Cuban Black Bean Soup in the Slow Cooker

Since a bag of dried beans can't be found right now, I used three cans of canned black beans, rinsed and drained. I chopped the celery finely and cooked it with the rest of the vegetables. I used orange bell pepper and chili-ready diced tomatoes since I had those on hand. At last tasting, it was really, really good and once it cooks for the rest of the evening I'm sure it will be outstanding. I was afraid without meat that it would be bland, but it's not bland at all! Thank you, thank you for this. It's going into my files.

To me, this came together to be more than the sum of it's parts. We used Rotel tomatoes with chilis for extra flavor.

3.18.20 I used my Instant Pot® with its slow cooker feature on high and did have to add a little water at about 3 hours. I live in Florida with lots of Cuban restaurants, and this measured up really well to many that I’ve had and enjoyed. The only modification I made was cutting the chili flakes back to 1/2 teaspoon, otherwise, followed the recipe to the letter. When finished cooking, I tasted, gave it a pretty good shot of hot sauce, and garnished with some chopped red onion and cilantro. WorkingCookingMom, thanks for sharing your recipe, we enjoyed it!

It tasted good, I will make again after some modifications. I prepped the soup the day before & left it in the crock overnight. Could not find chile flakes so I used 1/2 tsp chili powder instead. After cooking on low for 6 hours, the beans were not fully cooked, they were harder than they should have been. Next time I will cook the beans like they should be cooked before adding them to a recipe. I also think that this needed more liquid.