Name: Chicken Black Bean Taco Bake
Yield: 6 Servings
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil; 1 cup finely chopped white onion; 2 cups cooked, shredded chicken (I used rotisserie); 15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed; 1/4 cup sliced black olives; 5 corn tortillas, cut into eighths; 1 cup mild salsa; 1/2 cup heavy cream or sour cream; 1 tablespoon ground cumin; 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt; 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper; 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Why it works: Beans and cumin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,188 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Beans + cumintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,188 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Beans + corntop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,211 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Olive + beanstop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,470 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Olive + cumintop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,853 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Onion + cumintop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,498 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, chicken, beans, corn, cream, cumin, pepper):

Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, chicken, beans, corn, cream, cumin, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Corn Tortilla	1 medium flour (45g)	140
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Black Bean	1/2 cup canned (120g) drained	114
Cheddar Cheese	1 oz (28g)	113
Yogurt	170g plain Greek	100
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Cumin	1 tsp ground (2.1g)	8
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Olive	1 large (4g)	4
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Chicken Black Bean Taco Bake