Frijoles Refritos
A few weeks ago I bumped into one of my hubby’s friends at a supermarket. I was very surprised to him see him doing the supermarket shopping (according to me, all husbands hate supermarkets, specially mine), but he told me that he is the one that cooks at home, so I have to confess I was a bit jealous, “El inglés” aka my hubby would only come to the kitchen when he is hungry and he wants something to eat, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he will cook, anyway, we started to talk about food and I told him about my  Mexican food blog, it was very nice to find out that he also likes to cook Mexican food, he asked me if  I cook  refried beans and I said “yes, of course, I cook the beans and then I make my own refried beans”, so he wanted to know if I have the recipe in my blog and I think I said yes to him, but then it wasn’t until yesterday that I realised that I do not have it, so here it’s the recipe specially for my hubby’s friend!
In Mexico we eat beans with everything, for breakfast, lunch or even for dinner. They are many Mexican recipes with beans, but obviously the most popular is Refried beans.
In my family in Mexico, we have a special casserole dish to cook beans and a special frying pan to make refried beans, both have been for many years with us. My mum cooks beans every Monday, then she freeze them in small batches and we have beans that last us for a whole week, so every time we want to cook refried beans, we defrost some and listo! we have fresh refried beans.
A lot of people in Mexico have their own recipe to cook and fried beans, I cook mine with half an onion and a clove of garlic and when I’m preparing refried beans I make a “sofrito” (sauté) of onion and garlic, the way to cook beans is very easy and nowadays if you can’t be bother to cook beans, you can find canned beans at the supermarket, they are very handy and useful for emergencies and I will be very honest with you, I do sometimes use those, I like the organic black beans from “Epicure”, they come just in water and unsalted, so I prepare them the way I like. But when I have time I cook my own and when I do that, I cook the whole 500 gr of beans and then I put them in bags in small amounts and I freeze them flat (see the picture below).
For this recipe I’m giving you the option of using canned beans or beans cooked from scratch, find the recipe of how to cook beans here, I also made my own “totopos” (tortilla chips). Just put some corn tortillas in the oven to 180 degrees C for around 15 min or until golden brown.
I really hope you get inspired with this recipe and start cooking your own. Happy cooking!
Frijoles Refritos
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked pinto beans with some bean juice or 1 tin of unsalted pinto or black beans
- 2 tbsp slightly salted butter
- 4 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ white onion finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove peeled and finely chopped
To garnish
- ½ cup queso fresco or feta crumbled
- 6 fresly made corn tortillas or tortilla chips
Instructions
- Heat the butter and the oil in a saucepan to medium heat. Add the onion and the garlic and gently fry them for 5 minutes.
- Add the beans making sure to add some of the bean juice. Season them with salt and bring them to a boil.
- Once they are boiling, mash them with the potato masher or blend them with a hand blender. Remember to leave some texture.
- Serve them with crumbled queso fresco or feta, sour cream (optional). Perfect dish to have with any other wonderful Mexican dish.
I would love to hear if you liked this recipe, tag me on social media #mexicanfoodmemories to see your creations. And if you want to learn to make this recipe and more, join me in one of my Mexican Cooking Classes.
Listo!
Provecho!
Thank you for sharing this recipe. Sometimes it’s the simple ones that are the best!
Thank you Lola for your lovely comment, yes, I totally agree with you, sometimes the simple recipes are the best! have a wonderful week xx