29 Easy Black Bean Recipes for a Quick and Easy Dinner

If you're looking to add more versatile, easy-to-store, nutritious weeknight staple ingredients to your grocery list, then one of the best places you can turn is to the canned bean aisle of your local grocery store. Canned beans have it all: They're nutritious—high in fiber as well as protein—and they are relatively inexpensive and easy to store. They're also fast to cook with, and you can make them into dozens of different meals. While there are plenty of types of beans to choose from, we're particularly partial to canned black beans, partly because they're just so useful.

No can opener? No problem! You can always practice these techniques on how to open a can without a can opener, if you're in a pinch. (Though you might want to pick one up for the long term. Here's a good one that's not expensive.)

You can use black beans to make all kinds of dishes, from cowboy caviar to salads and burritos to chili. They make a healthy addition to a loaded plate of nachos, and you can even blend them into brownies to add a little sneaky nutrition to an after-school snack or a post-dinner treat. And if you're trying to eat healthier or cut back on your meat, black beans are great as a topping for stuffed sweet potatoes. In fact, in the world of quick, easy dinners, canned black beans are possibly the ultimate ingredient; open the can and you're halfway to a finished meal!