How To Make Refried Beans

Hey! Here’s a bonus episode. We totally screwed up because we forgot to tell you how to cook refried beans. This episode is part of our breakfast taco series and is featured in our brand-new and totally awesome Breakfast Taco Book!

Ingredients:
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (or lard for more traditional beans)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 cups cooked beans (pinto or black beans are preferred)
• water or bean-cooking liquid
• salt

Instructions:
Sauté the garlic in the oil or lard for a few seconds over medium-low heat. Add some of the beans and mash them up. A potato masher works, but so does a big metal spoon. Add some more beans, mashing after each installment. Add about ¼ cup of their cooking liquid (or water if you’re using canned beans) if they seem dry. Keep stirring and mashing, adding more liquid if necessary, until you have a big, steaming skillet of fairly smooth, well-fried beans. It should be about the consistency of mashed potatoes or a little thinner. Add salt if it needs it and some oregano if you’re feeling it.

*To cook beans from scratch, the first step is to sort the beans. If you usually skip that step, take heed, children, for I too was once of the mind that a quick look-over would suffice until the woeful day when I chomped into my chalupa and found a rock. Anyway, put 2 cups of dry beans (pinto or black) in a colander and look through them…really look at them. Pull out any funky looking beans or anything that is not, in fact, a bean. Then rinse them and put them in a big ass pot.