Cuban picadillo with soy mince
20 min · 26 g protein · 312 cals / serving
The Cuban weeknight classic made with soy mince: a sweet-and-salty tomato hash of onion, green pepper and garlic, with briny green olives, capers and a few golden raisins in every spoonful, served beside cumin-warmed black beans the way it is in Havana. It is ready in 20 minutes and even better the next day.
Ingredients
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 green pepper bell pepper, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin, divided
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 1/2 cups textured vegetable protein (tvp), dry, dry soy mince (TVP)
- 1 can (14 oz) canned crushed tomatoes
- 1 1/4 cups vegetable broth
- 2 tsp reduced sodium soy sauce
- 1/3 cup green olives, halved
- 2 1/2 tbsp raisins
- 1 tbsp capers, drained
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
To serve
- 1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
- a small handful fresh cilantro, chopped
Steps
- Warm the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and green pepper and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes, until soft. Add the garlic for 30 seconds.
- Stir in 1 tsp of the cumin, the oregano and bay leaf, then the dry soy mince, crushed tomatoes, broth and soy sauce. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook on medium-low for 5 minutes, until the soy mince has softened and drunk up most of the liquid.
- Uncover, add the olives, raisins, capers and pepper, and simmer 3 minutes more, stirring, until thick and glossy. Fish out the bay leaf and taste: the olives and capers bring most of the salt it needs.
- Meanwhile, warm the black beans in a small pan or the microwave with the rest of the cumin and a splash of water. Serve the picadillo with the beans alongside and cilantro on top.
Good to know
Raisins and olives together?
Yes, that sweet-and-briny pairing is the signature of Cuban picadillo. If you are not sure, start with half the raisins; the dish still works without them.
With rice?
White rice is the classic third part of the plate; a heated pouch of rice is enough for four. It makes the plate bigger and starchier and the score lower, so many people serve the picadillo over rice on one night and with beans alone on the next.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 92
- Protein
- (34%)
- 8 g
- Fat
- (18%)
- 2 g
- Carbohydrates
- (49%)
- 13 g
- of which sugar
- 4 g
- Fiber
- 4 g
- Sodium
- 261 mg
More meals
Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. General guidance, not medical advice. Talk to your prescriber. How
As written, 1249 kcal goes into the pot and 1490 g of ingredients comes out as about 1360 g of food: 92 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.