sately

← All recipes

Meals · Soups & stews

Fabada asturiana (Asturian white bean stew with chorizo and morcilla)

50

Asturias's great winter pot: big, buttery white beans simmered for hours with chorizo, morcilla, cured pork and a little saffron, until the broth turns silky and smoky and the beans are soft enough to crush with your tongue. Start soaking the night before.

Time
205 min (15 prep + 190 cook)
Servings
4
Per serving
751 kcal
Protein
49 g

Ingredients

  • 2 cups dried (14 oz) white beans, fabes, or the largest dried white beans you can find; soaked overnight in plenty of cold water
  • 10 oz cottage roll, a lean piece of lacón, cured pork shoulder or unsmoked gammon; soaked overnight in its own bowl if very salty
  • 1 1/2 oz pancetta, or tocino, in one piece
  • 4 1/2 oz spanish chorizo, cured cooking chorizo, whole
  • 1 large sausage (4 1/2 oz) blood sausage, morcilla asturiana or another blood sausage, whole
  • 6 1/4 cups water, cold, enough to cover by two fingers
  • 1 large onion, peeled, left whole
  • 2 cloves garlic, peeled, left whole
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 1 pinch saffron, crumbled
  • 3/4 tsp paprika, sweet Spanish pimentón
  • 1/2 tsp salt, only at the end, the meats are salty

Steps

  1. The night before, cover the beans with plenty of cold water, because they swell a lot. If the lacón is very salty, soak it in a separate bowl. In the morning drain both.
  2. Bring a small pan of water to the boil, add the chorizo and morcilla, simmer for 5 minutes and drain. This takes off some of the fat before they go into the pot.
  3. Put the beans in a heavy casserole with the lacón, pancetta, measured water, whole onion, garlic, bay and oil. Bring slowly to a boil and skim off the foam.
  4. As soon as it boils, stop the boil with a splash of cold water. Do this three times over the first hour; it is called asustar, frightening the beans, and it keeps the skins on. Stir in the saffron and pimentón and lay the chorizo and morcilla on top.
  5. Simmer on the lowest heat, lid ajar, for about 2 1/2 hours in all, counting that first hour, shaking the pot rather than stirring so the beans stay whole. Add a little hot water if they begin to show above the liquid. They are done when soft and creamy all the way through. Fish out the bay.
  6. Lift out the meats and cut them in slices. Crush the soft onion with a ladleful of beans and stir them back in, which thickens the broth. Taste, and only now add salt if it needs any. Rest 15 minutes off the heat, then serve the beans in deep plates with the meats alongside or on top. Keeps 4 days in the fridge and freezes 3 months; it is better the next day.

Good to know

Can I use canned beans?

It is a different, quicker dish, but a good one. Use 1 kg of drained canned butter beans and 2 cups of water, simmer the meats in the water for 40 minutes first, then add the beans for 15 minutes. That comes to about 40 instead of 50.

I can't find morcilla. What now?

Use any cooked blood sausage or black pudding, kept whole so it does not break up in the pot. Leaving it out makes a good white bean stew, but it loses the dark, sweet note that makes it fabada.

Per

Calories
124
Protein
(27%)
8 g
Fat
(40%)
5 g
Carbohydrates
(33%)
11 g
of which sugar
1 g
Fiber
3 g
Sodium
323 mg

More meals

Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How

As written, 3004 kcal goes into the pot and 2714 g of ingredients comes out as about 2414 g of food: 124 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.