Back to all recipes

Navy Bean Pie

African American Muslim communities, rooted in Chicago and Detroit

🇺🇸 USA Desserts easy 25 min prep · 1 hr cook serves 8 slices 3 hr 30 min start to table ~390 kcal per piece surprise

The main ingredient in this silky custard pie is a pot of navy beans, and for decades the surest place to buy a slice was outside a mosque, next to a stack of newspapers.

Blended navy beans are mild, starchy, and creamy, a neutral canvas that sets like custard when baked with eggs and evaporated milk. Cinnamon and nutmeg steer it toward familiar holiday pie territory, while the beans add body and a faint nuttiness that sugar alone cannot supply.

🥧🫘
The story

The bean pie rose with the Nation of Islam, founded in 1930, whose leader Elijah Muhammad urged followers to abandon the foods of enslavement, sweet potatoes included, and praised the small navy bean in his 1967 book How to Eat to Live. Legend traces the recipe to founder W. D. Fard Muhammad, who is said to have passed it to Elijah and Clara Muhammad in the 1930s, and the pie became the movement's signature dessert, a sweet potato pie stand-in built on approved ingredients.

Muslim bakeries in Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Oakland sold bean pies alongside the Muhammad Speaks newspaper, and later The Final Call; Muhammad Ali's cook Lana Shabazz was a famous champion. Today the pie is eaten far beyond the Nation, after Friday prayers, at family holidays, and from landmark shops like Abu's Bakery in Brooklyn.

Fair warning: Skimp on the blending and the filling turns grainy with bean skins, which is the single most common reason a first slice disappoints.
The recipe

Ingredients

  • 340 g (2 cups) cooked navy beansabout one and a half 425 g (15 oz) cans, drained and rinsed, or 200 g dried beans simmered until very soft
  • 240 ml (1 cup) evaporated milkdo not substitute regular milk
  • 2 large eggs
  • 200 g (1 cup) sugarhalf white, half light brown is nice
  • 75 g (5 tbsp) unsalted buttermelted
  • 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch or flour
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ground nutmegfreshly grated if you can
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 unbaked 23 cm (9 inch) pie crusttraditional versions use a whole wheat crust

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 175 C (350 F) with a rack in the lower third.
  2. Blend the beans with the evaporated milk until completely smooth, the texture of loose hummus with no grit, scraping down the jar and blending again.
  3. Add the eggs, sugar, melted butter, cornstarch, spices, vanilla, and salt, then blend until fully combined.
  4. For an extra silky filling, push the mixture through a fine mesh sieve to catch any stray bean skins.
  5. Pour the filling into the unbaked crust and smooth the top.
  6. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, until the edges are puffed, the top is golden brown, and the center has only a slight wobble.
  7. Cool completely on a rack, at least 2 hours, so the custard sets and slices cleanly.
  8. Serve at room temperature or chilled, and refrigerate leftovers.
Shopping notes
Everything is standard supermarket stock; navy beans are sometimes labeled haricot beans, and great northern beans substitute fine. The evaporated milk is not optional, the filling will be too loose without it.
Cross-checked against: tastecooking.com · mymanabites.com
Kitchen notes

Cooked it? Say how it went. Tweaks, substitutions, honest verdicts, all welcome.

Loading notes...