Refried Beans

With some pre-planning you can enjoy home-cooked delicious refried beans. This recipe contains no lard, so if you are a purist, you can sub in lard, but I made these veg. Home-cooked beans are better in this dish, although you could use canned beans. You can combine pinto beans with red kidney or white cannellini beans; black beans can be substituted for pinto beans. Soak 1 and ½ cups of dried beans overnight, or for at least 6 hours, and prepare with the soak and cook method (or pressure cooker, or crock pot, or whatever). Save the bean broth – you'll use it for the refried beans. Refried beans will last up to 4 days in the fridge, and can be frozen.

Refried Beans

Serves: 4-6

~2 cups pinto beans, cooked (canned is fine, you'll need 2, 14 oz cans rinsed and drained)

broth from beans

2 tbsp peanut oil

1 onion, chopped

2 tsp garlic

1 jalapeno, seeded and deveined, minced (optional)

salt

½ tsp paprika (optional)

1. Heat up peanut oil in a wide skillet – cast iron is best so you can mash the beans in the pot, but I mashed them carefully in a non-stick skillet. Once hot add in onion and cook until golden brown. Stir often.
2. Add in garlic and jalapeno and stir to combine. Sprinkle with a bit of salt, stir together, and cook another 3 minutes.
3. Add in beans 1 cup at a time. Add in ¼ – 1/3 cup water and let simmer briefly.
4. Once beans are hot start mashing the beans. As the water evaporates, add in more water.
5. Repeat with second batch of beans. Add in small bits of water to keep the beans from sticking excessively. The beans will thicken up.
6. Continue mashing until desired consistency is obtained. Adjust with salt and paprika.
7. Serve as desired (e.g. on nachos, in tacos, with enchiladas, on heuvos rancheros, etc, etc)