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This Mexican Black Beans recipe is an easy and tasty restaurant-style side dish for any Mexican dinner! Serve it with your tacos, enchiladas, fajitas and burritos to complete your Tex-Mex meal.
Click here to PIN these Mexican Black Beans!
The standard side dishes at any Mexican restaurant are black beans and rice. You all love my easy Mexican rice recipe, so I'm confident you'll love this easy Mexican black beans recipe! It comes together very quickly. Yes, you're basically doctoring up a can of black beans. You'll be surprised how good you can make a simple can of beans taste!
Ingredients for this Recipe
All you need is a can of black beans and a few spices to kick them up a notch. Gather these ingredients:
It doesn't seem like much, but these flavors go a long way while simmering in the pan for 20 minutes. This black beans recipe can be considered done after cooking for 5 minutes, but I like to let the flavors blend as long as possible.
How to Make Mexican Black Beans from Scratch
Heat oil in a small skillet.
Cook onions until just soft.
Add garlic. Cook 1 minute.
Pour in black beans including its liquid, along with cilantro, cumin and salt. Bring to boil.
Reduce and simmer for 20 minutes, until liquid is thickened as desired.
This recipe comes together so quickly, you'll definitely want to keep it for any southwest meal or Mexican dinner. As written, it yields about 3 or 4 servings. You can easily double it to feed more people.
Click here for full recipe ingredients and instructions.
Anytime we go to a Mexican restaurant (which is weekly) we typically fill ourselves up with the chips and salsa before the rest of our food arrives. I try every time not to do this, but I never succeed! Well, these flavorful black beans are worth saving room for!
What to serve with Mexican Black Beans
Try this black beans recipe alongside any of our favorite Mexican dishes!
Easy Mexican Rice
Mexican Corn Salad
Beef Barbacoa
Crock Pot Chicken Tacos
Baked Burritos
Print to save for later. Made this recipe? Leave a star rating and tag me on social media @seededtable so I can see. I love hearing from you!
Recipe Card
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4.71 from 24 votes
Mexican Black Beans
This Mexican Black Beans recipe is an easy and tasty restaurant-style side dish for any Mexican dinner! Serve it with your tacos, enchiladas, fajitas and burritos to complete your Tex-Mex meal.
Keyword: black beans recipe, easy mexican recipes, mexican beans, mexican black beans
Servings: 3to 4 servings
Calories: 170kcal
Author: Nikki Gladd
Ingredients
2teaspoonsvegetable oil
½cupchopped yellow onion
3clovesgarlic, minced
15oz.can black beans, not drained
handfulcilantro, washed and chopped
1teaspoonground cumin
¼teaspoonsalt, more or less to taste
Instructions
Heat oil in small skillet over medium heat.
Cook the onions until just soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 more minute.
Pour in the can of beans including its liquid. Stir in the cilantro, cumin and salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 15 minutes or until sauce is thickened as desired.
Notes
Nutritional information is an estimate only based on 1 serving = ½ cup.
Optional recipe variations:
Add black pepper, to taste.
Omit cilantro if you dislike it.
Add paprika and/or cayenne.
Drain & rinse the beans then cook with ½ cup broth.
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About Seeded At The Table
Thanks for visiting! We’re the Gladd family! We love donuts, Disney, LEGO and Jesus. Not in that order, of course. 🙂 Ben shares DIY wood-working projects and Nikki shares delicious recipes. You’ll also find a sprinkling of travel adventures and other family fun ideas!
Season them with lime juice and zest, chili powder, oregano, and/or cilantro, and serve them as a side dish with Mexican or Latin American-inspired dishes like tacos or taquitos. Paired with some cilantro lime rice, they could also pass as a meal on their own!
Use them as a protein-packed addition in burrito bowls, tacos, nachos, and more! If you love the black beans from your local Mexican restaurant but always end up with underwhelming results at home, these Mexican Black Beans are a must-try.
Are Chinese black beans the same as Mexican black beans? No, not at all. The black beans popular in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean are black turtle beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), and are cooked and eaten as-is. Chinese black beans are black soybeans (Glycine max), and are fermented and heavily salted.
"Black beans cook so quickly soaking only saves 30 minutes or so. It also marginally helps keep them whole, but you're going to be pureeing some anyway. and the flavor is so much better. Just sayin."
Beans are super healthy, full of vitamins and minerals, protein-packed, and fiber-rich. But canned beans can be high in sodium, which is a problem for those with high blood pressure and those who want to avoid it.
Boiling: Boiling the beans for 5-10 minutes in a pot of water can also help remove the bitterness. Discard the water and rinse the beans before cooking. Baking soda: Adding a pinch of baking soda to the soaking water or boiling water can help neutralize the bitterness.
The Very Best Black Beans In The World start like most good things: with onion and garlic. One small onion (or half of a big guy) plus two garlic cloves is all you need, finely chopped. If you have a small red pepper or a jarred roasted red pepper, chop that up too and add it to the mix.
The pinto bean is perhaps one of the most common type of beans used in most Mexican dishes. Like the black bean, the pinto bean is also loaded with nutritious elements including high fiber and protein. Pinto beans are served both whole and mashed, which will become the refried bean.
Black Beans (Frijoles Negros): Hailing from coastal areas like Veracruz, black beans are cherished for their robust flavor. They form the base of classic Mexican dishes like black bean soup and enfrijoladas, where the beans are pureed and used as a sauce to top tortillas filled with various fillings.
Frijoles negros ( lit. 'black beans' in Spanish) is a Latin American dish made with black beans, prepared in Guatemala, Cuba, Venezuela (where it is called caraotas negras), Puerto Rico, Mexico, and other nations in Latin America.
Known as Phaseolus vulgaris in scientific circles, they're also called “turtle beans” in English and frijoles negros in Spanish. Black beans have a satisfying texture and mildly sweet flavor. They're also incredibly healthy, providing multiple vital nutrients with minimal fat and sugar.
Canned beans are packed in a solution of water, salt, and starch. That solution can leave a glossy film on the beans, interfering with not only mouthfeel (slimy beans are a little off-putting), but also the ability of the beans to cling to other ingredients in the dish and absorb those flavors.
Do You Need To Rinse Canned Beans? According to The Bean Institute, you can reduce up to 41 percent of the sodium in canned beans by rinsing them. "It's fine to add the bean liquid to many recipes, but if you want to reduce the amount of sodium, it's best to drain and rinse canned beans," the website states.
Fun Fact: Discarding the soaking water and rinsing beans can help make cooked beans more digestible. Some people choose to save the soaking liquid because some nutrients are leeched from the beans into the liquid during soaking. We prefer to drain our soaking liquid but you can decide what works best for you.
Soups, salads, nachos, burgers, tacos, tostadas, quesadillas—the legume world's most goth representative can do it all. The star ingredient in these black bean recipes is important to all kinds of people.
While lard has been replaced with vegetable oil or shortening in many households, the distinct richness and velvety texture it imparts to a skillet of refried beans is hard to beat. The closest substitute for lard is bacon grease, which is another form of rendered pork fat that's arguably even more flavorful.
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