Black Beans

Long time no see!

This past year has been super busy – I am actually expecting a baby in the next couple weeks! Maybe this is part of the ‘nesting’ phase, but I have been trying to get a few freezer meals ready for the first week and make some of our pantry favourites. I will be transitioning to becoming a Stay-At-Home Mom and thus we will be needing to review our grocery and eating out budget. Little things definitely add up, and this leads to today’s super simple black bean recipe.

Dried black beans are much cheaper than pre-canned black beans, but they just take a little bit extra work. I try to make this in large batches so that I don’t have to make it too often. I’m down to one pre-portioned bag in my freezer, so I knew another batch needed to be started!

I believe that one of the key things to making this recipe simple is cooking it in a dutch oven. The dutch oven keeps everything at a pretty even temperature all over versus a sauce pan that focuses most of the temperature on the bottom. No worries about burning! If you do use a sauce pan, just make sure you check on the beans more frequently, use a lower temperature, and stir often.

There is no need to soak your beans before cooking  so this recipe is good to start as soon as you would like!

Black Beans

Black Beans:

• 2 tablespoons butter (regular or Vegan Butter)
• 1 medium sized onion, diced
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 8 ounces of dried black beans
• 1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
• 2 tablespoons Better Than Bouillon Vegetarian Broth
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 quart water (add more as needed)
• Bay Leaf
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the dutch oven to medium temperature on the stove, and add butter to pan. Add diced onion and chipotle pepper and sauté. Once slightly translucent, add the minced garlic cloves and cook about 30 seconds, until fragrant. Finally, add the dried black beans and stir, mixing all ingredients together.

Mix the bouillon broth and soy sauce in with the beans, onions, and garlic until fully incorporated. Add water and bay leaf and increase heat to high. Once the mixture starts to boil, lower the heat to low or low-medium for the mixture to be at a soft simmer and cover with a lid.

The beans will take an hour or two to cook, but make sure to check on them every 15-20 minutes to ensure that there is no need for extra water. Stir every so often and once an hour has passed, check on the texture and taste of the beans. Add salt and pepper to taste. The final mixture should be slightly creamy, flavourful, and ready to use immediately. If after tasting your beans, you’d like them to be slightly more spicy, feel free to chop up another chipotle pepper in adobo, or use the Tabasco Chipotle Hot Sauce to keep with that same smokey flavour profile. At the same time, if you would prefer no spice, or to keep the beans a more semi-neutral flavour for multiple uses, I would nix the chipotle pepper as that definitely adds smokiness to the dish.

I have used these beans for nachos, baked sweet potato toppings, chili, or just as a side for rice! Leftovers are frozen in 1-2 cup portion sizes using my FoodSaver.

Price-wise, this recipe is pretty darn cheap! I normally stock up on black beans at my local grocery store when they’re 99c/pound. A pound of dried beans can give you around 7 cups of cooked beans. This recipe is not as big of a batch as I will sometimes go, but it’s quite easy to make more. All-in-all this recipe, should make a 1 cup portion for ~48c. It would be quite easy to make it cheaper by using a cheaper bouillon broth, but the flavour of this broth is wonderful and I find that it doesn’t spoil as fast as the boxed broth I was buying before.