Mexican Fava Bean Soup, Sopa de Habas for Lent

Sopa de habas (SOH-pah deh AH-bahs) is the thick fava bean soup Mexican families make on the Fridays of Lent and during Holy Week, when meat is off the table. It’s built on dried fava beans that are sold already peeled, a pale yellow, and that matters: peeled favas soak overnight, then simmer into soup on their own in about an hour, with no skins to slip off. A blended tomato base fried in oil gives it body and colour, and a few strips of fried pasilla chile go on top. Below: the recipe for 4, where to buy peeled favas in the US and UK, stovetop and pressure cooker timings, and what to do when the beans won’t soften.

What sopa de habas is, and how long it takes

How do you make Mexican fava bean soup? Soak 300 g (2 cups) of dried peeled favas for 8 to 12 hours, then simmer them in 2 litres (8½ cups) of water with onion, garlic and cilantro for 45 to 60 minutes, until they collapse. Fry 400 g (14 oz) of blended tomato, onion and garlic for 6 to 8 minutes, stir it into the beans with the salt and simmer 10 to 15 minutes more, mashing some of the beans. Top with fried pasilla strips. 90 minutes for 4 servings, plus soaking.

Think of a cross between split pea soup and a tomato-based bean soup: earthy, mildly sweet, with soft pieces of bean in a liquid thickened by the ones that broke down. It’s a main course, eaten with corn tortillas or bread. For a full meatless Lenten meal, I serve it first and follow with Mexican potato patties with cheese or huevos ahogados, eggs poached in tomato broth.

Time. 90 minutes: 15 of prep and 75 on the stove, most of it hands-off. The soak happens the night before.

Difficulty, easy. Two things need your attention: scraping the bottom once the beans start breaking down, and not burning the chile.

Heat, low. One pasilla fried on top barely registers. More on raising it below.

Buying dried fava beans in the US and UK

Each serving uses 75 g (2½ oz) of dried favas, a large, thick bowl of about 400 ml (1⅔ cups).

Peeled, unpeeled or fresh

Fava beans and broad beans are the same plant; in the UK you’ll see both names.

• Dried peeled favas, the ones in this recipe. Yellow or cream, whole or split in half, sold without the skin. They’re what make the soup thick, because they fall apart as they cook.
• Dried favas with skins. Brown and leathery. They work, but after soaking you have to squeeze each bean out of its skin. Left on, the skins stay tough and give the soup a harsh edge.
• Fresh or frozen broad beans. A different soup altogether: tender fresh ones cook in 8 to 10 minutes and give a green, lighter broth that never thickens like this one. Not a swap for dried.

Where to find them

• In the US. Mexican grocers and the Latin aisle of larger supermarkets, labelled “habas” or “habas secas”. Middle Eastern grocers sell the same thing as split fava beans or peeled fava beans. Both are also easy to order online.
• In the UK. Middle Eastern and Turkish shops, and online, as split fava beans or split dried broad beans. Some health food shops stock British-grown ones.

If you can’t find them

• Yellow split peas. The closest in colour and in the way they collapse. No soak needed and they cook faster, so start tasting at 30 minutes. The soup comes out sweeter and less earthy.
• Canned fava beans (often sold as ful medames). Small, brown and with skins, already cooked. Fine for a quick version (see the FAQ), but darker and less creamy.

Equipment

A 4 to 5 litre (4 to 5 quart) pot with a lid, a frying pan, a blender and a wooden spoon to scrape the bottom. A pressure cooker or Instant Pot for the faster route.

Soaking and cooking dried favas

How long to soak

8 to 12 hours, overnight, with plenty of water on top because they swell. After 4 hours they’ll cook, just a bit more slowly. Discard the soaking water.

Unsoaked favas do cook, but slowly and unevenly: some dissolve while others stay firm. If you forgot, cook them anyway in the cooking water and start testing after an hour. It’s the same logic as with Mexican pot beans: soaking isn’t mandatory, it just gives you a more even pot.

Stovetop or pressure cooker

Split favas sit at the short end of each range, whole ones at the long end. In a pressure cooker, fill it no more than halfway: favas foam. Once the pressure has dropped, check they mash, then fry the tomato base and carry on in the open pot.

I don’t pressure-cook unsoaked favas. You can’t test them as you go, and if they come out hard you have to seal it and wait all over again.

How to tell they’re done

Press a bean against the side of the pot with your spoon. It should give with no resistance, like mashed potato, and the liquid should look cloudy and yellow with dissolved beans. If one holds firm in the centre, give it 10 minutes more. Don’t add the tomato before this point: acid sets the beans where they are.

Make-ahead plan

• The night before. Pick over and soak, 2 minutes of work.
• To get further ahead. Cook the favas the day before and refrigerate them in their liquid. On the day, reheat them while you make the tomato base: about 25 minutes to the table.

Getting the thickness and heat right

The soup is right when it coats the back of a spoon and pours in a thick ribbon: looser than a purée, denser than a broth. To thicken, mash more beans against the pot or blend a cupful and stir it back in. To thin, add hot water 100 ml (scant ½ cup) at a time. It thickens a lot as it cools, so if it’ll sit before serving, leave it a little loose.

For heat:

• Fried pasilla on top, as written. Dried pasilla (a long, almost black chile) tastes toasty and raisiny and is mild. In the US it’s in the Latin aisle; in the UK, online. A dried ancho is the easiest swap and tastes sweeter.
• Pasilla in the base. Toast a second pasilla on a dry pan 15 to 20 seconds per side, without letting it smoke, and blend it with the tomato. It’s the same chile that colours Mexican tortilla soup.
• Chipotle. 1 chipotle in adobo blended with the tomato adds smoke and real heat. Two is hot for most people.
• No chile, for kids: serve the fried pasilla on the side.

Why favas stay hard or the soup turns bitter

• Beans that won’t soften. Usually old beans, or tomato added too soon. Buy from a shop with good turnover, soak them, and only add the base once they mash. If they’re still stubborn, keep simmering with more hot water, and if they still won’t give, blend the soup smooth.
• Bitter or harsh flavour. A scorched pasilla or beans with skins. Fry the chile 3 to 5 seconds only and pick out dark beans before soaking.
• Scorched bottom. Once the beans break down, starch settles. Scrape every 10 to 15 minutes and keep the heat gentle. If it catches, pour the soup into a clean pot without scraping the bottom.
• Tastes of raw tomato. The purée wasn’t fried long enough. It should darken a shade and thicken before it goes into the pot.
• Grit. Rinse two or three times before soaking.

Allergens and diet. Vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free as written. People with G6PD deficiency (favism) should not eat fava beans, dried or fresh.

Variations, with nopales, blended smooth or for a crowd

• With nopales (cactus paddles). Fresh nopales are in Mexican grocers in the US; in the UK, jarred ones are easier to find online. For fresh, trim 250 g (9 oz), cut into 1 cm (½ in) strips and boil separately in salted water for 10 to 12 minutes, until olive green, then rinse in cold water to remove the slime, as for Mexican nopales salad. Jarred ones just need a good rinse, but they’re saltier, so taste before salting. Add them for the last 5 minutes.
• Blended, like a cream soup. Before adding the mint, blend half the soup for creamy with pieces, or all of it for smooth. Fill the blender only halfway, since steam pushes the lid off. Slices of toasted bolillo rolls or baguette on top are good here.
• With vegetable stock instead of water, for a rounder base. Taste before salting.
• For a Lenten feast. Serve it before a seafood main such as Mexican shrimp soup, or with Mexican tuna tostadas for something cold and quick.
• For 8. Double everything (600 g / 1⅓ lb favas, 4 litres / about 4 quarts water) in an 8 litre (8 quart) pot. It takes longer to boil; the simmer is about the same.
• For 12. Triple it (900 g / 2 lb favas, 6 litres / about 6⅓ quarts water) in a 10 to 12 litre pot, or two pots. Cook the beans the day before and fry the tomato base in two batches: one pan won’t fry that much, it’ll stew.

Storing, freezing and reheating

Fridge. Cover and refrigerate within 2 hours of cooking; it keeps 3 to 4 days. Store the chile strips separately in a dry jar.

Freezer. 2 to 3 months for best quality. I freeze it without nopales and add them when reheating, as freezing makes them softer. Thaw overnight in the fridge.

Reheating. It sets almost to a purée when cold. Warm it in a pot over medium heat with a splash of water (about 100 ml / scant ½ cup per 2 cups of soup), scraping the bottom, until it boils or reaches 165°F (74°C). In the microwave, covered, in 1-minute bursts, stirring between each.

Mexican fava bean soup FAQ

Is sopa de habas made with chicken stock? Not the Lenten version: it’s water, and the flavour comes from the beans and the fried tomato. Outside Lent some cooks use chicken stock instead; it’s rounder, and you’ll need less salt.

Can I use canned fava beans? For a quick version, yes. Drain and rinse 2 cans, fry the tomato base, add the beans with 1 litre (about 4 cups) of water and simmer 10 minutes, mashing them. Since they usually have skins, the soup is darker and less creamy.

Is this the same as ful medames? No. Ful medames is an Egyptian dish of small unpeeled favas, slow-cooked and dressed with oil, lemon and garlic, and eaten with bread. Sopa de habas uses peeled favas cooked down into a soup with tomato.

Nutrition per serving

Per serving (a quarter of the pot, 75 g / 2½ oz dried favas), calculated from the recipe quantities, without nopales, bread or tortillas:

• Calories: 357 kcal
• Protein: 21 g
• Carbohydrates: 52 g
• Fat: 9 g, of which 1 g saturated
• Fibre: 21 g
• Sugars: 8 g
• Sodium: 745 mg

The favas supply about 256 kcal per serving and the oil about 63. The figures use whole dried favas; peeled ones lose some fibre with the skin, so the real fibre number may be a little lower. 250 g (9 oz) of nopales adds about 10 kcal per serving.

Dried peeled favas taught me to trust the spoon test over the clock: two bags from different shops rarely cook in quite the same time. These days I cook them on Thursday night and only make the tomato base on Friday, and Dylan gets his blended, with the fried chile in a little dish so he can add what he likes. Josnaisis.