Nicaraguan Bean Soup with Egg | BEST RECIPES【Recetas123】

Name: Nicaraguan Bean Soup with Egg
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 1 h 45 min
Total time: 2 h
Cuisine: Nicaraguan
Ingredients: 400 g of dried red beans (2 cups); 2 liters of water (8 cups); 1 unit of chopped white onion (1 medium onion); 1 unit of chopped green bell pepper (chiltoma) (1 medium bell pepper); 4 cloves of chopped garlic; 2 units of chopped ripe tomatoes (2 medium tomatoes); 30 ml of vegetable oil (2 tablespoons); 2 g of ground cumin (1/2 teaspoon); 4 units of eggs; to taste of salt; 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro (optional)

Sopa de frijoles con huevo, or Nicaraguan bean soup with egg, is one of the most beloved dishes in Nicaraguan home cooking: a thick red bean broth enriched with a whole egg poached right in the pot. Its rustic, comforting flavor has made it a kitchen staple across the country, especially on meatless days.

While it’s cooked year-round, this soup takes center stage during Holy Week, when many Nicaraguan families skip meat and turn to beans as their main source of protein. Served piping hot alongside white rice or corn tortillas, it’s a dish woven into the food memory of generations.

Instructions

Cook the beans, rinse the dried red beans, place them in a large pot with the water, and cook over medium heat for about an hour and a half, until completely tender. Reserve the cooking broth.
Blend part of the beans, remove half of the cooked beans along with a bit of the broth and blend until smooth; return this mixture to the pot to thicken the broth.
Make the sofrito, heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the onion, bell pepper, garlic, and tomato until soft and fragrant.
Stir the sofrito into the beans, add the sofrito to the pot along with the cumin and salt to taste, and let it simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes so the flavors come together.
Poach the eggs in the soup, crack the eggs directly into the simmering soup, one at a time, and cook without stirring for 4 to 5 minutes until the whites are set and the yolks stay creamy in the center.
Serve hot, ladle the soup into deep bowls making sure each portion gets a whole egg, sprinkle with chopped cilantro, and serve right away.

Practical Tips

Don’t stir the soup while the eggs are cooking, that way the yolk stays whole and doesn’t break apart.
For a thicker soup, blend a larger proportion of the beans before returning them to the pot.
Cook the beans without salt until tender, since adding salt too early can toughen the skins.
Save the bean cooking broth, it’s the flavor base of this soup and shouldn’t be discarded.

Traditional variations

Some families stir the eggs directly into the soup, scrambled, instead of letting them poach whole in the broth.
In the Pacific region it’s common to blend all of the beans for a fully creamy soup with no visible whole beans.

How to Enjoy This Recipe

This soup is best enjoyed freshly served and piping hot, so the egg keeps its creamy texture. It’s commonly eaten as the main course at lunch or dinner, especially during Holy Week, when it stands in for meat-based dishes.

Recommended sides

White rice
Freshly made corn tortillas
Fried sweet plantain
Crumbled fresh cheese

Origin and Tradition

The pairing of beans and egg has roots in the Catholic tradition of Lenten abstinence, a period when red meat is off the menu and beans —a historic staple of Mesoamerican diets— take center stage as a protein source. In Nicaragua, this soup became synonymous with Holy Week in many households, passed down through generations almost unchanged.

Although it’s prepared year-round today as a comforting, budget-friendly meal, it still carries that connection to the religious and family tradition that gave rise to it.