Refried Beans – 8 Variations

Shrimp Tostados  ©Diane Eblin

Shrimp Tostados ©Diane Eblin

We love Mexican cooking around here so having refried bean on hand is a must.  I’ve always kept canned beans but working to get away from processed foods I’ve started making my own.  What a difference in taste!  There is no comparison to beans from a can to your homemade beans in your recipes.  Beans are very versatile and you can season them up in many different ways.  Above you can see I’ve used them as the base to my Shrimp Tostados.  Don’t worry, that recipe is coming tomorrow.  I like to cook my beans in the crockpot, saves money, stove top space, and I can leave them.  You just need to check them once in a while to make sure there is still liquid in the pot.


Ingredients:

1 bag dried organic pinto beans
9 cups of filtered water for soaking
4 cups Stock- (vegetable, chicken, pork work best)
1 onion diced
1-3 cloves of garlic diced
1-3 tsp Ancho chili pepper (use your favorite chili powder) or a whole Cascabel dried pepper from Penzey’s 11,000 heat units (remove before serving)
2 tsp Ground Cumin
1 tsp Expote
1 bay leaf
2 tsp cilantro
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Rinse and sort beans.  Put in pot or bowl, add water so is twice as high as the beans or a 2 to 1 ratio.  Soak the beans overnight or at least 8 hours. Drain the beans and add the following to crock pot and cook on low for 6-8 hours:

beans
chopped onion
cloves garlic
stock to cover beans
ancho chili pepper
tsp cumin
expote
cilantro
bay leaf
Celtic sea salt and pepper to taste

The beans are done when you can mash them easily with the back of a spoon.  Remove bay leaf first and mash the beans. There are a few ways you can
do this.  You can use a fork or a potato masher to have a chunky end
dish.  You can use your blender or food processor for a smoother
texture.  I like to use a hand blender right into the pot.  Whatever
way you choose please be very careful if you are doing this to hot
beans.  They can splatter and burn you.   Always taste before serving.  If you want true refried bean heat a skillet with a little virgin coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil mixture and cook until it bubbles.

You can also set some aside and freeze.

Variations:

Chipotle Refried Beans– add 1-2 tsp chipotle pepper powder or 1-2 chipotle in adobo peppers chopped (spicy!)

Lime Refried Beans – add the zest of 1-2 Limes in when it’s time to mash.

Salsa Refried Beans– add 1 can Diced fire roasted tomatoes and 1 can diced green chilies

Bacon Refried Beans
add 4 slices of bacon to pot so the fat renders.  Add in onions at this
point and brown.  You can either dice the bacon and keep in pot or just
take out.  Then add all to the crockpot and keep going.

Black Refried Beans– substitute black beans for pinto beans

Jalapeno Refried Beans
add 2-3 diced jalapeno peppers (remove seeds to keep heat down or leave
the seeds for a really spicy dish) In a pinch add 2 tsp dried jalapenos
from Penzey’s.

Burn your mouth refried beans– use Chili Piquin 140,000 heat units each, add 1 to pot, do not touch peppers.

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