Puerto Rican Beans

I would tell you that I’ve been busy: that the caucuses here in Minnesota took a huge disorganized bite out of my schedule; that Ash Wednesday mass the following morning was one more difficult thing to fit into my week; that grad school work and presentations and teaching and general winter blahs have made it difficult to spend any amount of time at home; but the events that seem to have knocked me on my butt occurred last week and I’m loathe to let you all in on my precarious ability to stay afloat.

Instead, I want to talk to you about comfort food. As I understand it, comfort food is something a loving parent makes for you growing up, something you eat that makes you feel loved and taken care of and generally all right with the world. For Ian I’m pretty sure this is macaroni and cheese and hot dogs. For me, it’s rice and beans, plantains, and a sunny side up egg.



My grandmother is the type to make everything from scratch: adobo and sofrito in her mortar and pestle, chilling the seasonings of her arroz con gandules over a period of days. My mother, not so much. She embraces the can, and as much as I want to start from dried beans and be “authentic,” I must admit I’ve embraced the can too. It’s quick, it’s easy, and your beans are done by the time your rice is done. What more could you want?

Puerto Rican Beans (the shortcut way)
1 15oz can small red beans, undrained
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 small yellow onion, chopped
2 tablespoons Sofrito
1/2-1 tablespoon oregano
1/4 cup tomato sauce (the kind that comes in a can)
Olive Oil

In a medium saucepan, warm a good palm-sized amount of olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and onion, and cook until the onion is translucent. (Make sure the garlic does not color or burn!)

Add beans and everything else. Stir to combine, and simmer until your rice is done. Serve over white rice (1 cup uncooked / 3 cups cooked).

My mother used to make red kidney beans, and this works for black beans as well.

There are dozens of things you can add to your canned beans, and what I noted here is just one. I will omit and add as I see fit (or depending on what I have on hand). If nothing else, you should get yourselves a jar of sofrito, which is a red sauce that acts as a base for a lot of Puerto Rican cooking. If you’re my grandmother you’d make it yourself, but if you’re me you buy the Goya version. On the East Coast, or in places with a large Caribbean population, you should be able to find it in the “ethnic” section of the grocery store, but in the Twin Cities the only place I’ve found it so far is El Burrito Mercado in the District Del Sol neighborhood of St. Paul. Because that market is generally out of the way for me, I buy big jars of sofrito and freeze them in ice cube trays. Each cube is about two tablespoons, and you can add the frozen cube directly to your beans.

One more thing – I should note that one of my favorite food bloggers ever, Orangette, has a post on doctoring beans as well (though her version uses hot sauce).