Mexican black beans

This is one of my favourite bean recipes; it’s super versatile as it works as a side dish with all sorts of Mexican-style dishes: tacos, burritos or fajitas - anything involving some kind of wrap basically. But equally you could serve them with rice, guacamole, cheese, sweet peppers and sour cream, or nachos with spiced Quorn/chicken and all the toppings.

I had the urge for a lunchtime quesadilla today, so I thought I’d make the black beans as a base and then top with fried yellow pepper (the only colour I had, red or orange would be fine too), cheese, fresh coriander and dried chill with a side of guacamole - I’ll share how I put it together tomorrow. It was SO tasty - one of my favourite things to eat and the good thing about spending a little time making the beans today is that I’ve got a pot of ready to use for lunches all next week.

I should mention that this is a very cheap way to get more protein into your diet, I reckon this recipe costs about £1.40 and feeds about 4 people depending on how you serve it.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 1 medium onion, chopped finely

• 1 garlic clove, grated (I use a Microplane)

• 1 tsp ground cumin

• 2 x 400g tins of black beans

• 3/4 tsp sea salt

• Juice of half a lime

Method

• Heat ½ tbsp olive or rapeseed oil in a saucepan and then add the onions. Fry for about 15 minutes on a low heat until softened.

• Next add the garlic and stir for about a minute to cook.

• Add the cumin, stir and warm for 30 seconds.

• Then pour in the black beans and their water, bring to the boil and then simmer for 25 minutes until a lot of the liquid has evaporated. They shouldn’t be dry like refried beans though.

• Add the sea salt and a squeeze of lime.