🇨🇺 Cuba and 🇺🇸 United States · and the Cuban-American communities of Florida

Cuban black bean soup

A thick Cuban soup of black beans cooked with a sofrito of onion, green pepper and garlic, cumin, oregano and a splash of vinegar, finished with olive oil and served with white rice and chopped raw onion.

Origin and history

Black beans with sofrito are a staple of Cuban home cooking, set down in the cookbooks of the 20th century such as Nitza Villapol's Cocina criolla, and carried to Florida and other Cuban-American communities. The bowl form, a looser pot served as sopa de frijoles negros, is the same dish served as soup.

Make it at home

Makes: 6 servings
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Hands-on: 40 min

Ingredients

Metric US

450 g1 lb (about 2 1/3 cups) dried black beans, sorted, rinsed and soaked overnight
2.4 litres10 cups water
1 large green pepper (ají or pimiento verde), half added whole to the beans, the rest chopped for the sofrito
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
150 ml2/3 cup olive oil, for the sofrito
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp ground cumin, optional; used in many Cuban-American kitchens
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp vinegar
2 tbsp dry white wine or dry cooking wine
4 tsp salt, adjust to taste
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil, to finish, over the bowls
white onion, chopped raw, for serving
white rice, cooked, for serving

Method

1. Drain the soaked beans and put them in a large pot with the water and the half of the green pepper left whole. Bring to a boil, then simmer, partly covered, for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the beans are tender.
2. Chop the remaining pepper finely. Warm the 150 ml of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and cook the onion, chopped pepper and garlic for 8 to 10 minutes, until very soft and golden. This is the sofrito.
3. Scoop about 1 cup of the cooked beans into the skillet and mash them into the sofrito, then scrape the whole mixture back into the pot.
4. Add the bay leaf, oregano, cumin if using, salt, pepper and sugar, and simmer for 1 hour, stirring now and then and adding hot water if the beans stop being covered.
5. Stir in the vinegar and wine and simmer over low heat for 30 to 45 minutes more, until the soup is thick and the broth looks dark and glossy.
6. Remove the bay leaf and the pepper half. Taste and adjust the salt and vinegar.
7. Serve in bowls with a spoon of olive oil and chopped raw onion on top, and white rice alongside or stirred in.

Notes

Total time: 2 h 30 min plus overnight soaking.
Boundary: in Cuba the everyday pot is frijoles negros, a thick bean dish ladled over white rice. The soup form here is a more liquid, spoonable version that Cuban and Cuban-American cooks serve in a bowl; make the pot looser than a rice-topping stew and you have the soup. It is the same sofrito-based dish, cooked with more water.
The base follows the cookbook of Nitza Villapol (Cocina criolla): olive oil, onion, green pepper and garlic, a spoon of sugar, and vinegar and wine added at the end. Cumin appears in many modern recipes but is not universal in the older ones, so it is optional.
Other versions use tomato paste in the sofrito, red pepper alongside the green, lard in place of olive oil, or add diced bacon or pork ribs for body; some cooks purée a few ladles of beans for a smoother, thicker soup.
A pressure cooker cooks the soaked beans in about 45 minutes after the cooker whistles.
Serving custom: white rice, chopped raw onion, a drizzle of olive oil, and sometimes fried ripe plantains or bread.
It keeps for 4 days refrigerated and tastes better on the second day; thin with water when reheating.

Adapted from Cocina criolla, Nitza Villapol (frijoles negros recipe as posted by Seton Hall University), Al mejor estilo cubano: así puede preparar una deliciosa sopa de frijoles, Infobae, and Breve viaje a la cocina cubana: frijoles negros, Paula, La Tercera.