This $5 One-Pot Bean Recipe Is My New Favorite Weeknight Dinner

It seems like each year I save hundreds of recipes that I just never really get to—but that’s going to change in 2026. This year, I’m benching many of my regular recipes and really starting to try out new options to help expand my palette (and hopefully skillset, too). While I’ll always have a handful of back-pocket recipes to turn to, I’m really trying to shake things up in the kitchen. 

I find these new recipes everywhere. Whether it’s the thousands of Allrecipes recipes I see at work, the endless list of dishes I saved on my social media, or hidden in the pages of my cookbook collection—inspiration is all around. 

The best part of switching things up in the kitchen is finding new recipes you become absolutely enamored with. Over the summer, I tried this fresh tomato sauce recipe that blew me away. I went on to make it nearly every week throughout peak tomato season. Now, I found a new recipe to obsess over. 

This delicious recipe is a 5-ingredient (outside of kitchen staples), one-pot dish that seems so simple, but tastes incredibly complex. Once I tried it I knew it would too become a go-to recipe. So while I’ll still be experimenting in the kitchen this year, this recipe has officially made it into my regular rotation. 

My New Favorite One-Pot Dinner 

I’m always looking for ways to add more beans into my diet. UCLA calls beans “nature’s perfect food,” and it’s not hard to see why. These little legumes are packed with protein, complex carbohydrates, and fiber. Beans are a real “wonder food,” but it also takes a little imagination to use them in unique ways. There is only so much chili a girl can eat!

This recipe uses two of my favorite go-to cheap foods: beans and cabbage. In fact, this recipe is not only incredibly nutritious (and delicious), but it’s pretty inexpensive as well. With the exception of a few kitchen staples, the whole recipe costs less than $10—making it less than $2.50 a portion, according to online Kroger prices.

Alison Roman is a recipe developer and author of three New York Times best-selling cookbooks. She has a culinary je ne sais quoi, a touch that turns seemingly simple components (tomatoes, cabbage, and beans for example) into something much greater than the sum of its parts. I adore many of her recipes—but her Caramelized Beans with Tomato & Cabbage may be my favorite of all time.

My Tips & Variations

• Make it a one-pot dinner: I use an oven-safe stainless steel sauté pan to cook this dish, both on the stove stop and in the oven. After the cabbage is cooked, I take it out of the pan and set it on a plate, I then carry forward to cook the shallots, tomatoes, and beans. When the tomatoes get slightly jammy, I take it off the heat, add the vinegar (I use white balsamic) and the water, wedge in the slices of cooked cabbage and continue on to step 5. 
• Serve it with rice: Roman recommends serving this dish with a “hunk of sour, rustic bread, preferably made with hearty whole grains, for dipping and dunking,” which sounds absolutely delicious. I served this over rice, my carb of choice, and it was an absolutely stellar, almost casserole-like dining experience. 
• Top with feta, dill, and lemon: Roman recommends Parmesan, ricotta, or feta as a cheese topper. I chose feta (my fave of the three) and carried on that direction with the addition of fresh dill and a squeeze of bright lemon. It seemed like a natural direction for this dish, and took it over the top. I’ve had without as well, and it’s just as tasty—I just happen to like the acidic punch of a citrus topper.