Which Beans Have the Most Fiber?

You’re standing in the bean aisle with a can of chickpeas in one hand and a can of black beans in the other, and you want whichever one does more for your fiber. Among the beans with most fiber, neither of those wins: navy beans top the list at 9.6 grams per cooked half cup, according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Black beans would still beat chickpeas, by more than a gram. But the full ranking holds a few surprises, and it shifts again once you look at calories and protein.

Below you’ll find every common bean and pulse ranked by the half cup, a second ranking by calories, and a quick rule for picking the right one for your plate.

Beans with most fiber, ranked by the half cup

The Dietary Guidelines publish a list of everyday foods sorted by fiber, and beans and pulses crowd the top of the vegetable section. The table pulls them together, using the guidelines’ own portion of a cooked half cup.

The Daily Value (the reference amount printed on Nutrition Facts labels) for fiber is 28 grams, so the last column shows how much of a full day one half cup covers.

*The guidelines list lima beans and green peas per full cup (9.2 grams and 8.8 grams), so those rows are halved to match the others.

Six legumes cluster between 7.5 and 8.2 grams. In practice, that means swapping pinto for black beans or lentils for mung beans barely changes your fiber for the day.

The real gap sits lower down. A half cup of navy beans carries more than twice the fiber of the same scoop of edamame.

What puts navy beans on top

Navy beans are small white beans, and a cooked half cup weighs in at 128 calories and 9.6 grams of fiber, about a third of the Daily Value.

Against the Mayo Clinic’s daily targets, that one scoop covers 38% of the 25 grams suggested for women 50 and younger, and about a quarter of the 38 grams suggested for men in the same age range.

Navy beans are not the only white bean option, but they are the one that shows up at the top of the government’s list. If a recipe calls for any small white bean, navy is the fiber pick.

Wondering whether one bowl of navy beans gets you most of the way there? Plug your details into our fiber calculator and you’ll see your own daily target.

A different winner when you count calories

Portion rankings favor foods that pack a lot into a scoop. If you track calories, a better yardstick is fiber per 100 calories, which shows how much fiber each bean brings for the energy it costs.

Mung beans jump from fifth to second, because a half cup has only 106 calories. Green peas climb too, landing level with black beans.

Chickpeas slide to twelfth. They carry the most calories of any bean in the half cup list except soybeans, so their 6.3 grams of fiber is spread over 135 calories.

Soybeans finish last on this measure. Their half cup carries the most calories on the list, 148, but only 5.2 grams of fiber.

Legumes fiber comparison: beans, lentils, peas and soy

Harvard’s Nutrition Source defines a legume as any plant in the Fabaceae family, a group of more than 20,000 species. A pulse is the edible dried seed of one of those plants, which covers beans, lentils, dried peas and chickpeas.

Grouping the list by type makes the pattern easier to see:

• Dried peas: split peas lead at 8.2 grams per half cup, while fresh green peas sit at 4.4 grams.
• Lentils: 7.8 grams, close behind split peas and level with pinto and mung beans.
• Common dried beans: navy, pinto and black beans run from 7.5 to 9.6 grams, with kidney beans lower at 5.7 grams.
• Chickpeas and black eyed peas: both sit in the middle, at 6.3 and 5.6 grams.
• Soy: mature soybeans give 5.2 grams and young edamame 4.1 grams, the lowest of the group.

Fresh, young legumes tend to rank below their dried cousins in this list. Edamame trails mature soybeans, and green peas trail split peas by almost half.

Plant protein fiber: which beans carry both

Beans are often eaten as a protein, so it helps to see both numbers together. The table uses full cooked cups from USDA FoodData Central.

Split peas are the rare food with an even split: 16.3 grams of protein and 16.3 grams of fiber in a cup. Lentils, black beans and mung beans come close to that one to one balance.

Edamame leans toward protein. You get more than twice as much protein as fiber, which suits a high protein snack better than a fiber boost.

Myth vs fact: lupini beans

Myth: lupini beans are a fiber powerhouse to rival navy beans.

Fact: the numbers depend on which USDA dataset you read. The Dietary Guidelines list puts lupini at 7.8 grams of fiber per half cup, while the FoodData Central entry for boiled lupins shows just 4.6 grams in a full 166 gram cup.

Protein is a clearer story. That same cup of boiled lupins carries 25.9 grams of protein, the most of any legume here, so lupini earn their place as a protein pick even if their fiber figure is less certain.

Building a high fiber beans list into your week

You don’t need to eat navy beans every day to benefit from the top of the ranking. Rotating three or four of the leaders gives you variety and keeps every serving above 7 grams.

A simple rotation might look like this:

• Monday: a half cup of split peas in soup, 8.2 grams of fiber.
• Tuesday: pinto beans in tacos or a burrito bowl, 7.7 grams.
• Wednesday: mung bean dal, 7.7 grams for only 106 calories.
• Thursday: black beans over rice, 7.5 grams.
• Friday: navy beans in a white bean soup or on toast, 9.6 grams.

Across those five half cups you’d collect about 40 grams of fiber over the week from beans alone. Doubling any portion to a full cup roughly doubles its number.

If you’d like a few ways to cook navy beans, mung beans and split peas beyond soup, our recipe eBooks have plenty of simple ideas.

Why the top beans can feel gassy

Harvard notes that legumes carry three types of carbohydrate that reach the colon undigested: fiber, resistant starch (starch that escapes digestion in the small intestine) and oligosaccharides (short chains of sugars your body can’t break down).

Gut bacteria ferment them. That process produces gas, which can bring bloating or cramps for some people. It also produces butyrate, a short chain fatty acid.

Soaking dried beans for at least three hours before cooking may help reduce gas, according to the same source. Mayo Clinic adds that raising fiber gradually over a few weeks and drinking plenty of water make the change easier.

When beans leave you more bloated than you’d like, our gut health guides lay out a slower path to eating them often.

Pick your bean by what you need

The ranking you follow depends on what you’re optimizing for. Use this rule:

• If you want the most fiber in one scoop, pick navy beans, then split peas.
• If you’re watching calories, pick navy or mung beans, which give the most fiber per 100 calories.
• If you want protein and fiber in equal measure, pick split peas or lentils.
• If protein comes first and fiber second, pick lupini beans or edamame.
• If you already love chickpeas or kidney beans, keep them and add a quarter cup more to close the gap.

Even the lowest legume here, edamame at 4.1 grams per half cup, edges out a full cup of cooked green beans at 4.0 grams on the guidelines’ list. Choosing between them is fine tuning, not right or wrong.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “Food Sources of Dietary Fiber.” Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020 to 2025. dietaryguidelines.gov
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. “FoodData Central” (lupins, boiled 172424; mung beans, boiled 175255; lentils; split peas; black beans; chickpeas; edamame). 2024. fdc.nal.usda.gov
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “Daily Value on the Nutrition and Supplement Facts Labels.” 2024. fda.gov
• Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Legumes and Pulses.” The Nutrition Source. 2024. nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu
• Mayo Clinic Staff. “Dietary fiber: Essential for a healthy diet.” Mayo Clinic. 2025. mayoclinic.org