Great Northern beans

One US cup of Great Northern beans weighs 183 grams (6.5 ounces). Going the other way, 100 grams is about 0.55 cups.

Also called dried Great Northern beans, dry Great Northern beans, Great Northern white beans.

Dried beans, lentils and peas compared: cup weights side by side, the source behind each, and why they differ.

A cup of dry Great Northern beans weighs 183 g (6.5 oz). USDA and the USDA Food Buying Guide agree within 1%, so this entry publishes USDA's figure. Confidence is medium because both are USDA sources and no independent measurement was found.

Great Northern beans are a medium-large white variety of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), flatter and larger than navy beans and smaller than cannellini. They are a speciality of Nebraska and the northern Plains. They hold their shape when cooked but turn creamy inside, and go into white bean soups, white chili and baked dishes in the style of cassoulet.

USDA SR Legacy "Beans, great northern, mature seeds, raw" (FDC 175190, a record that includes USDA Foods) gives 1 cup = 183 g at 10.7% water. The USDA Food Buying Guide, a separate USDA program that measures yields for school kitchens, gives 1 lb dry as about 2 1/2 cups, 181 g a cup. Store-brand labels print serving weights by the bag rather than measured quarter cups, the 35 g and 51 g servings seen on other dry beans, so none is entered here.

The physical check: Great Northern and navy beans are both white common beans, but a cup of Great Northern weighs 25 g less. The difference is size. A measuring cup is small next to a large bean, and its walls leave gaps that smaller beans would fill, so the larger the bean, the more of the cup is air. At 183 g, the cup is 0.77 g/mL, the same as kidney beans (184 g), which are about the same size, and just under the 0.78 to 0.83 g/mL measured in bulk for a medium-sized carioca-type bean (Paixão and colleagues, 2020). Black and pinto beans, a little smaller, weigh 193 to 194 g per cup.

Cooked: USDA's boiled Great Northern record (NDB 16025) weighs a cup at 177 g. That is a single source, so it is given here rather than published as a second state. The Bean Institute counts a one-pound bag of dry beans as about 6 cups cooked and drained, and a 15-ounce can as about 1 3/4 cups drained.

Practical guidance: use 183 g per cup of dry Great Northern beans, 92 g per half cup; a pound is about 2 1/2 cups. Use about 177 g per cup of cooked, drained beans. Soak them overnight before cooking. Navy beans and cannellini can stand in for them in most recipes, but weigh rather than measure by the cup when swapping, since a cup of navy beans is about 14% heavier.