textural quality and mouthfeel that makes them feel so filling and satisfying. However, these pinto beans were too squishy and overcooked.

We'd recommend making your own pinto beans if your recipe calls for them, by soaking beans (like these organic Yupik dried beans from Amazon) in water overnight and simmering until tender. Other tips you need when cooking pinto beans include saving the cooking liquid to use in soups and chilis, or adding a dash of baking soda to help them soften faster. You could even add herbs and seasonings to the pot to create a flavorful beany potlikker. If that sounds like too much work, consider selecting Trader Joe's canned black beans instead, which are similar in size and shape and came in at number 6 in our ranking.

The winner in our taste test was Trader Joe's Greek chickpeas with parsley and cumin. Firm and delicious, these garbanzo beans were aromatic with warming cumin but also boasted a welcome brightness and zing from the lemon in the olive oil dressing. In fact, they were so flavorful that you could easily toss the entire can into a salad without the need for extra dressing. While the lemony oil flecked with specks of pretty parsley was tasty, the flavor of the beans still shone through. This champion can of beans would work really well in our vegan chickpea salad sandwich recipe with a dollop of mayo and a couple of pickles.