Main dish

Nigella's Cuban Black Beans recipe

Name: Nigella's Cuban Black Beans
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 2 h
Total time: 2 h 40 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 2 onions, chopped (any colour); 6 cloves of garlic, chopped; 2 peppers, diced (any colour); 500g dried black turtle beans; 1 fresh red chilli, chopped; 2 tbsp cumin seeds; 1 tbsp chipotle paste (more if you like spice); black pepper; 2 fresh bay leaves; 1 litre water; salt

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Nigella's versatile and delicious Cuban Black Beans. Don't miss the roasted garlic yoghurt recipe in the notes section.

Prep10m
Stand30m
Cook2h
Total2h 40m

mexican nigella protein slow-cooker-compatible vegan vegetarian

Nigella's Cuban Black Beans, garlic yoghurt and quesadillas

Update

Phytohaemagglutinin (how do you even pronounce it?) is a toxin found in raw beans, particularly kidney beans, and is harmful to humans. It's difficult to find information on phytohaemagglutinin relating to black beans but be aware that slow cookers don't always reach high enough temperatures to cook the beans safely. Wikipedia states that the toxins can be reduced to safe levels by:

Soaking beans for at least 5 hours, discarding the water, then boiling in fresh water for at least 30 minutes at 100°C (212°F).
Pressure cooking unsoaked beans for 45 minutes at 15 psi.

Other resources claim that just 10 minutes of boiling is enough but Karen Blakeslee, from the Rapid Response Center, says:

The toxin is destroyed when boiled at 212°F (100°C) for 10 minutes, but scientists recommend 30 minutes to be certain the beans reach the proper temperature for the amount of time necessary.

Helen Rennie has a great video on cooking beans and has slow-cooked beans for years (not kidney beans). I suspect most guidelines are cautious to avoid accidentally poisoning someone. To be honest, I've slow-cooked black beans many times without boiling them first, but my slow cooker may be different to yours.

The oven cooking method is hot enough to cook these beans safely. If you want to slow cook, I'd recommend boiling the beans as described above.

An Instant Pot customer service rep informed me that the slow cooking temperatures for my Duo Evo Plus are:

Low: 82-87.8°C / 180-190°F
High: 93-99°C / 200-210°F

I’ve cooked Nigella's Cuban Black Beans many times since the book, Simply Nigella (affiliate link) came out in 2015. Chop a couple of onions, peppers and some garlic; the rest is just assembly. What you do need to do, though, is give these beans time. Either a couple of hours in a low oven or longer in a slow cooker.

One small addition I've included is a tablespoon of chipotle paste. It gives the beans more depth and interest. I usually add two tablespoons but this makes the beans spicy so start with a tablespoon.

Although these beans are a great side dish, I tend to make them as the main event. They make work lunches a treat when paired with rice and yoghurt, and of all the meals I reheat at work, these beans attract the most compliments. One colleague swears they smell just like Dominos BBQ pizza.

My last batch went into quesadillas along with cheddar cheese and caramelised garlic yoghurt; it was an absolute joy of a dinner. The garlic yoghurt recipe is in the notes.

For years I cooked these beans in my oven as I didn’t own a slow cooker but a few weeks ago a colleague lent one to me. To be honest, the beans taste similar regardless of how they’re cooked as I let them cool before reheating, which thickens and intensifies the sauce.

The oven method requires browning the onions first. When using a slow cooker, the raw ingredients go straight in - the recipe doesn’t mention browning. After seven hours in the slow cooker I swear I could still taste the tang of raw onion. Once the beans were cooled and reheated they tasted like their normal selves but I would definitely recommend browning the onions, regardless of which method you use.

Notes

Make sure to use relatively fresh beans. I used some that were at least two years old and they refused to soften in my slow cooker. A brand new batch of beans softened after just four hours.

Update regarding hard beans: I recently bought a 2.5kg bag of beans and they may as well have been rocks. The upside is that there were plenty of beans to experiment with. I tried various combinations of soaking, salting, boiling and slow cooking (for twelve hours). Each time, the only solution was to pressure cook. If you have similarly stubborn beans (and own a pressure cooker) add more liquid and pressure cook for at least an hour. For me, the other methods were a waste of time and energy.

Garlic yoghurt

Slice the top off a bulb of garlic (take the very tips off the cloves and keep the base intact) then wrap in foil and bake for around 40 minutes in a 200°C (180°C fan) oven.

Like Nigella, I don’t turn on my oven just for the purpose of roasting garlic but if I’m cooking something else I’ll often throw in a bulb at the same time. Adjust the cooking time to suit the temperature of the oven; you don’t need to be precise. Once the cloves have caramelised to a dark bronze colour, the whole bulb goes into the fridge where it keeps for a week. The squidgy cloves can be added to soups, stews, or, my favourite by a mile, Greek yoghurt.

400g of Greek yoghurt, 1 teaspoon of sea salt flakes and 5-6 roasted garlic cloves amounts to a beautiful sauce that reminds me of the yoghurt you get in a really good kebab shop.

Recipe credit

Simply Nigella (affiliate link) by Nigella Lawson.

Recipe

Nigella's Cuban Black Beans

Prep10m
Stand30m
Cook2h
Total2h 40m

Serves: 6

Ingredients

2 onions, chopped (any colour)
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 peppers, diced (any colour)
500g dried black turtle beans
1 fresh red chilli, chopped
2 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp chipotle paste (more if you like spice)
black pepper
2 fresh bay leaves
1 litre water
salt

Method

Slow cooker

Soak 500g of dried black beans for at least 5 hours. Discard the water. Fill a medium saucepan with boiling water and add the beans. Rapidly boil for 30 minutes then drain.
Brown 2 chopped onions in a pan for around 5-10 minutes then add to a slow cooker along with 6 chopped cloves of garlic, 2 diced peppers, the boiled black beans, 1 chopped red chilli, 2 tablespoons of cumin seeds, 1 tablespoon of chipotle paste, a pinch of black pepper, 2 fresh bay leaves and 1 litre of water.
Cook for 6-8 hours until the beans are soft then add salt to taste.
Leave to stand for half an hour or, if you can, allow to cool then reheat to eat.

Oven

Preheat your oven to 150°C (130°C fan).
Brown 2 chopped onions and 6 chopped cloves of garlic for around 5-10 minutes in a lidded saucepan that will fit into your oven. Add 2 diced peppers, 500g dried black beans, 1 chopped red chilli, 2 tablespoons of cumin seeds, 1 tablespoon of chipotle paste, a pinch of black pepper and 2 fresh bay leaves to the pan. Add enough water to cover the ingredients by 3cm then clamp the lid on the pan and place in the oven for 2 hours.
If you can, check on the beans half way through, giving them a stir and adding more water if the level has fallen below the beans, but you can just leave them to cook and they should be fine.
When the beans are cooked, salt to taste then leave to stand for half an hour or, if you can, allow to cool then reheat to eat.