Fresh Corn and Black Bean Salsa
Charred corn and black beans with peppers, lime, and cilantro — a salsa built from two of the ancient Americas' most important crops, combined in a dish that reflects 9,000 years of Mesoamerican food culture.
- 2 cupscorn kernels(fresh off cob or frozen, charred)
- 15 ozblack beans(canned, drained and rinsed)
- 1 cupcherry tomatoes(quartered)
- 0.5 cupred bell pepper(diced)
- 0.25 cupred onion(finely diced)
- 1jalapeño(seeded and minced)
- 0.25 cupfresh cilantro(chopped)
- 3 tbspfresh lime juice
- 2 tbspolive oil
- 1 tspcumin
- 0.75 tspkosher salt
- 1 bagtortilla chips(for serving)
Can be made up to 24 hours ahead; refrigerate. Bring to room temperature before serving. Flavors improve as they meld.
- 1Char corn in dry skillet or on grill until slightly blackened in spots
- 2Let corn cool completely
- 3Combine corn, black beans, tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, and jalapeño
- 4Add cilantro, lime juice, olive oil, cumin, and salt
- 5Toss gently to combine
- 6Let sit at least 15 minutes for flavors to meld
- 7Taste and adjust seasoning
- 8Serve with tortilla chips
Charring the corn is worth the effort - it adds depth and smokiness. Cut corn off the cob after charring for easier handling. Rinsing the beans well prevents the salsa from becoming murky. This also makes a great taco topping or salad addition.
The two foundational ingredients of this salsa have been grown together in the Americas for millennia. Corn (maize) was domesticated from the wild grass teosinte approximately 9,000 years ago in the Balsas River valley of southwestern Mexico, one of the earliest and most consequential acts of plant domestication in the Western Hemisphere. Black beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) were independently domesticated in Mesoamerica and the Andean region of South America, with cultivated forms present across Mexico and Central America from at least 7,000 years ago. The combination of corn, beans, and squash — the "Three Sisters" — was a foundational intercropping system across indigenous North American agriculture. The USDA National Agricultural Library documents that the Seneca Nation alone had cultivated the Three Sisters together for at least 500 years prior to European contact, and the system was practised across Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, and much of what is now the United States. The salsa itself draws on an equally ancient tradition: the Spanish missionary Bernardino de Sahagún, who documented Aztec culture in his 16th-century Florentine Codex, described vendors in the markets of Tenochtitlan selling what he called "chiltomolli" — a sauce of tomatoes, chili peppers, and other ingredients ground together — a preparation that predated his arrival by centuries. The word salsa is simply the Spanish word for sauce. Charring corn directly over flame or a hot comal, the technique used in this recipe, is an indigenous Mexican cooking practice that concentrates the corn's natural sugars and adds the smoky sweetness that makes this salsa its own. The specific combination of corn, black beans, peppers, lime, and cilantro entered mainstream American menus as Tex-Mex and Southwestern cooking gained national recognition through the 1990s.