Leapin' legumes! Beans come out of the cupboard.

If you grew up eating beans only baked or in the occasional bowl of chili, you may not have the slightest idea what to do with them. It doesn't help to know that they're a high-fiber, low-fat, vitamin-packed source of protein if you wander through the bean aisle clueless.

Yet from pasta e fagioli to falafel, from chana masala to lentil pilaf, there's a world of great-tasting packaged bean dishes out there. The humble legume is even showing up in mixes for (usually beanless) jambalaya and bouillabaisse.

So get ready. Beans are about to get interesting.

Bare Beans

Beans are blameless.

Okay, so they cause "a little" gas in "a few" people. That's because they contain some sugars--and, sometimes, undercooked starch--that are digested by bacteria in the gut, which give off gas after their meal. (Making sure the beans are thoroughly cooked may help.)

Gas aside, beans are dam near perfect. A half cup provides five to eight grams of fiber--roughly a quarter of a day's worth. But once you get into canned beans, the sodium starts to climb. Unless you go with a "no salt added" brand, every half cup typically packs 250 to 500 milligrams of sodium. That can put a dent in your 2,400 mg daily max.

Solution: pick up the lowest-sodium brand you can find (Margaret Holmes, Cento, Westbrae Natural, and Walnut Acres Organic are good bets). And rinse. Just one minute in a strainer under the cold water tap can wash away a quarter to a third of the sodium.

We didn't look at plain or seasoned canned beans. We also ignored old standbys like baked beans, chili, and canned bean soups. Instead, we homed in on soup mixes and packaged ethnic dishes that turn beans into the star of the show.

Our Best Bites have no more than 480 mg of sodium and one gram of saturated fat per serving. And they've got at least four grams of fiber.

Refried Beans

Don't let the name scare you. Canned refried beans are generally low in fat. Unfortunately, some are also low in flavor.

With Bearitos Organic Low Fat No Salt Added Refried Beans, that may come as no surprise. But you'd expect a kick from Eden Organic Spicy Refried Black Beans or Walnut Acres Organic Refried Black Beans with Roasted Red Jalapenos.

Instead, you get to revisit your kindergarten days ... assuming you were in the paste-eating crowd. Also disappointing: Taco Bell Home Originals Fat Free Refried Beans were dull and watery. And Taste Adventure Instant Black and Pinto Refried Beans both had a fishy off-flavor.

Instead, pick up a can of Amy's Organic Refried Beans with Green Chiles, Goya Casero Refried Black Beans, or Trader Jose's Fat Free Salsa Style Refried Pinto Beans. All three are out of this world, as are Goya Rancheros Refried Pinto Beans, which missed a Best Bite by just 30 mg of sodium. If your can opener's busted, try a box of Fantastic Instant Refried Beans. Just add water and let sit for five minutes. What to do with refried beans? Serve them over rice, wrap them in a whole-wheat tortilla for a homemade burrito, or scoop them up with trans-free tortilla chips.

Rice or Pasta & Bean Mixes

If you're not careful, you can wind up with 1,000 mg of sodium from just one cup of some rice-and-bean mixes. Zatarain's, Success, Vigo, and Glory, for example, are no better than salty Rice-A-Roni.

And all that salt isn't even necessary, as Casbah Lentil Pilaf and RiceSelect Chef's Originals Smokey Cowboy Beans and Rice amply demonstrate. RiceSelect's Royal Blend Texmati with Red Rice & Beans and Red Rice & Lentils were also tasty, but they skimp on the beans and the lentils. (That's why neither had enough fiber for a Best Bite, though the Rice & Beans missed by just one gram.) Serve them with a can of drained and rinsed beans and you've got a decent side or main dish. If you try to do the same with Goya Rice & (not enough) Black or Red Beans, the sodium will climb too high.

Bean Cuisine's line of Pasta & Beans is another winner. Top taste honors go to the balsamic-vinegar-suffused Mediterranean Black Beans with Fusilli, but all four flavors are distinctively delicious.

Indian Bean Dishes

In the mood for an authentic Indian dish right from your pantry or freezer? Tasty Bite, Kohinoor, and Deep Indian Gourmet spice their lentil, chickpea, and kidney bean dishes just the way they do in Calcutta or Madras or Delhi.

Deep is frozen, but Tasty and Kohinoor are shelf-stable, so you can stow them in your office desk drawer until you're ready to open the pouch, pour them in a bowl, and microwave.

Kohinoor's Peshawari Dal Makhani (lentils and kidney beans in an aromatic tomato-based sauce with a touch of ginger) has just enough fresh cream to taste buttery rich. The company's Pindi Chana Masala (chickpeas in sauce with a hint of cardamom, nutmeg, and fennel) and Dal Palak (split chickpeas with chopped spinach) are equally delicious.

As for Tasty Bite, the lentils and chickpeas in the Bengal Lentils explode on your tongue in a complex tango of chilies, coriander, and ginger. The similarly spiced Bonlbay Potatoes (they've got chickpeas, too) missed a Best Bite by just one gram of fiber.

If you find yourself in the freezer case, pick up some Deep Indian Gourmet Dal Masala Curry or Chhole. They could easily come from your local Indian restaurant.

These three companies turn out the real stuff--intensely flavored and (often) fiery. If you want something to temper the heat, add some rice or pick up Tasty Bite's Vegetable Supreme & Basmati Rice. (Dishes that come with rice are listed with a 1 pkg. serving size in our chart.)

Falafel Mixes

You may not think of falafel as beans, but their key ingredient is chickpeas (garbanzo beans), Only one brand--the aptly named Fantastic--was high enough in fiber and low enough in sodium for a Best Bite. Near East was scrumptious, too, but had a little too much sodium. Manischewitz and Casbah add flour (and Manischewitz throws in matzoh meal), which means fewer chickpeas ... and less fiber.

If you mold the falafel mix into thin patties--no more than 1/4 inch thick rather than into balls, you can get that wonderfully crisp texture of authentic falafel by sauteing them in just one tablespoon of oil per serving.

Stuff them into whole-wheat pita with chopped cucumber, tomato, or onion and top with a spoonful of tahini mixed with plain yogurt and chopped garlic. Who says you can't eat a bean sandwich?

Bean Salads

Most canned bean salads pale in comparison to homemade (see p. 10 for some dynamite recipes). Salty overcooked green and waxed beans and vinegar-soaked kidney beans may be all that register in your brain.

Trader Joe's refreshingly tangy Marinated Bean Salad breaks the mold. Maybe it's the romano beans and chickpeas instead of waxed and green beans. Maybe it's the white wine vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and spices. (If there's no Trader Joe's near you, just wait. The chain is in 19 states and counting.)

Bean Soup Mixes

It's no news that you can get beans in soup. Cans of split pea, navy bean, lentil, and other bean soups have been around forever. Some brands--Healthy Choice, Health Valley, and Campbell's Healthy Request, for example--are even low enough in sodium to qualify for a Best Bite ... if you eat just one cup.

But if you want beans as a main dish for your family, and you want them to taste homemade, try a soup mix. Each package consists of dried beans, seasoning, and, in some cases, a sprinkling of dried vegetables that come to life as they're cooked. Some ask you to add chicken broth (we used lower-sodium Health Valley Fat Free). And most call for chopped onions, celery, carrots, or other ingredients.

Bean Cuisine's nine soups are a real find. You have to do your share of chopping, sauteing, and waiting--for 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours while the soup simmers. But that just gives the spice packets time to surrender their rich, seductive secrets. All six varieties we tried Island Black Bean, Lots of Lentil, Thick as Fog Split Pea, 13 Bean Bouillabaisse, Ultima Pasta E Fagioli, and White Bean Provencal--were lick-the-pot good. Other brands aren't quite as successful. Hurst's comes closest, while Manischewitz and Streit's will probably only appeal to folks who grew up on them.

The information for this article was compiled by Emily Poole, with help from Heather Jones and Nicole Ferring.

BE PREPARED

The numbers for bean mixes in the chart on pages 14 & 15 may not match what's on the packages. That's because many labels only list numbers "as packaged," not "as prepared." In other cases, we adjusted serving sizes so that we could compare similar products. What's more, some falafel packages called for far more oil than we used. And the fiber numbers on the labels of some Indian dishes were clearly underestimates (we listed them as N/A in the chart).

To hold down the sodium and fat, we used lower-sodium Health Valley Fat Free Broth; boneless, skinless chicken breast; Healthy Choice Smoked Sausage; and Perdue Turkey Sausage when the packages called for those kinds of ingredients.