From Johnny’s memory.
🚨 IMPORTANT! Don’t actually measure any ingredients. I didn’t when I wrote this recipe.. Just use these amounts as an approximate guide. Same with time, it’s all approximate.
🥱 TL;DR
(read on for the long version)
- Presoak a bunch of dried black beans the night before
- Cook the beans with water and a few bay leaves for a couple/few hours
- While the beans cook, make a sofrito of olive oil, onions, peppers, garlic, cumin, coriander, oregano, chili powder, and salt.
- Add the sofrito to the beans and continue to cook to desired consistency.
- Taste and add salt, cayenne, and lime juice to get just the right blend of flavours.
- Serve with fresh Guacamole, pico de gallo, and other toppings on tacos, tostadas, or in burritos.
Full recipe
Cooking time
- Soaking beans: overnight
- Prep: 30 min
- Cooking: 3 - 4 hours
Ingredients
| Amount | Ingredient |
|---|---|
| 1.5 kg | black beans, dried |
| ~2 litres | water (or use 1/2 vegetable stock) |
| ~6 | bay leaves |
| olive oil | |
| 2 | medium onions, chopped |
| 2 medium | bell peppers, chopped |
| hot fresh chili peppers, minced (optional) | |
| 6 cloves | garlic, minced |
| 6 tbsp | cumin |
| 4 tbsp | coriander |
| 2 tbsp | chili powder |
| 2 tbsp | onion powder (optional) |
| 3 tsp | oregano |
| your choice | cumin or red chili flakes (optional) |
| 1.5 tsp | salt |
| 1 - 2 | lime, juiced (or use vinegar) |
Steps
Presoak beans
📆 Do this step the night before.
- Clean and rinse the dried beans
- Put beans in a large pot with twice as much water as beans, to soak overnight.
To presoak or not?
🧑🔬 Science tells us you don’t even realllllly need to presoak the beans. But it can help speed up cooking time the next day. This can be helpful if the beans are older (though you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell).
Preparation
Cook the beans
Drain and rinse the black beans (presoaked or not). Put them in a big pot and add enough cold water to cover the beans by a couple inches. (You can alternately replace 1/2 of the water with vegetable stock too, just watch the salt level at the end.) Add a few bay leaves and bring to a boil.
Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and cover. They will cook for anywhere between 1.5 to 5 hours, depending on the beans.
Stir every 20 minutes or so, and make sure they don’t stick to the bottom. If they do, the heat is too high. Reduce it. If the water level reaches the top of the beans, add more. The idea is to keep them covered, but not totally drowned, because at the end we want the beans to have a nice thick consistency and not be too watery/liquidy.
Prepare the sofrito
While the beans are cooking, you’ll make a sofrito. Chop the onions, bell peppers, chile peppers (if using, watch the heat though!), and garlic.
In a large skillet, heat a good amount of olive oil to medium heat. Add the onions and saute them for a couple minutes. Add in the peppers (bell and chile) and continue to sautee. Once everything is softened (around 5 - 8 minutes), add the garlic. Cook for a couple more minutes untill everything is fragrant.
Turn the heat to low, add all the dried spices and salt. Add more olive oil so everything is well coated and stir well to combine. Take off heat.
Combine everything
When the beans are starting to get soft and the liquid starts to thicken, add the sofrito to the beans. Use a spatula to make sure you get all the good fragrant oils from the skillet.
Mix well and continue to cook the beans towards their desired consistency.
At this point, start tasting frequently, and adjust the following:
- Salt: add to achieve proper depth of flavour.
- Heat: add cayenne or red chili flakes to give the appropriate amount of heat
- Optional: Squeeze the juice of 1 or 2 limes in to give a hit of brightness.
The beans are finished when they arrive at the consistency you want. If for tacos, you’ll want them thicker. If you want to eat as a soup or put over rice (classic beans and rice) you might want them a bit more liquidy.
💡 You can leave them on the more liquidy side, and store them this way. When you want some for tacos, refry them in a skillet and this will cook off some of the liquid making a great taco consistency.
To serve
So many ways to serve these beans:
- In tacos, burritos, tostadas, etc. with Guacamole and other toppings
- With tortilla chips, alongside guac and pico de gallo
- Beans and rice
- Black bean bowls
This recipe makes a ton. Adjust according to your needs, make extra and freeze it to pull out whenever you want!