A watercolour of a bowl of mixed white, black and butter beans in a red paprika stew with coins of chorizo
Generated with OpenAI gpt-image-1
Adapted from Spanish and Portuguese bean stews, using whatever tins are actually in the cupboard

Mixed bean and paprika stew

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 6 months, set by Olive oil.

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves
6
Burners
1
Pans
1
Water
0.3 L
Active
12 min
Total
40 min

Ingredients

The dish for the end of a stock-up, when the cupboard has three part-used varieties of bean and no plan. Any three tins work: the recipe is a method, not a shopping list.

Marked pantry because it makes six portions. Cooling and keeping cooked food applies, and without a fridge you should halve it rather than plan for leftovers.

  1. Chorizo sliced thin. Cold pan, barely any oil, five minutes until the fat renders out and the coins curl. Lift them out.
  2. Dried onion into the red fat for three minutes. Garlic and paprika for twenty seconds.
  3. Tomatoes in, cooked down hard for 12 minutes until brick-coloured.
  4. All three tins of beans in with the liquid from one of them only: all three and it will be soup. Crush a handful against the pan.
  5. Simmer 15 minutes. Chorizo back in for the last two. Vinegar off the heat.

Taste before salting. Chorizo, bean liquid and paprika between them usually have it covered.

Serves 6.

What this was adapted from

Spanish and Portuguese bean stews, using whatever tins are actually in the cupboard

  • a specific named bean cooked from dried → whatever three tins of beans you have

    Traditional bean stews specify their bean and cook it from dried with a hock. This is deliberately written to use whatever is in the cupboard, which is the actual situation a store-cupboard cook is in -- and tinned beans of any kind behave close enough to interchangeably here.