What spices go with beans

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