Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Potatoes and Cheese

Ingredients needed to prepare this recipe

• Salsa: My favorite store bought salsa is Herdez Salsa Verde, so that's what I used here, but use whatever kind of salsa you like for these tacos.
• Sour cream
• One medium or a couple of small potatoes: I used Yukon gold potatoes in these tacos, but any variety will do.
• Vegetable, canola, or extra virgin olive oil
• 1 small white or yellow onion
• A few cloves of garlic: Use as much or as little as you like!
• One 15-ounce can of black beans or 1 ½ cups of cooked dried black beans
• One 7-ounce can of diced green chilies: I used mild chilies in these tacos, but if you like to keep things spicy, reach for hot chilies.
• Cheese! I used pepper jack, but use any kind of grated cheese you like.
• Chili powder and Cumin: Be mindful of how spicy your chili powder is. Add or as much or as little as you like to achieve the heat level that's right for you.
• Lime juice: fresh squeezed or from a jar
• Salt
• Flour tortillas: Kick it up a notch with these easy homemade flour tortillas!
• 2-4 tablespoons butter and oil for frying the tacos to crispy perfection

Additions and substitutions

This is one of those recipes for which the additions and substitutions are endless. Throw anything you like in there and it's probably going to be delicious but here are a few ideas to get you started:

• To make these vegan: Use your favorite vegan cheese and vegan butter and swap out the dairy based sour cream for vegan sour cream.
• Use refried beans instead of whole beans.
• Use pinto beans instead of black beans.
• Toss in some additional veggies. These tacos are a great way to use up any leftover vegetables in your refrigerator!
• Opt for corn tortillas instead of flour tortillas but if you do, you might want to turn these into a quesadilla instead of a taco. The thing about corn tortillas is that the can crack or break when you bend them. Soften them by warming them in a hot skillet before filling and folding or make things easy on yourself and make quesadillas instead.

Step-by-step photos and instructions

Add the sour cream and salsa to a bowl and stir to mix. Place in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Chop a potato into bite size pieces and cook in boiling salted water until tender. Drain in a colander set inside the sink.

While the potatoes cook chop the onion into pieces that are roughly the same size as the black beans and cook in a bit of oil in a skillet until they are beginning to soften.

Add the black beans to the skillet. Cook, using the back of a spoon to smash the beans as you stir them around in the skillet. Continue smashing until only about half of them are whole. 

Add minced garlic, green chilies, and spices and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.

Remove from the heat and add the lime juice; taste and add as much salt and/ or more lime juice as tastes good to you.

Set 4 tortillas out on a work surface and divide the beans among them, spreading the beans on one side of each tortilla. Top with some of the cooked potatoes.

Top with grated cheese.

Fold the tortillas over, to enclose the filling and create a taco.

Fry the tacos in some butter and oil until the cheese is melted and the tacos are crispy on the outside.

Drizzle the crispy tacos with some of the sour cream and salsa sauce and dig in.

Serving suggestions

These are a hearty meal in and of themselves but I usually like to serve them with some veggies. Here are a few of my favorites:

If you give this recipe a try, let me know! Scroll down to leave a comment and rate it!