Happy Friday! Who wants some beans? Some beans in the shape of a loaf?
This is Cheese and Bean Loaf!
AuthorRetroRuth
From Success In Seasonings, Lea & Perrins, 1930
Tested Recipe!
[cooked-sharing]
Drain all the liquid from the beans. Pulse cheese and beans in a food processor until they are chopped into small pieces, but not until they are mush.
Cook the chopped onion in the butter until soft. Add to the cheese and bean mixture in a bowl. After the onions have cooled slightly, add the rest of the ingredients and mix them together well.
Mold into a roll or loaf, or pack into a loaf pan. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle or roll in more breadcrumbs
Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes or until well browned and the cheese has melted. Serve with your choice of sauce.
Ingredients
Directions
Drain all the liquid from the beans. Pulse cheese and beans in a food processor until they are chopped into small pieces, but not until they are mush.
Cook the chopped onion in the butter until soft. Add to the cheese and bean mixture in a bowl. After the onions have cooled slightly, add the rest of the ingredients and mix them together well.
Mold into a roll or loaf, or pack into a loaf pan. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle or roll in more breadcrumbs
Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes or until well browned and the cheese has melted. Serve with your choice of sauce.
Notes
This recipe is from a recipe book put out by Lea & Perrins (yes, the ones that make Worcestershire sauce) called Success in Seasonings which was published in 1930. 
Beans!
And a big ole chunk of Tom’s favorite, American cheese. (He actually hates it.)
Here is the cheese and beans after a run through the food processor. I wanted to leave it a bit chunky to mimic being put through a grinder vs. being processed. (Note to self: You need to buy a flipping vintage grinder.)
Doused with a heaping helping of Worcestershire sauce. Interesting side note: This recipe represents the last of my (large) bottle of Worcestershire sauce. I never thought I’d see the day when I went through a bottle before it expired. I guess when you cook vintage, you use a lot of the sauce.
Here it is in a big, gooey log. I ended up using Panko for the bread crumbs, since the recipe didn’t specify dry or fresh breadcrumbs. Since there isn’t any liquid I was kind of worried that the Panko would be too dry, but I’m glad I went with it. The two eggs made this thing really gooey. If I would have baked it right away, I would have just packed it into a loaf pan and washed my hands of it, but since I made this earlier in the day I was able to roll it up in some parchment paper and put it in the fridge. Because I really, really wanted to make a fancy roll out of this thing.
Fancy!
Well then.
So it spread out quite a bit, but this actually ended up looking really good. And it smelled good, too.
The lens got a little steamed up, but you can still see the texture.
“I know this taste.”
“Well, yeah. It’s American cheese.”
“No, not that. This tastes like something that you eat during a break on an endurance race. Like a mega power bar.”
“So, like it has a lot of calories?”
“Exactly.”
The Verdict: Rich
From The Tasting Notes –
This thing was dense and a little bit went a long way. This little loaf easily fed all four of us with about a quarter of it leftover. And yes, all of us ate it. Toddler TJ even powered down a slice, which was amazing because he normally is a pretty picky eater. (But maybe I have been feeding him the wrong stuff. His favorites so far are homemade applesauce with cinnamon, oatmeal, lime gelatin with cottage cheese, grilled cheese and this bean loaf. Maybe Tom and I accidentally gave TJ a mid-century palate? Anyway, that was way off topic. Back to the loaf.) This loaf was soft, but it wasn’t as mushy as I thought it was going to be. It held its shape relatively well and I was able to slice it and serve the slices without them flopping all over the place. The taste was slightly bland, but not too bad. The flavor was mostly onion, cheese and Worcestershire and surprisingly didn’t taste like chili, which for some reason I was expecting while I was making this. We tried the loaf with a variety of bottled sauces (ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, BBQ sauce), but ended up liking steak sauce the best. The vinegar-y flavor really complimented the loaf. Overall, I would say this is a win!
This may have tasted rich, but it actually isn’t that calorific. I did calculations based on the amounts given using the Spark Recipes calculator and the entire loaf is 1656 calories. You said that a quarter was leftover and 4 people ate the other 3/4. If portions were equal, that was 310 calories per person, which is quite respectable for what I’d consider to be a “main” with sides of vegetables and whatnot. It does have a lot of fat at 83 grams for the whole loaf (and that’s all on the cheese).
This looks like something with potential with some alterations – different cheese, different beans, different spices. It could be a nice variation on a veggie burger without the hassle of making patties that fall apart (because you can slice it). Thanks for sharing!
Interesting recipe, I had no idea how it would turn out. Beans can be rather tasteless, I’ve made very good cakes using a can of pulverized beans as a base. So I’m not surprised the cheese/onion/steak sauce was stronger.
It looks really good! I’ll bet it would make very tasty burgers too. Glad you’re passing on your love of midcentury food to the next generation. 🙂
Oh, I was going to add that one of my college housemates’ and my favorite end-of-the-month-we-have-no-money-left favorite meals was to melt some cheddar cheese with a can of Heinz vegetarian beans. If we had an onion, we’d grate a little into the pot as well. This loaf reminds me of that.
Kinda reminds me of the bean cakes my granny made when I was a kid…leftover pinto beans and about the same (but not quite) ingredients…fried in a skillet like potato pancakes…have to try this!
Sounds delish, but I would use Cheddar cheese rather than that processed American stuff
Count me in as saying this seems like it could be yummy with the right beans and spices! And cheese. The right cheese too. Not American. But maybe with a nice mild Swiss and some carmelized onions, this might taste like a patty melt?
I bet some chili powder would be good in this.
I’ve been vegetarian for 35 years and I’m personally a Mid-Century leftover so I really liked seeing this recipe and I’m planning to save it to try later. It’s similar to the veggie bean burgers that I make and freeze in quantity (although my recipe doesn’t call for eggs). Since I clearly recall what American Cheese used to be, I’m gonna tell you that the stuff that pretends to be American Cheese these days is Nothing at all like it. What we have now is largely made of oil rather than milk. If you wanna do this right, you’e gonna need to use a Mild Cheddar–that would be more similar to what American Cheese once truly was. As for those old-fashioned grinders, I remember those, too, because we always had one at home. It was a pain to work the hand crank when you had to crank something for a long time or when something was particularly tough to grind (like raw cabbage for coleslaw) and it was a nuisance to put all the fiddly little bits together (not to mention being sure not to lose any). But it was better for some things (like that coleslaw! oh my) because the action was slower and that makes a difference in the product. Wish I still had that old crank. As for beans not being tasty, I beg to differ–each type of bean can be very flavorful; that’s why I prefer pintos for bean burgers and I bet they’d be excellent for this recipe, too, although I’m inclined to cook the beans myself rather than buy canned.
Thanks for doing this recipe. With your feedback on it, I won’t make it. I always enjoy your reviews. And Tom’s face. Always want to see that!
Just tried this one. Basically bean and cheese dip in a loaf. Was ok, but not great. Turned out better topped with Salsa.
This was great-my mother hates kidney beans. She had seconds. (to be fair, I added a heaping teaspoon of roasted garlic, but otherwise followed to the letter.) Thanks!
I wonder how this would be as burgers instead of a loaf. As people have already mentioned, changing up the ingredients a bit could give it a little more taste. For instance, I love kidney beans, but black beans or pinto beans would probably bring more meaty flavor. A little cumin and the right cheese, garlic, and maybe an extra dash of Worcestershire sauce could help. I might have to give this a try.