I really am loving having a slow cooker that works perfetly. After years of thinking they were all like that old one that I had (which wasn’t old really) that sucked I had pretty much sworn off of them. But not anymore!
Black bean soup. Thick, yummy, hearty, a bit of heat, delicious. That’s it. Make it 🙂
Black Bean Soup-slow cooker
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 3 medium onions, minced
- 3 celery ribs, chopped medium
- 2 medium carrots, chopped medium
- 8Â medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 2 tablespoons)
- 5 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- Salt
- 3 cups water
- 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 pound dried black beans (about 2 1/4 cups), picked over and rinsed
- 2 medium smoked ham hocks
- 2 bay leaves
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1/8-1/4 cup hot sauce (to taste)
- fresh cilantro leaves chopped for garnish
- fat free sour cream for garnish
- chipotle sauce for garnish
Instructions
Heat the oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat until shimmering but not smoking. Add the onions, celery, carrots, garlic, cumin, pepper flakes, and 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook until the vegetables are softened and lightly browned, 10 to 15 minutes.
 Transfer the vegetables to the slow cooker and stir in the water, broth, black beans, ham hocks, and bay leaves until evenly combined. Cover and cook on low until the soup has thickened and the beans are tender, 8 to 10 hours. (Alternatively, cover and cook on high for 6 to 7 hours.)
Remove and discard the bay leaves. Remove the ham hocks and any portion of them that may ramin in the soup (there are fat pieces and small bones so be careful to remove everything-a spider works best), let cool and discard. Puree 2 cups of the soup with a stick blender until smooth, then stir back into the slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper and hot sauce to taste, and serve.
Note: I added some Frank’s Hot Sauce in the last step as the soup needed a bit of a kick. It didn’t make it spicy-just gave it some heat. Add it a little at a time and stir and taste until you reach your desired heat level. When serving I added a few squirts of my Goya Chipotle Sauce, a spoonful of sour cream and cilantro. The Chipotle Sauce gave it another dimension of taste without adding too much more heat.
This soup also reheats well.
Recipe adapted from Cooks Illustrated. Their notes:
 Why this recipe works:
We found that unsoaked beans worked fine in our slow-cooker black bean soup recipe. It was well worth the time and effort to sauté the aromatics before adding them to the cooker; the black bean soup recipe that skipped this step tasted flat. As for flavor, we knew we wanted a robust smoked pork presence. We tested our way through porky ingredients like bacon, kielbasa, ham, and ham hocks before deciding that the latter contributed all the depth we wanted. Once the soup was done—eight to 10 hours later—we stripped the meat from the hocks and stirred it into the beans. (I did not do this as basically everything was off of the bone-I removed the pices of the hock from the soup with my strainer and discarded them).
PREP-AHEAD TRIPS:Â can store the following ingredients together:
1. Cook the vegetables as described in step 1, then transfer to an airtight container and refrigerator.
2. Pick over and rinse the black beans and refrigerate.
If the soup becomes too thick as it sits, thin to the desired consistency with either water or broth.
Sparks from the Kitchen 