What spices go with beans

The pairing is embedded in the German name for the herb: Bohnenkraut, bean herb. Beans have almost no aroma of their own and a soft starchy texture, and savory’s peppery phenols supply structure without competing — the same reason black pepper works, from a herb that also brings a resinous background.

How: In the pot from the start of a bean stew; With green beans and butter

Add alongside: Thyme, Garlic, Black pepper

The bean pot across Mexico, and one where the species distinction is audible. Beans are earthy and quiet; Mexican oregano’s citric resin lifts them where Mediterranean oregano’s minty pungency would sit on top. It goes in at the start and cooks for the duration.

How: Into the pot with the beans at the start; With epazote and garlic in black beans

Add alongside: Epazote, Cumin, Garlic

The single use most people know epazote for, and it is a flavour pairing whatever the tradition says about digestion. A sprig simmered with black beans loses its harsh camphorous top notes entirely and leaves a savoury resinous depth that makes the pot taste cooked rather than merely boiled.

How: A sprig into the pot with the beans, left in

Add alongside: Mexican oregano, Garlic, Cumin

• A sprig, not a handful. Epazote at twice the dose reads as medicinal.
• The widely repeated claim that it prevents the wind beans cause is traditional and unevidenced; the flavour is reason enough.

Rice and beans across the Hispanic Caribbean start with sofrito, and sofrito starts with culantro. Its heat tolerance is the property that makes this possible: the herb goes into the oil at the beginning and is still present at the end, where coriander leaf would have vanished in the first minute.

How: Blended into sofrito and fried at the start; In the pot with rice and beans

Add alongside: Garlic, Onion, Annatto

A toasted avocado leaf in a pot of Oaxacan black beans is the standard preparation, and the result does not taste of anise — it tastes rounder. The leaf is doing what a bay leaf does in a European bean pot, by a different compound and in a different family.

How: Toasted and dropped into black beans; In pot beans generally

Add alongside: Epazote, Mexican oregano, Garlic

• Toast it first; an untoasted leaf is duller and more tannic

Beans are mild and slightly sweet and take a long cook, which suits a chilli that gives fruit and body rather than heat. Ancho is the reason a good pot of Mexican beans tastes of something beyond salt and pork fat.

Add alongside: Cumin, Oregano, Onion

Beans are earthy, starchy and mild, and pasilla gives them depth without heat — which is exactly what a pot of beans needs and what a hotter chilli would ruin. The fried-strip garnish is the specific use: pasilla is thin enough to crisp, which ancho and guajillo are not, so it goes on top as texture as well as into the pot as flavour.

How: Toasted and blended into the cooking liquid for a pot of beans; Fried in thin strips and scattered over the finished dish

Add alongside: Onion, Oregano, Cumin

Beans and chilli in olive oil is a staple of southern Italian cooking, and the mechanism is the same as with pasta: the chilli goes into the oil first so the heat distributes through a dish whose other ingredients are bland and absorbent. Beans carry a fruity chilli particularly well because there is little competing flavour.

How: Braised beans with chilli and garlic; In pasta e fagioli

Add alongside: Garlic, Bay leaf, Fennel seed

Beans are bland, starchy and absorbent, which suits a chilli used purely for pungency. Árbol is commonly fried whole in the cooking fat at the start and left in or lifted out, so the heat distributes through the pot without the chilli becoming an ingredient anyone has to eat.

How: Fried whole in the fat before the beans go in; In pot beans and refritos

Add alongside: Cumin, Oregano, Garlic

Beans take a savoury nutty chilli particularly well because there is little competing flavour and nothing sweet for it to fight. Cascabel gives depth to a bean broth where a fruity chilli would make it taste of fruit.

How: Blended into a bean broth; In soups and pot beans

Add alongside: Garlic, Cumin, Chile de árbol