Tepary Bean Hum­mus with Chile Verde 

Makes about 3 ½ cups

Locat­ed in Sells, Ari­zona, Desert Rain Café helped pop­u­lar­ize the foods of the Indige­nous Tohono O’odham. One of its most famous spe­cial­ties was a hum­mus made from tepary beans, which spread like wild­fire. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the cafe closed a few years ago, so I wasn’t able to vis­it it. In my spiced-up take on the many ver­sions I tried in home kitchens in the town, the creamy, slight­ly sweet white tepary beans are pureed with charred gar­lic and onion and roast­ed green chile. One taste will con­vince you that hum­mus can dance to a dif­fer­ent beat.

I like to serve this as a sal­ad, putting a ladle or two of hum­mus on each plate, top­ping it with bell pep­per, cucum­ber, toma­to, and radish, and adding a squeeze of lime and a sprin­kling of salt. Of course, it’s great as a dip with tor­tilla chips, in a veg­gie sand­wich, or as a fill­ing for pita breads.

½ pound (1 cup) dried white tepary beans, rinsed

10 cups water

2 tea­spoons kosher salt

½ white onion, quartered

1 gar­lic head, bro­ken or cut into 2 clus­ters of cloves (skin left on)

½ pound fresh chiles verdes, such as Ana­heim, New Mex­i­co, or chi­la­ca, roast­ed, sweat­ed, peeled, seed­ed, and diced

½ tea­spoon ground white pepper

¼ cup fresh­ly squeezed lemon juice, or more to taste

2 table­spoons olive oil

2 to 3 dried chiltepin or piquin chiles, or 1 to 2 light­ly toast­ed chiles de arbol

To reduce the cook­ing time, soak the beans for at least 30 min­utes, or overnight; drain.

Trans­fer the beans to a large pot, cov­er with the water, and bring to a boil. Skim any foam from the sur­face, then reduce the heat to medi­um and sim­mer, cov­ered, for 1 hour.

Remove the lid, add 1 ½ tea­spoons of the salt, stir, and con­tin­ue cook­ing, cov­ered, until the beans are soft but not break­ing apart, adding more hot water if they threat­en to become dry, 2 to 3 hours (the total cook­ing time will be 3 to 4 hours, depend­ing on how long you soaked the beans and their age). Set aside.

Pre­heat the broil­er, with the rack 2 to 3 inch­es from the heat source.

Put the onion and gar­lic cloves on a small bak­ing sheet lined with foil. Place under the broil­er for 10 to 12 min­utes, flip­ping them a few times, until charred and soft­ened; you may have to remove the gar­lic cloves before the onion. Remove from the broil­er and set aside. Alter­na­tive­ly, you can toast the onion and gar­lic on a pre­heat­ed comal or skil­let set over medi­um heat. Sep­a­rate the gar­lic cloves, peel them, and dis­card the skin.

Put the beans and ¾ cup of the cook­ing broth in a food proces­sor. Add the onion, gar­lic, chiles verdes, the remain­ing ½ tea­spoon salt, the white pep­per, lemon juice, olive oil, and dried chiles to taste. Process until smooth and serve.

COOK’S NOTES

• You can order tepary beans, as well as oth­er tra­di­tion­al foods of the O’odham, from Ramona Farms in Saca­ton, Ari­zona. The own­ers, Ramona But­ton and her hus­band, Ter­ry, res­cued the bean from near extinc­tion when they found a few seeds in a glass jar in her father’s old trunk and plant­ed them.
• Navy beans can be sub­sti­tut­ed for the tepary beans, but they will cook much faster, just a lit­tle more than an hour.

Excerpt­ed from Pati Jinich Foods of La Fron­tera by Pati Jinich. Copy­right © 2026 by Mex­i­can Table LLC. Recipe pho­tog­ra­phy © 2026 by Jen­nifer Chase. From Har­vest, an imprint of Harper­Collins Pub­lish­ers. Reprint­ed by permission.