Name: Chicken and Black Bean Smoky Rice Skillet
Yield: 8 Servings
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil; 1 1/2 cups finely chopped white onion; 2 cups sliced zucchini; 2 cups sliced yellow squash; 2 tablespoons minced garlic; 3 cups cooked shredded chicken; 15 ounce can black beans, drained; 6 cups prepared rice medley; 2-3 tablespoons ground cumin; 1 teaspoon kosher salt; 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper; 1/2 cup chopped parsley

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).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + cumintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,082 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Beans + ricetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,017 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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, garlic, chicken, beans, rice, cumin, pepper):

Tomatofits better
Capsicumfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

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

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Black Bean	1/2 cup canned (120g) drained	114
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Cucumber	1/2 cup sliced (52g)	16
Cumin	1 tsp ground (2.1g)	8
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Pumpkin	not in our table	0

Chicken and Black Bean Smoky Rice Skillet