The Best Santa Maria Style Pinquito Beans
Santa Maria Style Pinquito Beans are a smoky and flavorful a classic side dish, traditionally served with Santa Maria Style Tri-Tip Barbecue. The beans are slowly cooked with bacon and ham, spices and tomato puree. This recipe has layers of smoky heat from ancho chili powder, and either Anaheim or Pasilla Chili peppers (very mild). Pinquito beans are a small pink bean, native to California. You can also substitute small white or pink beans, if you can't find them.
Ingredients
- 1 pound dried pinquito beans such as Lompoc, or small pink or white beans
- 3 cloves garlic took cook with the beans
- 1 cooked ham hock (optional) to add more flavor to the beans, while cooking
- 2 cups applewood-smoked bacon from 9 bacon slices, diced
- 1 cup white onion diced ,from 1 medium onion
- 1/2 cup seeded and diced roasted Anaheim chile from 1 large chile
- 1/2 cup smoked fully cooked ham diced
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon ancho chile powder I used regular chile powder, smoked paprika plus 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper as a substitute for the ancho chile powder
- 1 teaspoon light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 2 cups tomato puree
- 1 cup water
- 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Instructions
Soak the beans overnight:
- Rinse and sort beans. Place beans in a large, heavy pot. Cover with cold water, and soak 8 hours or up to overnight.
Cook the beans:
- Drain beans, removed the garlic cloves and ham hock and return to pot. Add cold water to cover beans by 3 inches. Add the whole garlic cloves and ham hock (if using),Bring to a simmer over medium, and cook, uncovered, until tender, about 1 hour and 45 minutes, adding hot water as needed to keep beans covered by about 1 inch.Remove the garlic cloves and ham hock. Once the ham hock has cooled, cut the meat off the ham hock to add to the finished beans.
While the beans simmer:
- Cook bacon in a medium sauce pan over medium-high, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 7 minutes. Add onion, Anaheim chile, chopped ham, and minced garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, about 2 minutes. Add salt, ancho chile powder (or a combination of chili powder and cayenne pepper), brown sugar, dry mustard, and paprika, and cook, stirring occasionally, until spices smell toasted, about 1 minute. Stir in tomato puree, 1 cup water, and Worcestershire sauce. Bring mixture to a simmer over medium-high. Reduce heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally, 30 minutes. Remove from heat, and set aside.
Finishing up the beans:
- Drain beans, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid. Return beans and reserved cooking liquid to pot; stir in sauce. Add the ham hock meat. Simmer over low until thoroughly heated, about 30 minutes.
- Taste the beans. Season with salt, to your liking. I ended up adding one more tablespoon of brown sugar, to balance out the flavors.
Notes
This recipe, is adapted from Food & Wine, and adapted from The Alisal Guest Ranch and Resort in Solvang, California
You can order Pinquito Beans from here or here