Tremoços (Portuguese Marinated Lupini Beans)

Walk along any Portuguese beach in the summer and you will hear it before you see it: a vendor with a cooler shouting “tremoços, tremoços!” over the sound of the waves. They are sold by the paper cupful, always ice cold, always eaten by popping the bean out of its tough little skin with your thumb, and they pair perfectly with a cold beer or, if you are feeling festive, a glass of poncha (recipe on the site).

Tremoços are lupini beans that have been soaked, boiled, and then leached in changes of water for several days to remove their natural bitterness, before being finished in a simple salt brine. They show up at every festa and every beach kiosk in Portugal, and while the process takes patience, the actual hands-on work is minimal, it is mostly a matter of waiting.

I will be honest that I do not always have a week to spare, and on those occasions I buy jarred, already-leached lupini beans and simply season them myself, which is a perfectly respectable shortcut. But when I do make them from scratch, Lucas treats bean-popping as a competitive sport, and I am not going to be the one to tell him it is not.

Tremoços Recipe

Prep time: 20 minutes (plus 3-6 days soaking and leaching) · Cook time: 1 hour · Total: About 4-7 days, mostly hands-off · Servings: 8 as a snack · Calories: ~120 per serving

Ingredients

• 1 pound dried lupini beans
• 1/2 cup coarse sea salt, divided, plus more for the final brine
• 6 cups water, plus more for soaking
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed (optional)
• Lemon wedges, for serving

Instructions

1. Rinse the lupini beans and soak them in a large bowl of water for 24 hours at room temperature, changing the water once.
2. Drain the beans and place them in a large pot with 6 cups fresh water, 1/4 cup salt, and the bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the beans are tender but still a bit firm.
3. Drain the beans, reserving a large container. This is the most important part: place the cooked beans in the container, cover generously with fresh cold water, and refrigerate.
4. Change the water at least twice a day for 3 to 6 days, tasting a bean each day. This leaching step removes the natural bitter alkaloids; the beans are ready when they taste pleasantly salty-savory rather than bitter, never before.
5. Once leached, drain the beans and toss with a fresh brine of cold water, a generous 2 to 3 tablespoons salt, and the smashed garlic if using. Refrigerate at least a few hours before serving.
6. Serve chilled or at room temperature in a bowl with lemon wedges, popping the beans from their skins as you go.

Recipe Notes

• Do not skip or shortcut the multi-day leaching step: raw and under-leached lupini beans contain bitter alkaloids that are genuinely unsafe to eat in quantity, and properly leached beans should taste pleasantly savory, never bitter. If a batch still tastes bitter after 6 days, keep changing the water until it does not.
• Short on a week to spare? Jarred, ready-to-eat brined lupini beans, sold at many Italian and Middle Eastern grocers and online, are already safely leached, just drain and season with salt, lemon, and garlic before serving.
• Dried lupini beans are usually found at Italian, Middle Eastern, or Latin American markets under the name lupini or tremoços.
• Tremoços are the classic companion to a cold beer on a hot day at the beach, or alongside a glass of poncha (recipe on the site).