Black Bean Tacos with Charred Corn Salsa and Lime Crema

Taco night doesn’t need meat to feel like a celebration. Black beans, cooked down with smoke and lime until they’re glossy and almost creamy, make a filling that’s hearty and properly satisfying. The real magic, though, is in the charred corn salsa — sweet kernels blistered in a hot pan until they catch and smell of summer barbecues — set against a cool, sharp lime crema. My small twist is charring the corn dry in a smoking pan rather than boiling it; that bit of burnt edge is what makes the whole plate sing.

1 Tacos and the art of the antojito

Tacos are the beating heart of Mexican street food, part of a wider family of antojitos — “little cravings” — that you eat standing up, folded in one hand, dripping a little. They are ancient: the practice of wrapping food in a maize tortilla goes back to the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, long before the Spanish arrived, when corn was the sacred staple at the centre of life. The word taco itself may come from the silver miners of the eighteenth century, who used the term for the small charges of gunpowder they wrapped in paper — a neat parallel to a little parcel packed with filling. Beans, corn and chilli form the holy trinity of the Mexican kitchen, and a vegetarian taco built on them isn’t a compromise so much as a return to roots.

2 Putting it together

Start with the corn. If you’re using fresh cobs, slice the kernels off with a sharp knife. Get a dry frying pan extremely hot, tip in the corn and leave it alone for a minute or two at a time, tossing only occasionally, until it’s blistered and charred in patches. Tip into a bowl with the chilli, half the coriander, a squeeze of lime and a pinch of salt.

For the crema, stir the soured cream together with the lime zest, lime juice and a little salt. Loosen with a splash of water if it’s too thick to drizzle. Set aside.

Now the beans. Soften the onion in the olive oil for five minutes, add the garlic, cumin, smoked paprika and oregano and cook for a minute until fragrant. Tip in the black beans with a splash of water, season well and simmer for eight to ten minutes, mashing about a third of them roughly with the back of a spoon so the mix turns thick and saucy. Stir through the lime juice at the end.

Warm the tortillas in a dry pan or over a flame until soft and a little toasty. Build each taco with a spoonful of beans, a heap of charred corn salsa, a drizzle of lime crema and a final scatter of coriander.

3 Tips and variations

Warm tortillas matter more than people think — a cold, stiff tortilla cracks and lets everything fall out, while a warm one folds obediently and tastes faintly toasted. Heat them at the last minute and keep them wrapped in a clean tea towel.

The components are all happy made ahead. The bean mix reheats beautifully and the salsa keeps for a day in the fridge, so this is a good one to prep in stages. Add diced avocado or a crumble of feta if you want more richness, or pickled red onions for a sharp, pink crunch. A dash of chipotle paste in the beans deepens the smoke if you like real heat.

A note on the tortillas themselves. Corn tortillas are the traditional and, for my money, the better choice — they have a nutty, earthy flavour that flour ones lack, and they hold up to a saucy filling. But small flour tortillas are softer and more forgiving if you’re feeding a crowd who’d rather not have anything crack on them, so use whatever your table prefers. If you can only find large tortillas, two smaller tacos always beat one giant unwieldy one.

For heat and brightness, keep a few extras within reach: lime wedges to squeeze at the last second, a hot sauce on the side, and maybe some sliced jalapeño for those who want it. The beans take well to a tin of sweetcorn folded straight in if you can’t be bothered charring fresh cobs, though you’ll miss those smoky edges. Make the whole lot vegan by swapping the soured cream crema for a blended cashew or coconut version, and nobody will be any the wiser.

Lay everything out in bowls and let people build their own — taco night is better when it’s a little chaotic and hands-on. Nobody at my table has ever asked where the meat went.