Sweet and savory, this classic Cuban black beans recipe is infused with the flavors of the Caribbean!
We have a thing for beans here, whether it's black beans, Puerto Rican kidney beans, Cuban navy beans with ham hocks, or even roasting a whole stuffed chicken with chorizo and beans -there's sure to be a recipe for everyone here!
What are Cuban black beans?
Maybe you've visited a Latin restaurant or saw a co-worker bring in some Cuban black beans and thought to yourself, "What are Cuban black beans?", more importantly, what do Cuban black beans taste like?
Black beans are a sweeter bean compared to say small red beans or even navy beans. The beauty of Cuban black beans is that the typical Cuban cuisine flavors of bold garlic, smokey cumin, a bay leaf, and dried oregano enhance the black beans to create a sweet and savory mixture that ensures you have a flavorful and bold black bean recipe. Also, at the end of cooking time, if you add a splash of white vinegar, the flavors will enhance just a tad bit more! This is why black beans are a staple in Cuba, it's perfection!
What ingredients Are In Cuban Black Beans?
I mentioned that these Cuban black beans are simple, right?! The ingredients in Cuban black beans are:
- soaked dry black beans
- water
- olive oil
- onions
- garlic
- aji dulce or a green bell pepper
- salt and pepper
- dried oregano
- cumin
- bay leaf
- white sugar (optional)
- white vinegar
- dry white wine (optional)
- if desired, 1 packet of pork bullion, (completely optional)
How To Make Cuban Black Beans on the stove
(I'm updating this Cuban black beans for a better version! The version I had before had too much water, which drowned out the flavor profile. Also, readers gave input and I am incorporating what they have added!)
What makes the Cuban black beans is the sofrito. Unlike my Puerto Rican Sofrito, this Cuban sofrito for black beans is as simple as heating good quality olive oil in a small pan, and sauteing chopped onions, chopped green peppers (or aji dulce for an even more authentic take), and garlic. The garlic can be smashed in a pestle and mortar or minced.
Traditionally, dried black beans should be soaked in water at least 4 hours to overnight to ensure tender beans. DO NOT ADD SALT TO UNCOOKED DRY BEANS. Adding salt to uncooked beans hardens the beans. We don't want hard black beans!
If you're making black beans on the stove without a pressure cooker, you're going to boil your soaked beans and place it in a large pot with about 9-10 cups of water. You can use the same liquid you used to soak your beans, completely optional. Boil black beans over medium high with a lid that is slightly off the top to allow steam to escape, for about 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes, you're going to take a medium frying pan to make a Cuban sofrito mixture. Warm your olive oil, and saute your onions, garlic, and bay leaf. For a completely traditional Cuban black bean recipe, remove about a cut of beans from the pot and add it to your sofrito mixture. Gently smash the beans and return the sofrito to the pot. At this point you'll add the cumin, oregano, salt, and black pepper.
Stir and allow the beans to continue cooking for about another hour. Yes, Cuban black beans take forever to cook! But it's so worth it! After an hour, add in the white vinegar and the white wine. Lower heat to low, let it slowly simmer for another hour. Total of three hours. Cuban black beans are perfect for a Sunday supper!
Finally, when it's time to serve, mix the black beans, and add in your sugar to neutralize the acidity and keep the balance between savory and sweet.
How To Make Cuban Black Beans In The Instant Pot
To make Cuban black beans in the Instant Pot, we're following the same steps are above with slight differences.
Before I was adding 8 cups of water, which left the black beans with a lot of liquid, which is perfect for making congri (black beans with rice mixed together). But this isn't a congri recipe, and it needed an update!
Updated recipe: Add 5 cups of water to the Instant Pot with the softened black beans. Cook on high pressure for 35 minutes. After 35 minutes, allow your pot to naturally depressurize.
While the Instant Pot depressurizes, it's time to make prep your Cuban sofrito recipe. But wait like 10-15 minutes before starting your sofrito!
How To Make Cuban Sofrito for black beans
To make a simple Cuban sofrito for black beans, warm your olive oil over medium to medium-high heat, and saute your chopped onions, chopped peppers, garlic, and bay leaf until onions and peppers have softened.
By this time your Instant Pot should have depressurized.
For a completely traditional Cuban black bean recipe, remove about a cup of black beans from the Instant Pot and add it to your sofrito mixture. Gently smash the black beans and return the sofrito to the pot. At this point you'll add the cumin, oregano, salt, and black pepper. Taste for seasoning. I love to add pork bullion, but that is completely optional
Put your Instant Pot on saute mode, set it to low temp and for 15-20 minutes.
After about five minutes of having added your sofrito mixture in, you're going to add in your vinegar and wine. Stir and allow your black beans to gently simmer until the time is done.
If you see that there is not enough liquid, feel free to add more water, a few tablespoons at a time!
When the beans are done and ready to serve, add two teaspoons of sugar to neutralize the acidity.
TIPS FOR SUCCESS
- Smash a few beans when the beans are done to thicken the broth.
- Make a simple garlic mojo to top your rice for a wow factor.
- Double the recipe or reserve a few cups to make Cuban congri.
- Sprinkle with fresh cilantro and serve with white rice, plantains, and avocado.
- If possible, use aji dulce (small sweet peppers) instead of green bell peppers.
What to serve with Cuban black beans
Cuban black beans are traditionally served with white rice a generous side of pernil (pulled pork). Here are some suggestions on what to serve with Cuban black beans:
- Cuban Pernil (pulled pork)
- Sweet Fried Plantains
- Twice Fried Plantains
- Barbacoa Tacos
- Cilantro Lime Rice
- Flan
- Coquito
Recipe
Instant Pot Cuban Black Beans
Ingredients
- 1 pound dry black beans soaked
- 4 cups water
- ½ cup olive oil
- 1 white onion chopped
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 1 green bell pepper chopped
- ½ teaspoon oregano
- ¼ - ½ teaspoon cumin
- 1 pork bullion cube optional
- 4 teaspoons salt or as desired
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons white wine
- 2 tablespoons white vinegar
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
Instructions
- Add water and black beans to your Instant Pot, set on high pressure for 35 minutes.
- Allow Instant Pot to naturally release.
- When Instant Pot depressurizes, warm olive oil over medium to medium high heat in a medium frying pan. Add in onions, garlic, peppers, oregano, cumin, bullion, salt, and pepper to pan and cook until onions and peppers have softened.
- Once onions and peppers have softened add in a cup of cooked black beans, and gently smash the beans into the onion mixture.
- Return the onion mixture to the Instant Pot.
- Press the saute mode to low heat for 20 minutes and stir beans occasionally. After the first five minutes, add in the wine and vinegar.
Recipe
STOVETOP Cuban Black Beans
Ingredients
- 8-10 cups of water
- 1 pound of dried beans soaked over night
- 1 white onion chopped
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 1 green bell pepper chopped
- ½ teaspoon of dried oregano or to taste
- ¼ – ½ teaspoon of cumin
- 1 ham bullion cube
- 4 teaspoons of salt
- ½ teaspoon of ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons of white wine
- 2 tablespoons of white vinegar
- 2 teaspoons of granulated sugar
Instructions
- In a large pot, soak black beans that were rinsed and picked over with 8-10 cups of water. Let it sit 4 hours or overnight.
- Once beans have softened, place pot with beans and the liquid it soaked in over medium high heat.
- Slightly cover pot and let beans boil for about 45 minutes.
- After 45 minutes, you’re going to take a medium frying pan to make a Cuban sofrito mixture. Warm your olive oil, and saute your onions, garlic, and bay leaf. For a completely traditional Cuban black bean recipe, remove about a cup of beans from the pot and add it to your sofrito mixture. Gently smash the beans and return the sofrito to the pot. At this point you’ll add the cumin, oregano, salt, and black pepper.
- Stir and allow the beans to continue cooking for about another hour.
- After an hour, add in the white vinegar and the white wine. Lower heat to low, let it slowly simmer for another hour.
- When beans are tender to your liking, add in sugar before serving.
Kyra Rodriguez says
Not really fan of beans, but this one really looks so yummy! I think I must try this
Latina Mom Meals says
Hi Kyra, yes! This is definitely yummy. Hope you enjoy it, keep me updated. 🙂 Thanks for visiting!
Silvia says
Delicious recipe! I always add a pinch of sugar to my black beans. Never added vinegar before and it is yummy. Thank you!
C Holland says
The taste is good but it was too watery. so I had to add a thickener. The confusion is due to your instructions in your blog to use 5 cups but in the recipe you list 4 cups. I thought the 4 must have been an error since your blog instructions are more detailed.
Latina Mom Meals says
Hi sorry for the error! I am going to go ahead and update it now. 🙂
Lauren says
This looks great! I have not tried yet, but I see that the recipes is only for the instant pot. It would be nice if you had a recipe for stove top (I see there are instructions in the text portion, but it's extra work to extrapolate and the two recipes are different. I also wondered about the sauteing of a bay leaf. It that correct? I have always used bay leaves only as an addition to liquid when boiling, like stock or soup or beans. And I have a question about black beans. When I go to Cuban restaurants and get black beans, there are two things I notice about them as being different from other Latino black beans. 1. They are kinda soupy 2. The are always dark black, where as when I cook black beans, they tend to get a bit grey, especially if you mash some of them. Could you comment on how to get them so black? Is the soupiness and blackness a Cuban thing?
Latina Mom Meals says
Hi Lauren,
Sure, I'll create a second recipe card for stove top Cuban beans. 🙂
As far as sauteing the bay leaves, you absolutely can. If you're more comfortable with waiting until the liquid is boiling, that is always an option.
Black beans (and Latin bean recipes in general), tend to be more of a stew. A lot of people always wonder why there is so much liquid, just look at the liquid as an opportunity to really soak your rice!
I can't say for sure why they're really dark, my only thought is that the water the beans were soaked in, is also used for cooking, which means the color was not drained away.
Maria G says
Can the instant pot recipe be doubled?
Latina Mom Meals says
I have not tried it, so I can't guarantee it. If you have a very large one, I think you can!
Christina says
I don’t know what I did wrong. I only made one change which was using pre made sofrito. I was making it on the stove top, soaked the beans in 8 cups of water. After the soak I put the heat on medium high and I got up to step 6. I had 5 more minutes until I turned the heat to low and added in the vinegar and wine but that was until I smelled burning. I checked my pot and all of the liquid was gone. I don’t think I had the heat on too high because I had it on 6, my stove goes from 1-10. But before the burning it smelled amazing. I will definitely be trying it again 🙂
Susan says
These Cuban black beans are great! I used the instant pot method, soaking briefly prior to cooking. I messed up and made sofrito in pot first, so i just added the beans before reading, lol. They were great anyway. I mashed some up turned up saute for a few minutes after pressure cooking to cook the wine and vinegar with the beans. So worth it. Just realized I also forgot the sugar. My husband loved them with vegan beer bread. I'm making vegan cornbread for the rest! Love that in spite of my flub ups, they were great!
Latina Mom Meals says
Oh no!! Yeah, the stove can be finnicky. Always check on the water level, like every 20-30 minutes. I'll update the post to write that note in. And yes, please make it again, add some extra water. 🙂
Latina Mom Meals says
So happy you enjoyed them! Ooooohh vegan beer bread, I will have to look into that! Cornbread to soak up the beans broth sounds amazing! Buen provecho!
Jessica says
This recipe was great and so helpful. Been trying to make Cuban black beans for years and they finally came out right! Thanks so much for posting! I'll be checking back for more recipes (now that I trust you. Haha ?)
Karen says
Amazing!!!!!!!!
Ann says
35 minutes in an Insta pot for black beans? I presoak mine and it only takes 16 minutes. If I don’t presoak it takes about 25 minutes.
Neyssa says
Yes! I'm not sure if you're familiar with Cuban beans? In my family, we enjoy beans on the softer side, not firm like baked beans. This is a preference of ours. If you find that you enjoy the texture with 16 minutes, by all means, continue with the timing that works for you. 🙂
Jinny says
Can I use less sugar?
Thanks in advance.
Jinny P. says
Can I use less sugar?
Thank you.
Virginia Tribles says
I'm not latino, but this recipe looked very interesting so I tried it using the instant pot version. It was incredibly good! I'm making it again this weekend for some family members. I'm sure I will be giving out your web address once again!
Holly says
I see that there’s 1 ham bouillon cube in the ingredients list for the stovetop directions, but I didn’t see in the instructions when to add that. Thank you!
Neyssa says
Hi Holly, oops! Will fix that. You can add it when you add in your seasonings.
Neyssa says
Aww thank you so much Virginia!
Neyssa says
You absolutely can!
Shalott says
I will never make black beans any other way!!! These are delicious even tho I only used 1T of oil. Thank you for this recipe.
Neyssa says
Aww, so happy you enjoyed it!
Liz says
Hi! So is it 4 or 5 cups of water for the instapot recipe? Thanks
Neyssa says
5
Jacky says
Too much salt. It says 4 tablespoons of salt 😔
Neyssa says
Hey Jackie, where do you see that? I just looked, it says 4 teaspoons?
Kim Cisneros says
For the Instantpot recipe it says 1 pound of dry black beans soaked. Are these beans soaked overnight or what is the minimum soaking time.
Thank you.
Neyssa says
You can add them non-soaked or soak for like an hour beforehand.
Michelle Tayloe says
Going to make these tomorrow they sound amazing to go with Cuban pork kabobs just wondering how important is the white wine?
Neyssa says
I like it, but it's your choice. You can leave it out. 🙂
Adriana Pineda says
Hi! I want to make this recipe tomorrow and I wanted to know, about the cooking time in the instant pot. If I pre soak them over night do I still cook the beans for 35 minutes? Also does the cooking time change if I double the recipe?
Neyssa says
You can lessen the time, if desired, to about 25 minutes. Not sure if it would change. I don't see why it should?
Caesar S. says
This is insanely good! Thank you!!
Siobhan says
Very easy and a great balance of flavour
Margarita says
I’m half Cuban and therefore am no stranger to black beans. These were delicious! I did add a few things though. I increased the cumin and oregano to one teaspoon each (my Cuban grandma always did a full teaspoon each), I increased garlic to half a garlic head (about 7 cloves), I fried 4 strips of bacon and added the bacon grease into the beans, chopped the bacon and added that too. Added one large Serrano pepper, omitted the sugar (to keep it healthier), added three bay leaves, and wow, these are really good. Will make again.
George Franklin says
Thank you for the tip about not adding salt until after cooking the beans. For years, I was frustrated that my beans took so much cooking to soften. This is an excellent recipe!
Gail says
This is an excellent recipe as updated. Good flavor, not too soupy. Added about half the salt because the bouillon I use is super salty. This is going to be my go to recipe for the Midnight Black Beans I get from Rancho Gordo. I’m going to post a link and a photo to the FB bean club group. (When I serve the leftovers I will “food style” a photo. Tonight it smelled so good we couldn’t wait around.) Thank you.
Al says
Nice simple recipe- I find using molasses or brown sugar best for a bit of sweetness and that A1 works surprisingly well if you don't have the white vinegar.
Normally I add some hammocks but eating less meat these days, vegan version is still really good but I feel for satiety it needs avacado or even better chilled guacomole.
I ran out of rice once and had leftover garlic bread and now I find it hard to eat black beans without thinking about garlic bread or some garlic naan.
The ultimate version includes the pork hammocks cooked with the bones taken out after sauteed, guacomole with fresh lime, fresh salsa, cilantro, and a couple slices of garlic bread.
Cindi says
Perfect black beans! Love them!
Judy says
OMG - this is a great recipe - just what I was looking for - thank you! I used 3 jalapeños since that’s what I had, and accidentally added the sweetener same time as wine & vinegar. Turned out perfectly.
Laura says
We eat black beans all the time but this is a first time I’ve made them from dried. Delicious! For a some reason after an overnight soak my beans were soft within the first 45 min.of cooking I didn’t use sugar as it tasted fine without it. I did use a sprinkle of baking soda while soaking. Great recipe ! Beans won’t hold up to Congi though
Barbara says
5 Stars when you reduce sugar to 1 Tablespoon. I made this but found the 2 T of sugar to make the beans taste way too sweet. But otherwise, this is the best I've found.
I have a neighbor who makes amazing lentils, and she does the same process as you. Cook the beans/lentils first, then sauté the onions, garlic, bell peppers, spices, etc. in a separate pan and add to the cooked legumes. I think the flavors come more forward in this manner and coat the beans. Otherwise, when they are all thrown into the pot together, they are lost and become mush (which some may prefer).
Dave says
I made these for my family and everyone raved at how good they are. We ate them with some lime/cilantro rice. It has a very distinct and wonderfull flavor. Probably the best black bean recipe I have ever had.
Thank you so much for sharing
Frances says
This looks great but 2 tbsp of sugar seems like a very large amount. I just add a pinch.
Can’t wait to try on my instapot. Thank you.
Neyssa says
Thank you Frances, I did go ahead and modify the amount in the recipe after hearing back from everyone.