Make Your Own Refried Beans

Why buy the canned refried beans when you can make your own and control what little extras you can add to it? And of course, the way to add the kind of flavors you want to the refried beans is by making your own pinto beans too.

You can certainly go and buy canned pinto beans for this if you just don’t have the kind of time it takes to soak and cook your own pintos, or you can use your favorite pinto beans from scratch. And hopefully, your favorite is my recipe, Pinto Beans from Scratch.

Okay, so here we go:

My pintos from scratch recipe is for 2 cups of dry beans. However, this recipe for refried beans is based on cooking 1 cup of dry beans, which by the way, is my mother’s recipe, so I know it works perfectly, as I’ve made this myself quite a few times.

FYI – 1 cup of dry pinto beans renders approximately 3 cups of cooked beans.

Ingredients

3 cups cooked pinto beans
1/2 cup margarine

Preparation

1)  Place the cooked pinto beans into a large frying pan and mash them with a fork until they’re mostly mashed.
Note:  I like to leave about 10 percent of the beans in little pieces, rather than 100% mashed.

2)  Add 1/2 cup margarine and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly

3)  After cooking for about 10 to 15 minutes, and when the beans absorb all of the margarine, the beans will all stick together and form a sort of a ball in the frying pan.

Note: For creamier beans, add more margarine.

These will go really nice with some of my other recipes. A Texas Boy’s Bean Burger and The Basic Bean Burger.

Serves 5 to 6