This is my quick and easy Puerto Rican beans recipe, using pink or red canned beans and diced potatoes; perfect when you need a quick side dish.
Puerto Rican Beans
My husband’s FAVORITE meal is rice and beans. Especially when I serve them with breaded pork cutlets. I grew up eating rice and beans being part of a multi-cultural family. Most of my summers I stayed at my cousins house in Puerto Rico, and fell in love with the cuisine. I learned how to make these quick and easy Puerto Rican Beans which are always on rotation in my home. I also love these Brazilian Black Beans and Quick Cuban Black Beans.
Since Tommy is half Puerto Rican, I learned to make a lot of Puerto Rican dishes from my cousin and Tommy’s mom.
Don’t get me wrong, I love making Puerto Rican beans from scratch with dry beans. But on nights I need a quick side dish, canned beans are the way to go. We serve it over white rice but it’s also great over brown rice as a side dish to chicken, pork chops or steak. You can easily make it a meatless main dish, served over rice with avocado (and some hot sauce!) and call it a meal.
I usually have sofrito in my freezer, I make big batches of it for beans and other dishes. Here I scaled it down to make an exact amount, but if you have your own homemade use 1/4 cup in place of the the sofrito below.
How To Make Puerto Rican Beans
These Puerto Rican beans are quick and easy using canned beans, diced potatoes and sofrito.
- Use pink or red canned beans. Both work fine for this recipe
- Don’t rinse or drain the beans. Why not? I only rinse beans if I am using them in salads, but when I make beans like this, I prefer not to rinse or drain so my beans thicken as they would if I was cooking them for hours.
- Saute sofrito in a little oil. This is where the flavor comes from.
- Add the canned beans, potatoes, tomato sauce, Sazon, bay leaf, oregano and salt with a little water for 15 minutes. Cook covered until the potatoes are tender, about 2o minutes, or until your desired thickness.
The ingredients for these Puerto Rican beans
This red canned beans recipe uses just a few ingredients that’s wonderful served over rice to make rice and beans.
- Canned red or pink beans: Canned red or pink beans, I like Goya and don’t drain or rinse them.
- Sofrito: I use my homemade sofrito made with garlic, cilantro and cubanelle pepper, chopped fine in my chopper.
- Tomato Sauce: Adds flavor
- Diced Potatoes: White, red or yukon is fine, peeled and diced small
- Dried Oregano, Bay Leaf, Salt and Black Pepper: for seasoning
- Sazon: adds flavor
More Bean Recipes
- Mexican Pinto Beans
- Domincan Beans
- Quick Cuban Black Beans
- Brazilian Black Beans
- Instant Pot Refried Beans
Puerto Rican Style Beans
Ingredients
For the Sofrito:
- 1/2 small onion
- 1/2 cubanelle, or banana pepper
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
For The Beans
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 15.5 oz can pink or red kidney beans, I like Goya
- 1/2 cup canned tomato sauce
- 1 medium potato, peeled and diced 1/4-inch (4 1/2 oz)
- 1 1/2 tbsp Sazon, homemade or store bought with Achiote (Badia or Goya)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/8 tsp oregano
- kosher salt, to taste
- black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- In a mini food processor, chop onions, garlic, pepper and cilantro.
- Add oil to a medium saucepan and sauté the chopped ingredients, cook on medium heat until soft, about 2 minutes.
- Add the beans (not drained) to the saucepan along with 3/4 cup of water.
- Add tomato sauce, potato, sazon, bay leaf, oregano, salt if needed and pinch of black pepper.
- Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer on low for about 20 minutes, or until potatoes are soft.
- Discard bay leaf and serve over rice if you wish.
