• Sort though your dry beans to make sure there are no small rocks amongst the beans. Do thins when cooking any kind of dry legume, you do not want to take a bite and break your tooth with a lost pebble.
• Soak your beans at least 2hour, preferably over night.
• Finely chop your onion & garlic, sauté with some olive oil
• When your onion is translucent, add your beans and your stock. Dont worry too much about exact measurements when it comes to the liquid. We are making soupy beans, so adding a lot of water will simply turn out in jucier beans. Make sure there is almost twice as much liquid as there are beans.
• Add your herbs and spices: pepper, epazote, cilantro, bay leaf.
• Optional: throw in a dry chili pepper if you have one around for a bit more flavour.
• When everything is starting to warm up, taste the broth and make sure it has enough flavour. Add salt if needed.
• Let the beans simmer at medium heat for 1 hour, checking on them every 10 minutes. If you notice too much water evaporating, add more stock. If after one hour the beans are not soft, leave for 30 more minutes, or until they are completely tender.

Meat option

• For meat eaters, chop up some chorizo style sausage into coin shape or cubes. Cook them on a pan on the side. Once they are crispy, throw them into the pot of beans and let it simmer another 20 minutes.

Toppings

• Serve warm as a side dish, or over white rice.
• Top them off with some sour cream or greek yogur, pickled onions and your favorite salsa.