Black Bean-Chorizo Subs

Most of our Mexican food adventures involve tacos. But we also love a great torta, which is basically a Mexican sandwich. This torta comes from a recipe in the Mexican Everyday cookbook by chef Rick Bayless, a favorite we explore often, as our regular #FoodieScore readers know.

These subs are made with such a simple list of ingredients—just chorizo (Mexican sausage), beans, queso, avocado and bread. Yet they create such a delightful submarine-style sandwich packed with so much flavor that it showcases why we so rarely visit sub shops. Subway and its competitors offer many options, but they doesn’t serve up anything quite like this, which is more like an item you’d find on a menu at a Mexican food restaurant.

As with all our recipes, we adapted these sandwiches slightly based on available ingredients and our specific tastes. One of our changes involved the chorizo, which suddenly we can’t seem to purchase at any of the many grocery stores in our community. At one time, our local Aldi carried chorizo. But it’s never stocked these days. So, we surveyed options online for making a fairly simple homemade chorizo and proceeded from there!

If you have access to ready-made chorizo, this recipe is so easy! If you don’t, you really can start with ground pork and add the spices based on our recipe here. Then, just resume the sub recipe.

We believe your family will love these sandwiches so much they’ll forget all about Taco Tuesday—at least for a little bit!


Black-Bean Chorizo Subs

What You Need

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ pound chorizo sausage (You can also make your own with ground pork sausage and seasonings. Here’s a recipe we used when we couldn’t get ahold of fresh chorizo at any of the grocery stores in our community.)

two 15-ounce cans black beans

salt to taste

crusty French or Italian submarine sandwich rolls

queso fresco

1 ripe avocado


What You Do

1. Add chorizo to skillet on medium heat, cooking thoroughly, about 10 minutes, and breaking up chunks.

2. Add olive oil and black beans to cooked chorizo.

3. After the beans start to simmer, mash them into a paste with the sausage. You can use a potato masher or the back of a large cooking spoon.

4. Cook the mixture until it’s the consistency of soft mashed potatoes, about 10 to 15 minutes after you’ve added the beans.

5. Taste and season with salt if you think necessary.

6. Keep warm on low heat.

7. Slice your submarine rolls, leaving the halves barely attached on one side to help hold in the toppings as you hold and eat your sandwich.

8. Add a light coating of oil or cooking spray to a foiled baking sheet. Place the rolls, inside down, on the sheet. Toast in a 350-degree oven for 5 to 10 minutes, just to bring out the crustiness and brown ever so slightly.

9. Smear about a half cup of the chorizo-bean mixture on the bottom half of each roll.

10. Top with crumbled queso fresco and either slices or smears of mashed avocado.

NOTE: Rick Bayless suggests using either tomatillo salsa (recipe inside this recipe!) or a hot sauce atop these subs. We don’t like our food extra spicy, so we skipped that step. The kick of the chorizo is enough for us, even with the cooling of the queso fresco and the avocado!

This recipe makes a LOT of chorizo-bean mixture. You will likely have leftovers that you can use for more subs, depending on how many people you’re feeding and how many rolls you have. You can also use the leftovers as a dip with tortilla chips or for other uses! Let us know if you come up with your own uses for the leftovers!


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