Refried Beans with just a few simple ingredients and tons of flavor. The secret to these rich and meaty beans is chorizo sausage. Sauteed, pureed and mixed into the beans, the chorizo gives the beans just the right amount of the salt and spice. There are also a couple of other key tricks to perfect beans in this recipe.
Course Side Dish
Cuisine American, Mexican
Prep Time 10 minutesminutes
Cook Time 3 hourshours30 minutesminutes
Total Time 3 hourshours40 minutesminutes
Servings 4C
Ingredients
16ozdried pinto beans*
1tspsalt
½yellow onion
2Tbpork fat** or vegetable shortening
4ozchorizo
Instructions
Rinse dried beans in a strainer. Add to a large heavy-bottomed saucepan and cover with 3 inches of water. Turn the heat on high and allow the mixture to come to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, turn the heat down to medium-low. Cover and simmer the beans for 2-3 hours on medium-low until completely tender.
Once the beans are tender, strain the beans, reserving the cooking liquid. Place the cooking liquid back into the saucepan and turn the heat up to medium. Allow the cooking liquid to reduce for about 10 minutes or until it has thickened to the consistency of heavy cream. Set the reduced cooking liquid aside.
Place a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Finely dice the yellow onion. Add 1 Tb of pork fat and diced onion. Saute for 2 minutes to soften onions. Add the chorizo and break up with your spoon.
Cook the chorizo for about 7 minutes or until completely cooked. Add the chorizo and onion mixture to a food processor, and process until the mixture is a smooth paste. I've linked to a small food processor above that is perfect for this kind of job.
In the same saute pan used to fry the chorizo over medium-high heat, add another Tb of pork fat and the cooked beans. Using a potato masher, mash the beans until they reach a rough-paste texture. Add the reduced cooking liquid and pureed chorizo and mix well to combine. Reduce the heat to low and warm until heated through. Season to taste with additional salt.
Notes
*The pinto beans can be cooked ahead of time to shorten the final cooking time. Once cooked but before reducing the cooking liquid, the beans can be kept in the fridge for up to a week before refrying. If you're in a hurry, you can also substitute with canned pinto beans.**Pork fat, manteca or lard is simply pork fat that can be found in most Latin supermarkets. Plain old Crisco works as well.