Black Beans
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 9:48PM | Seeley deBorn do not have to come from a can.
And if you have freshly made roasted tomato salsa, they'll taste that much better.
It's really not much more work to make your own beans than it is to open a can. And while that may be convenient, it will never be as flavourful as beans that are slowly simmered in broth with carefully selected seasonings.
And by carefully selected, I mean yanked from the fridge.
Tinned beans are usually made with water and way too much salt. Making them yourself lets you control the sodium and boost up the flavour.
AKA Turn down the suck and turn up the good
Best Black Beans
What you need:
- about 3 cups of chicken broth
- about 1 cup of salsa (or, tomatoes, onions, chiles, etc to make one cup)
- about 1 c black beans
- about 1 lime
What you gotta do:
Put it all in the crock pot.
Broth, then salsa, then beans.
Cook it on low for 5-6 hours or on high for 3-4.
I never soak my beans first because I really want the colour that they give to the liquid.
I squeeze in the lime juice at the end for a bit of brightness in the flavour.
Scoop out what you need to go on the side of your fabulous chicken dinner. Okay, it was just a bit of chicken breast chopped and sauteed with cayenne and lime juice, and a "salad" of lettuce with salsa and cheese on top, but hey! when you put it all together on the plate with the beans... it turns into a fabulous chicken dinner!
The rest of the beans... I left them in the crock pot, added some leftover rice and a bit of shredded chicken and called it soup!
You could also mash them up a bit for an awesome burrito filling.
Or, just eat them with a spoon.
I love beans. It's a little weird how much I do, but, well, look who's talking here.
What food do you love?
Reader Comments (5)
And if you don't have a Crock Pot?
If you don't have a crockpot, you could do it over a really low temperature on the stove, but it would take a bit more looking after to make sure they don't burn on the bottom, and you'd need a pan with a tight fitting lid. Another option would be to do them in the oven. In a tightly covered pan you could bake them at somewhere about 220 degrees for like 4 hours. You'd probably want to stir them once or twice during that time.
In reality, though, I think a crock pot is well worth having. A year ago I would have said differently, but since I got my new one, I use it for all kinds of stuff.
Yeah. What she said.
On the other hand, I rarely use my crock pot.
Bean warning: If your crock pot's low setting is well under the boiling point at your altitude, then if you make kidney beans on low, you will poison yourself.
I swear they just don't believe in Crockpots here and the one I shipped to myself died in shipping so until I get back to the US, it's no slow cooker for me. The oven is a good option though. Especially in January when there's a definite chill to the place.