Black bean soup recipe for ---ONE CAN OF BEANS---

April 9, 2021 8:27 AM

I'm looking for an at least vaguely-Cuban recipe for black bean soup that makes just one or two lunches.

I ated the last of the Goya black bean soups in the house. And, needing black bean soup and not wanting it to be from trumpy dickbags, I tried a can of Amy's, which was okay but did not spark joy. It seemed way too... southwesterny. None of the stores around here seem to carry La Preferida.

So, does anyone have a recipe for at least vaguely Cuban black bean soup for just one can of beans? I need a small recipe because it's going to be just me eating it and I don't want to have it for lunch for an entire week, or to fill up the freezer with bags of soup. I want to make one or, if needs truly must, two meals.

Obviously I could downsize a big recipe but I'm sufficiently unconfident enough about that that it seemed prudent to check with the collectivity to see if any of y'all in this same predicament have hit upon a solution.

posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace to Food & Drink (5 answers total)

I like this one. Some modifications: nuke the vegetable broth with (grated instead of sliced) carrots, and onion, garlic, red pepper, celery, spices for a few minutes. Use lime instead of orange. Add dried hot pepper flakes to taste.
posted by mareli at 9:06 AM on April 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I should have added some ideas for quantity. Two cans of beans. One onion. One medium carrot. One stick of celery. 1/2 of a red bell pepper. 3 cloves of garlic. Use spices sparingly, add more if needed. I nuke this with a bit of water or veg. broth in a covered bowl until the onions and peppers are soft. Once the vegetables are nuked put in pot with beans and juice of one orange or one lime, pulp of either is fine, maybe even zest of either. Bring it to a boil and then simmer for a few minutes.

I get store brand organic canned beans at local Kroger supermarket for a dollar a can. Check to see if your local supermarket has similar. Also canned organic lentils.
posted by mareli at 9:22 AM on April 9, 2021

Best answer: Here are the ingredients for Goya's canned black bean soup.

They also offer a recipe for homemade black bean soup that includes almost all of those ingredients (it's lacking bell pepper, and it lacks onion too except as a garnish). I'd be inclined to start with that recipe and swap out the Goya canned beans for someone else's canned beans, etc. You can use anyone's spices, wine, vinegar, beans, etc. Use one of these replacement brands of adobo and sazón instead of Goya's adobo and Sazón Goya. To add the bell pepper and onion that are missing, also get one of those replacement brands of sofrito, or make your own sofrito, and add a spoon of that.

Tl;dr: if you're really looking for a taste-alike, buy non-Goya substitutes for the ingredients in this recipe, add a spoon of non-Goya sofrito just after the garlic, and see how that suits you.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:30 AM on April 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

Obviously I could downsize a big recipe but I'm sufficiently unconfident enough about that that it seemed prudent to check with the collectivity to see if any of y'all in this same predicament have hit upon a solution.

(Tbh, though, soup recipes can definitely be downsized confidently with no need to change anything. Cut all the amounts in half, or in quarters, and keep all the temperatures and lengths of time the same. It's not like baking or roasting meat where volume and surface area matter. So if you have a recipe for a whole bigass pot of beans that you're excited about trying, divide away.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:38 AM on April 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: for the record, I regret that I didn't use the title "One can only, Vasily!"
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:16 PM on April 11, 2021 [2 favorites]