Recipe for refried beans

We love tacos here (and quesadillas and chilli with nachos and fajitas…). The girls love filling the taco shells with their choices of fillings. We usually have a meat chilli for Chris (and LaLa likes that too), refried beans for me (and sometimes RoRo will have some), shredded lettuce, slices of tomato, salsa, grated cheese and sometimes sour cream and guacamole, too. (I do a very simple guacamole with puréed avocado, olive oil, garlic and lime juice, though Chris usually adds some chilli in his too and sometimes does it as more of a crushed or diced avocado, rather than puréed.)

The refried beans have always been from a tin – usually the Old El Paso variety – sometimes the mild ones and sometimes the spicy ones. In our mission to save money where we can, we wondered if we could make them cheaper ourselves. (Actually, when I say ‘we’, it was actually Chris’s idea; I’m not sure if it would ever have occurred to me to try to make some myself.) As it turns out the price is fairly similar, if not more expensive, depending on how much peppers are and how cheap you can get the kidney beans (we got some for around 12p a can), but… they are approximately a thousand times more tasty (though quite a different experience entirely, so it may not be fair to compare as a like for like).

Homemade refried beans

Ingredients

• 1 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3 jalapenos (or 1 small chilli)
• 1 red pepper
• ½ tbsp olive oil
• 1 (400g) tin of kidney beans
• ½ tbsp balsamic vinegar
• ½ tbsp tomato purée
• ½ tsp cumin
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Very finely dice the onion, garlic jalapenos (or chilli) and red pepper.
2. Sauté the diced vegetables in the olive oil for 10 minutes.
3. Add the (rinsed) kidney beans, stir and leave for 3 minutes.
4. Add the vinegar, tomato purée, cumin and a bit of salt and pepper. Stir and cover for 10 to 12 minutes – on a very low heat.
5. Stir half-way through and add a bit of water if it’s drying out too much.
6. Mash so that it’s of a rough consistency (or you can purée if you prefer).

Accompaniments

While these are ideal in tacos, they are lovely on their own, with some rice or in a tortilla wrap. They make a really nice, warming dish for an autumn meal or are lovely on toast for an autumn lunch. Have a look at Viva Veg, over at Plus 2 Point 4 for some other autumn vegetarian dishes.