Anytime we have tacos or nachos at our house, it’s usually due to an incredibly busy schedule or lack of ingredients in the pantry! So as you can guess, we’ve been eating a ton of tacos and nachos lately! A newly added side to our dinners have been easy refried black beans. I never realized how easy they really are, if you just plan ahead a little bit. Anytime you cook with dry beans, you have to make time for soaking-but once that’s done you don’t have to do much more! This is another recipe that can be molded to whatever flavor profile your family enjoys. You can make it hot or mild-whatever your choosing. Think of it as a good base for your creativity!
Here is our family’s super easy way to make refried beans at home with very little effort:
Easy Refried Black Beans
What You Need:
- 3 cups dried black beans
- 2 cups vegetable broth (you can totally use chicken broth or beef broth too, I just prefer the veggie flavor!)
- 2 tbs coconut oil
- 1 tbs minced garlic
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- juice of one lime
Directions:
Place the beans in your crockpot fully submerged in water to soak over night.
Once the beans have been soaked-drain the water, add fresh water to completely cover, and cook on low for approx 8 hours or until tender.
Once they are tender, drain the water and add the remainder of ingredients.
You can mash until your desired consistency or do like we do and use the handy dandy immersion blender! (not sure what I would do without this thing!)
Cook a little longer until thick and yummy! You can also add salt and pepper to taste at this point, or any other seasoning that fits your fancy!
That’s pretty much it! It makes quite a bit and will last about a week in the fridge (haven’t tried freezing it…yet!). The recipe possibilities are pretty much endless. You don’t have to just go traditional and use with tex-mex.
If you are looking for a little more traditional recipe you can also try ours for Easy Refried Beans.
Would you make these easy refried black beans? What other ways would you use refried beans?
We really like refried beans. A nice, cheesy helping and I’m in heaven! 🙂
I live in Mexico, so beans, refried or whole, along with tortillas and ingredients to make salsa, are the main staple at our home.
Molletes are a favorite of mine, to make them you cut a bolillo, telera (most common breads here) or french bread horizontally (as they cut the bread in Subway), open the bread, take out the crumb, spread refried beans, add some grated cheese and put in the oven to melt, top with fresh pico de gallo or Green salsa and eat (they are eaten open). You can prepare the molletes before hand and just pop them in the oven at dinner time.
Another option are tostadas, you can fry a tortilla until it is crispy or bake them until they are hard, spread the beans, top with sour cream, cheese, shredded lettuce, you can even add some shredded chicken or chorizo as toppings, some salsa and you are ready to eat. This must be assembled just before eating, but you can put the beans and let each person add the toppings.
Made this for my family today after reading the majority of the reviews. I used 1 clove of garlic, 1 can of a bean mix of red kidney, pinto, and black beans, 1/4 teaspoon chipotle chili powder and 1 teaspoon ground cumin (saw this in some other recipes. The family loved it, I will never buy canned refried beans again!
I like the addition of the lime juice to this recipe, it looks very good! Hope you have a wonderful week end and thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
Come Back Soon!
Miz Helen
I tried this recipe tonight, followed it to the letter. Ease of preparation? Easy peasy! Flavor? Delicious! Consistency? Hmm, a bit off… the recipe says, “thick and yummy,” but mine was “thin/runny, yet still yummy.” Has anyone else had this happen? When you say, “cook a little longer,” what do you really mean? After draining, adding ingredients, and mashing, I turned my Crock-Pot back on LOW and cooked for almost another hour, as I prepped the rest of our taco feast… and yet I had runny beans. As I said, still quite tasty, just a lot thinner than I’m used to refried beans being. Is it just me?
I haven’t made this one yet but my homemade refried beans always tend to be more runny than store bought beans.
I don’t mash mine very much, so that’s where the “thick” part comes into play! I guess I should have said “chunky” instead of “thick”. But you are so right, they are a bit runnier than the store bought kind!
We eat a lot of beans also and sometimes I just get tired of making the same thing. So glad I came across your cute site today!
Welcome, Mary!