Monk's Beans

A monastery-simple slow cooker beans recipe that proves you don’t need a long ingredient list to make a deeply flavored meatless meal. Six ingredients (canned black beans, canned tomatoes, onion, garlic, green peppercorns, cumin) go into the crockpot in the morning and turn into a dinner that tastes like it took all day, because it did.

The trick is the order of operations. Beans, tomatoes, and onion go in first and cook all day on low, letting the onion melt into sweetness and the bean broth thicken from the tomato juice. Adding the garlic, ground cumin, and brined green peppercorns only in the final 30 minutes preserves their pungency. Long cooking would dull the cumin to dust and tame the green peppercorns into soft mush.

Pro Tips

• Don’t drain the canned beans. The bean liquid (aquafaba) is what thickens the pot into a stew rather than soup.
• Brined green peppercorns are sold in small jars near the capers in most supermarkets. They have a fresher, fruitier heat than black pepper.
• Taste at the very end and add salt if needed. Canned beans and tomatoes contain salt already, so add carefully.
• Serve over brown rice, with cornbread, or stuffed into tortillas as a burrito filling.

Variations

• Stir in 1 cup chopped spinach or kale during the last 15 minutes for greens.
• Top with sliced avocado, queso fresco, or a fried egg for a complete bowl.
• Use a 50/50 mix of black beans and pinto beans for varied texture.