Easy Bean Soup or Tlatlapas

Why on this hot Summer day are we craving soup, you may ask?

As early as I remember my mother bless her heart, always decided to cook lentil soup (which I hated as a child, now I love 😆), and I guess the tradition stuck because on this hot summer day I’m here stirring and stirring my Mexican frijoles soup.

This soup is traditionally called Tlatlapas which is an ‘easier’ take on cooking dry beans from scratch (that’ll really make your kitchen hot) which I always find way to time consuming and not very satisfying.

Recipe:

Easy Bean Soup or Tlatlapas 

500gr of dry beans (any will do)

1/2 onion

1 garlic clove

2 chile arbol

1 chile morita

12 cups of broth or water

olive oil

salt to taste

1. Heat your pan on medium heat and toast your dry beans on low heat, let them cool off and grind them as fine as powder.

2. Fry off your onion and garlic then add the bean powder.

3. Stir until evenly coated and start adding the liquid cup by cup.

4. Stir occasionally until you achieve an even smooth consistency, salt to taste.

Enjoy! Provecho!

There are a lot of known toppings for this soup like nopales in strips, fried strips of chile or epazote. We love this soup with very thin tortilla strips and a mild chile oil. 

Abuela's Note: If you don't have a mortero or metate (the traditional way of grinding grains and beans) you can use a blender. If the powder is not fine enough, cook it through as much as you can and blend it until smooth.