Start whenever you like

The 30-Day Bean Kitchen

Homemade baked beans

From week two, and free to try in the preview.

Black bean and sweet potato chilli

A weekend pot from week one.

Baked butter beans with tomato, dill and feta

From week two, best eaten warm with bread.
A 30-day course for cooking with beans, chickpeas and lentils more often. It starts with tins and builds to a pot cooked from dry, with 22 recipes along the way.

Most of us already know that beans and lentils are good for us. That is rarely the problem. The problem is that knowing something and cooking it on a wet Wednesday are two very different things. This course sits in the gap between them.  You will come away from this course with the knowledge, techniques and enthusiasm for the new stars of your kitchen!

Four weeks, starting with a tin

Each day has a short lesson and a small kitchen task. You do not need to cook a new recipe every day, and if you miss a day you pick up where you left off. Portions start small in week one and grow from there, because the gut adapts when it is given time.

There are 30 short lessons and 22 recipes, with a quick quiz at the end of each week. The kitchen library has a shopping guide and a cooking times chart.

If you have irritable bowel syndrome, pulses can be harder going, so please take your guidance from a dietitian.

Week 1: Getting to know pulses

Tins and red lentils. Why pulses matter for fibre and blood sugar, and how to keep your digestion comfortable.

Week 2: Cooking from dry

The basic pot of beans, from soaking to freezing. Hummus from your own chickpeas, and the one safety rule for kidney beans.

Week 3: Beans at every meal

Breakfast, soup, pasta and a lunch that travels. How to rescue a flat dish with salt or lemon.

Week 4: Making it stick

A stocked bean cupboard and a plan for your own week. Cooking on a budget, and for people who say they do not like beans.
Meet your instructor
Kim Close is a nutritionist, lecturer and food writer based in Northern Ireland. With a background in psychology and culinary nutrition, she has spent over a decade teaching how food influences mood, cognition and long-term health.

She is Head of Cognition at the Food for the Brain Foundation and the founder of Whole Health 360, where she combines evidence-based nutrition with practical cookery and behaviour-change science. She holds a BSc in Psychology (1st class) and qualifications in Behaviour Change, Health Coaching and Nutritional Therapy, and is a fully qualified higher level lecturer. Kim is currently studying and carrying out research for a PhD in Lifestyle Medicine.
Created with