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I dress beans up in a few different ways. I use chicken bouillon instead of salt in beans and/or rice. It has plenty of salt, adds flavor and may turn rice a little yellow, but it is tasty. I often dice up an onion and add precooked bacon bits too. Sometimes I use ham instead of bacon. It depends on what I have on hand. I'll throw cilantro in sometimes too or garlic salt instead of regular salt or bouillon. I added cumin in with the other stuff last time I cooked and it was good too. You could mix beans with taco seasoning if you like. That would add some flavor. You could use it in place of meat in a taco salad or tacos. Play with some of the spices you like.
Earlier this week, I was making a soup from a recipe from Allrecipes. The recipe called for 1 TBSP crushed red pepper for four servings. That looked like it would be way too much. I cut it back to 1 tsp and it was just slightly too hot.
Tonight, I was looking at a curried lentil soup. My gripe with any lentil soup recipe is that 80% of them are very bland. I read this recipe that I wanted to try this week from Allrecipes. My reaction from looking at the recipe was that it screamed "BLAND." I went through about 100 different reviews, most of them were very positive. What was funny though was that the very positive reviews stated that the recipe was bland but they added this and that and this and that. My point is that you should get an acceptable product by following the recipe, PERIOD.
In the old days, the women's magazines and few foodie magazines all hired people to test the recipes and you could count on them working. Now we are the UNPAID beta testers.
There are a number of things you can do to flavor beans.
You can add smoked meats. I prefer to use SMOKED pork bones as they have more meat and impart a lot more flavor than either hocks or diced ham. You can also use a smoked sausage BUT you will want to add that at the end of the process.
There are a lot of great spices that you can use to add flavor - these include, chili powder, cumin, coriander, bay leaves, oregano (Mexican or Turkish), salt, pepper, curry powder and the like. Also, do not forget the salt and pepper as they are essentials. Generally, the problem is that the beans are generally underseasoned rather than overseasoned.
I have tried beer and that has not worked very well. I have tried adding vegetables like celery, onion, carrots and the like. It provides overall flavor to the dish but honestly, it does nothing to bland beans. Tomatoes can help but add them AFTER the beans are softened.
If you are serving beans abd rice, I suggest that you season the beans and leave the rice alone.
I've got beans in the crock pot right now. Clean the beans, cover with enough water. Add a chopped onion, a 1/2 tablespoon of cumin, a ground up ancho, a shake of onion powder, and a 3 pound chuck roast.
Cook on high for about 6-8 hours.
You can do it without the beef and they won't be as marvelous, or as expensive, but they will still taste really good.
I salt only after the beans are cooked. There is some controversy about this, but that is how my mother did it, so that is how I do it.
If you want beef taste and cost is an issue,. brown 1/2 pound of cheap hamburger and put that in with the beans while they cook. That is fatty meat and the beans will absorb some of that flavor. Don't put raw hamburger into any sort of liquid cooking. brown it first. The chuck roast can go into the pot raw and that works fine.
I also cook bismati rice with my pinto beans. Should I season the rice with anything special, or just add the beans?
I've been doing rice and beans with salt and pepper only.
I like scratch cooked beans cooked in my home made chicken broth. I had some wonderful garbanzos cooked that way for lunch. The flavor improves after time in the fridge. Others have suggested various herbs and spices. I put bay leaf, whole peppercorns, a few cloves in a teaball to cook with my beans. But I also add chopped onion, garlic, chopped celery and coarsely grated carrot. I sometimes add canned tomatoes, as well.
Toppings for cooked beans can be grated cheese, shopped parsley or cilantro, chopped egg or sour cream.
Don’t overlook making your beans savory with warm or hot spices.
I like to include carrot in my beans because they sweeten the bitter bean flavor a bit. But for some reason, I find chunks of carrot in my beans intrusive. So, I use the coarsest side of my grater to grate carrot for the pot.
I love canned tomatoes cooked with blackeyed peas.
I just cooked my beans in chicken broth, added a ton of rosemary and oregeno and parsely, then diced up a few carrots and onions and celery and put in the pot. I diced in a few cloves of garlic too, and added garlic powder. Then, I took one of those petite hams from the store and diced it up and put in there.
I have to say, I got a lot of those ideas from this thread and I'm pretty impressed with how it all turned out. For once, my beans don't taste like dirt, and I actually enjoy them. Thank you.
I make mostly black beans that I season in the crockpot with garlic, onions, cilantro, cumin and chili powder, and whatever else occurs to me. Don’t forget the bay leaves!
My housemate wasn’t paying attention and accidentally added cinnamon to that mix once and it was actually quite good.
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