Beans in Tomato Sauce with Meat - Easy Stewed Beans Recipe

Beans in Tomato Sauce with Meat and Vegetables

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Beans in tomato sauce take a long time to cook, but the dish is surprising in both flavor and how filling it is. People have known beans forever. They are the most popular legume on Earth. Beans are rich in protein and trace elements, iron included.

In protein content, beans are not inferior to meat. I won’t be wrong if I say that beans are one of the healthiest foods on Earth, and bean soup with pork, no potatoes, I’m sure, is one of the tastiest bean soups.

In ancient times, beans were used as a cosmetic, as a powder. Bean powder is believed to smooth out wrinkles. Beans grow almost everywhere except, perhaps, Antarctica. Surprisingly, the shelling varieties of beans came to us from America, although small varieties were successfully grown in Asia back in deep antiquity.

Since the seeds of mature beans are very hard, they must be boiled before eating. Dried beans can be boiled almost indefinitely and will still stay hard. That’s why you need to soak them before you start cooking. Soak them for quite a long time, several hours, and keep in mind that beans absorb a lot of water as they soak. They should also be cooked in plenty of water.

In Mexican cuisine, many dishes are made with red beans: chili con carne (meat with red beans) and bean burritos, eaten with corn bread and guacamole. In Caucasian cuisine there is the famous lobio, all kinds of bean dishes (Lobio, from Georgian ლობიო, Azerbaijani lobya, “bean”; Armenian Լոբի).

More with beef and beans

Ingredients

2 servings

  • Beans (dried) 1 cup (170 g)
  • Meat (pork or beef) 300 g
  • Carrots 1
  • Onion 1
  • Garlic 2-3 cloves
  • Tomato paste or juice to taste (juice: half a cup)
  • Olive oil 3 tbsp
  • Dry white wine 2-3 tbsp
  • Ground coriander 1-2 pinches
  • Water 1-1.5 l for soaking, plenty for boiling the beans, half a cup and boiling water for stewing
  • Black pepper, salt to taste
  • Parsley and dill to taste
  • Potatoes or rice for serving

Step-by-step recipe

How to soak and boil the beans

  1. Which variety of beans to use is up to you.

  2. Soak the beans, preferably overnight. Be sure to sort them and throw out damaged beans and any with signs of bean weevil. Rinse the beans so that all the debris (bits of pods, specks) floats up. Cover the beans with 1-1.5 l of cold water and leave them in the refrigerator overnight.

    Meat, beans and vegetables.

  3. Boil the soaked beans. Drain the water in which the beans soaked. Transfer the beans to a pot and cover them with plenty of cold water. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat to the minimum, and cook until done, when the beans are soft. The water should barely simmer, not boil hard. It is also important never to top up the pot with water. It’s better to pour in plenty of water right away. Drain the cooked beans in a colander and transfer them to a separate bowl.

    The soaked beans must be boiled.

How to stew the meat with vegetables

  1. The meat is pork or beef, as you prefer.

  2. Prepare the meat and vegetables. Cut the meat into small pieces or grind it in a meat grinder with a coarse plate to make ground meat. Peel the onion, garlic, and carrots. Chop the onion finely with a knife. Grate the carrots on a fine grater.

    Chop the onion finely with a knife and grate the carrots on a fine grater.

  3. Salt and pepper the meat and sprinkle with 1-2 pinches of ground coriander. Fry the meat in olive oil in a deep pan over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring.

    Frying the ground meat in olive oil for 10 minutes.

  5. Add the onion and carrots to the meat. Grate the peeled garlic cloves into the meat. Add 2-3 tbsp of dry white wine and half a cup of water (100 ml).

    Adding the onion and carrots to the meat.

    Cover and stew the vegetables with the meat over low heat for about 30 minutes.

    Stewing the vegetables with the meat, covered.

How to finish the beans in tomato sauce

  1. After 30 minutes of stewing, add the boiled beans and the tomato paste diluted in a little water (or half a cup of tomato juice) at the same time. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

    Adding the tomato and then the beans.

  2. Stir everything and add boiling water from the kettle. The vegetables and meat should be almost covered with water, so that you end up with beans in tomato sauce, not a roast. Cover the pan and keep stewing over low heat for another 10 minutes.

    Covering the pan and stewing over low heat for another 10 minutes.

    If the beans in tomato sauce are too runny, take off the lid and let the liquid boil off. If the water boils off or the beans are too thick, add a little more water.

    Adding a little more water.

Serving

  1. While the beans in tomato sauce are stewing, you can prepare potatoes or rice. Put the cooked potatoes or rice on plates and top with the beans in sauce.

    Beans in tomato sauce.

    Sprinkle the beans with chopped parsley and dill and serve.

    Beans in tomato sauce

Calories and macros

865 kcal

Serving ≈ 500 g

  • Protein47 g24% of kcal
  • Fat49 g56% of kcal
  • Carbs38 g20% of kcal

100 g173 kcalProtein 9.4 gFat 9.7 gCarbs 7.7 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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