Broad beans are a real mine of vitamins and nutritional values. Already in 100g og broad bean there is up to 7.6 g of protein. What’s more, this portion covers our daily needs for folic acid in total! And how can you not love a broad bean? 🙂
Broad bean (also known as fava bean) comes from south-east Asia and northern Africa and is one of the first legumes that a man has known. It has been cultivated for over 5,000. years. A mention of the vegetable can even be found in the Bible.
Broad bean is known for its exceptional nutritional properties, so you should take full advantage of it. The season for this vegetable is unfortunately as short as in the case of asparagus, so we recommend eating it as often as possible.

How to choose Broad bean?
When buying fresh beans, pay attention that it is hard, light green, without brown spots and any discoloration. Fresh one is best stored in a refrigerator in a paper bag – we don’t have the opportunity to keep it for long as usually we eat it immediately after the purchase 😉

How to prepare it?
The most popular method of preparing is cooking it in water. Other options for its preparation are steaming or using a microwave oven. Broad bean can be added to soups and salads, it tastes great with garlic and tomatoes, it goes well with caraway or ginger.
No matter what type of cooking you choose, remember not to overcook it (the best is slightly hard and crunchy). Well, now let’s get to the traditional version of preparing this vegetable.
Ingredients for making broad bean:
- 0.5kg of broad bean
- 1 tbs of sugar
- Pinch of salt
Method:
- Place beans under running water in a pot and pour over water (which should be twice as much as broad beans).
- Feed a flat teaspoon of sugar.
- Cook for 15-25 minutes (until the beans are softened and the skin becomes wrinkled). The older broad bean will require a longer cooking time.
Add salt at the end of cooking.

Boiled broad beans can be eaten with or without skin. We recommend, after cooking, to add some melted butter – and nothing more is needed to be happy!
Do you want to know how to prepare asparagus or corn? We describe it all in our previous posts.
Send to us photos of your creation and tag us on social media @cravemonkeypl (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook).