Cuban Black Bean Soup

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No rating yet, because I am in the process of making the soup, and combining it with another recipe from a cookbook. I just wanted to tell people who are having trouble with hard/soft beans. I had that problem for years, to the point where I stopped using dried beans. When I started again, I actually read the directions on the bean package. Here's the secret. Bring the beans and water to a boil, immediately turn the heat back to a gentle simmer and PARTIALLY cover the pot. I used to put the cover all the way on. I have no idea why this makes such a difference.....but it does.

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This soup turned out really tasty, and I'm not a big soup fan. I did add jalapeno instead of the italian pepper, and used dry black beans that I had presoaked. I skipped the vinegar and added lots of lime juice instead. Yum! I'll definitely make this again.

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This is excellent if you use a spicy pepper (ie.jalepeno as the frying pepper and prepare dry black beans (soak overnight without the spices , adding spices directly to the soup. Adjust the amount of beans balanced to sofrito. A pound of dry black beans makes alot , so either make more sofrito or use less beans, I tried it once with 2 cans instead of preparing the dry beans and it came out great. Don't omit sugar as this is the key to giving it a sweet sour taste (making authentically Cuban style I have made this at least 6 times and it was devoured by my 3 teenagers, (1 veg

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I was so excited to recreate the BBS that I've had else where, but what a disappointment! Very bland when done. I tried adding some things to it to salvage it, but no luck. I should of used lime juice instead of vinegar. It just needed a lot of kick to it, but I couldn't fiqure it out. This one of the worst soups I've ever had.

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Sylvia nailed some excellent requirements to bring this soup up to snuff.

In place of the chicken bullion I used some condensed vegetable soup base (store bought to keep the soup vegetarian. Worked great!

I also added a few dashes of habanero pepper sauce and a tablespoon of black strap molasses (just for that cut of sweetness but far more subtle than sugar.

Much happier with this recipe now and have tried it several times. Thanks Silvia!

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I used white wine instead of vinegar and cut the sugar to 1 tsp.
also added a ham bone for smoke flavor. DELICIOUS!

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These beans smelled great while they were cooking, but were totally bland when I tasted them. Here are a few things I would change about this recipe:

1- Add two chicken bullion cubes to the beans while they cook...or add a serious dose of salt.
2- Nix the sugar, I could tell that it was in there...it just didn't taste right.
3- When you add the sofrito to the soup, also add two or three tablespoons of tomato paste.
4- Throw in bundle of cilantro at the end...I was a little surprised that the recipe didn't call for any.
5- Substitute the vinegar for lime juice...that's just a personal preference :

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I've been making BBS for years, but never pureed the sofrito. What a difference! This one is a keeper! But I do soak the beans first, often for more than a day, but that's just because my planning is so bad.

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I used canned beans and added Ditalini noodles for the kids. They loved it and no fighting about eating beans!!

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Like others, my beans never softened but the soup tasted good. I used a cubanelle pepper in the recipe-are there any other suggestions for the pepper?I never heard of an anaeim pepper.