Refried beans are traditionally made with pinto beans. However, I'm having trouble finding them; what other beans can I use to make refried beans?
Refried Beans – What Beans to Use
mexican-cuisine
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The heightened flavor of refried beans (over regular beans) comes from two components: the extra fat, and the Maillard (browning) reactions caused by the cooked beans shallow-frying in hot fat. Effectively, a crust forms where the mashed beans contact the fat. This crust breaks up later when the dish is stirred together.
If you can get them, try pinto beans rather than black.
Standard Refried Beans (from a can)
- Drain and rinse the canned beans.
- Heat your fat of choice (olive oil, lard, shortening) in a heavy pan.
- Mash 1/3 of the beans coarsely in a bowl, using the back of a fork and a little water, if necessary. You want the consistency of the mash to be somewhere between pancake batter and cookie dough.
- Add this mash to the fat in blobs of 1-2 tablespoons. The idea is to get as much surface area exposed to the fat as possible, because this is where the yumminess comes from, so, not a big blob in the middle of the pan. Preferably, many smaller ones.
- After a time, start stirring the bean mash and fat together, then mix in the reserved whole beans. Thin with water or broth.
Bonus:Roasted Garlic Refried Beans (from a can)
- Peel a couple of whole garlic cloves. Leave them whole.
- Put these in the fat as it heats. If the fat doesn't cover the cloves completely, you can either stir from time to time, or, better, tilt the pan so that the fat and garlic pool on one side.
- When the garlic cloves are the color of milk chocolate, remove them and add the mashed beans as above.
- Mash the cloves with the back of a fork and add them with the whole beans at the end.
I finally found what I'm looking for, from the University of Michigan - some actual data on the subject!
They say that rinsing canned beans can reduce the amount of sodium by half, and also reduces the amount of complex sugars which humans can't digest (but the bacteria in our intestines can, with uncomfortable results!)
It appears that draining the fluid is likely to improve the flavor and texture of the resulting food by concentrating the flavor of the beans -- unless you're following a soup recipe that specifically suggests retaining the liquid to thicken the soup.
I still haven't found any information about what healthy nutrients might be lost by rinsing the beans, but the general consensus seems to be that it rinsing will do more good than harm in almost all cases.
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Best Answer
I have made refried beans out of pinto, small red, black, and even navy beans. I almost tried using kidney beans once but it seemed wasteful.
They were all different in texture but they were all good. Black beans, for example, have a much more fibrous skin so the refried beans are not as smooth- I actually prefer it to the homogeneous pinto mash. Obviously their color is also more interesting.
There are a lot of different bean varieties and I don't know what is available to you. In general I would say to just try whatever you have- it will probably taste good even if it isn't exactly like pintos.