Spaghetti with chicken and pesto in my own special lemon-asparagus sauce.
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 2 hrs |
| Additional Time: | 10 hrs |
| Total Time: | 12 hrs 10 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 8 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 pound dry pinto beans, soaked overnight
- 4 whole garlic cloves, peeled
- ½ teaspoon dried epazote
- 9 cups cold water
- ½ cup lard
- 1 ½ cups diced onions
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons minced serrano chili pepper
- 1 teaspoon ground dried chipotle pepper
Instructions
- Drain soaked beans and transfer them to a stock pot. Add garlic, epazote, and cold water. Place pot over high heat and bring to a boil. Stir. Reduce heat to low. Simmer uncovered until beans are soft, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Drain the beans and reserve all the liquid.
- Melt lard in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and salt; cook until onions start to brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Stir in serrano pepper and chipotle powder; cook 1 minute. Transfer drained beans into skillet. Mash about half the beans with a potato masher or back of a spoon. Ladle some bean cooking liquid to skillet. Continue to mash and stir beans as you gradually add more liquid. Mash until the beans have reached your preferred consistency and texture. Taste and add more salt, if desired.
- You can substitute 1 teaspoon dried oregano for 1/2 teaspoon epazote.
- If you want the beans loose enough to spoon over tortilla chips for nachos, you’ll probably need to add all the cooking liquid. But that’s up to you.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 317 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 38 g |
| Cholesterol | 12 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 12 g |
| Protein | 12 g |
| Saturated Fat | 5 g |
| Sodium | 491 mg |
| Sugars | 2 g |
| Fat | 14 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I followed the recipe, soaking the beans overnight. I cooked them for 2 hours and they were hard. No way to mash them. Had to just throw them in the garbage. I have had great success with Chef John’s recipes over the years, but this one did not work for me for some reason.
Made this for Mexican themed lunch- everyone loved it! Best refried beans I’ve had- bar none!
Been using it for over a year and keep coming back! These beans are fantastic ! I marinade many types of meat for different tacos and burritos – was in need of a good beans recipe to bring it all home. Came across his YouTube channel, loved his demeanor, and the five recipes I’ve tried of his are all GREAT! These are awesome
I’ve made this several times and hope to never buy canned frijoles ever again. I made it according to instructions but next time I’ll leave out the serrano pepper. I like it just fine but it’s too spicy for my wife. I use an immersion blender to get a smooth consistency as I like them nice and creamy. I save some of the remaining bean water to use later if the frijoles seem a little thick. In place of the serrano peppers I have used diced jalapenos with great results.
Chef John’s recipe for Refried Beans is the best I’ve ever made & tasted. I substituted the epazote with dried oregano and the minced serrano chili pepper with minced jalapeno pepper. Didn’t have dried chipolte pepper & subbed with smoked paprika. Only change I’d make is use a little less salt. Lard is the key ingredient. They are divine!
Made as written, but used crisco for my vegetarian daughter in law. I do believe it would be better with lard, so I am looking forward to next time. I used a blender for smooth creamy beans. Thank you Chef!
I’ve tried several refried bean recipes and this is the best one! I doubled the recipe and it worked out great. I didn’t have chipotle powder and used less lard and they still tasted great. I also used a deseeded jalapeño for less spiciness to suit my family’s heat preference. My family also prefers smooth beans so I used my immersion blender. Next time I may make them in the Instapot. Definitely recommend this recipe!
Thank you!
This is exactly as refied beans shoud taste
Tried this today, and we all loved it! I lucked out and found fresh epazote at a local market. I used lard for the first time and highly recommend. I used jalapeño this time for guests, but I’ll try the Serrano next and step up the heat. The flavors were rich and textured. I was in a hurry at the end so I used my emulsion blender. It was fast, and I got the almost creamy texture I was going for. Thanks, Chef John!
No more canned refried beans.. EVAH! Family loved it
Wow, I have been wanting to make Refried beans for awhile now and I always check to see if Chef John has the recipe I am searching for and in this case he did! It took me awhile to find the epazote but I ended up going to a Mexican grocery store and they had plenty. This was amazing! It takes awhile but totally worth the work. Next time however I will cut my peppers down to one tablespoon instead of two. I am not a fan of heat. This by no means would be hot for anyone but me. Definitely will make this again! Thanks Chef John!!
Unlike Chef John, I actually would sit down and just eat a bowl of this… Very, very good. The whole family loved it, too. The color was not what they’re used to (I’ve made RFB in the past with kidney and / or black beans – never Pinto). They said it looked “gross.” They were skeptical & didn’t dive right in like they normally would have. But once they tasted it, they were hooked. I used Goya pinto beans. Soaked overnight, then 30 min at high pressure in the instant pot was perfect. I used some fresh oregano from the garden in place of the Epazote, and one chipotle pepper from a can, instead of the powder. I also added a bit of cumin. ‘ Oh, and I used bacon fat for lard. That, I believe, and the pintos were the keys to success here. It really was good. That’s it. Super quick, easy & wonderful. My big take-away was this: I was really surprised how much better the pintos are than other beans I’ve used, in texture & flavor.
Outstanding!!! I didn’t have epazote, serrano peppers, or chipotle powder. I substituted 1 tsp oregano leaves for the 1/2 tsp of epazote, 2 tbsp of minced jalapeno peppers for the 2 tbsp of minced serrano peppers, and 1 tsp of smoked paprika for the 1 tsp of chipotle powder. A family member is vegetarian, so I also substituted 1/2 cup of vegetable oil for the 1/2 cup of lard. Oh my goodness, these were outstanding! Four teens gobbled these up and wanted more. So for our family, I will need to at least double the recipe. Hubby and I got only a couple of bites. (After soaking for a day, I cooked the pintos, garlic, oregano, and 9 cups of water in my instapot using the “bean” setting which is 30 minutes of cooking time after pressure is reached. I used 9 cups of water; next time I will likely only use 6 cups to reduce that amount of time to come up to pressure and to make a more concentrated broth. I imagine had I cooked these on the stove top, the broth would have been reduced by evaporation.) Again, the recipe is outstanding, even though I had to make close substitutions.
This is the besi I have tried. Use plenty of peppers and onions. not so much lard. It also freezes well.
This was good (WITHOUT the lard). I used to eat swine, and when I did feel the same way as Chef John does. No longer eating this animal due to my desire to please the Lord, I am happy with the coconut oil (and a little butter) that I used. I really like adding the well-sauteed onions at the end and pouring out but saving the liquid after the beans are cooked to softness (so that it can be put back in).
DO NOT BUY CANNED BEANS, because this one is so easy and so delicious! I use a can of diced chili peppers instead of the serrono and I sub avocado oil for the lard.
This recipe is incredible. My entire family loved it. I made it exactly as the recipe was written. We’ve been making leftovers into bean dip and chips and bean and cheese burritos.
Fantastic!!!
I have been looking for the PERFECT refried bean recipe and this IS IT! I couldn’t find dried ezapote so I used fresh (fresh smells super strong and bad but it doesn’t affect the taste of the beans). Also, I could not find dried chipotle so I used canned and cut it up very fine. Added excellent Smokey flavor that I have been missing in my previous tries at refried beans.
What I liked about this recipe is that you can make it as thick or thin as you would like as well changing the heat level to your taste. I hate those canned re-fried beans, you have no idea of what’s in them, here you are in control. My only change was I used cardamon leaves and oregano instead of the epazote ( didn’t have any on hand). Froze the batch in 1 1/2 cup containers for easy meal preparation.