..where teens can learn to cook restaurant quality meals for the family
Refried Beans
These go well with so many dishes. And you can put pretty much anything in them (or with them) and make them just how you want. You can use dried beans and go through a lengthy process, or just get cans of kidney beans and use those. Much quicker and easier. You can also switch kidney beans for black beans (or just about any other type of beans) for a variant.
ADJUST SERVINGS
Most of our recipes are for 4 people. You can check and adjust the serving size by clicking on the red number above.
GET SHOPPING!
This is a reminder to check what ingredients you need to buy and add them to your shopping list. It’s good to do your own food shopping, but at the very least, you’re head chef, so send a family member out to the shops for you!
GET ORGANISED
Remember ‘Skill 2’ of the Big 5: Become super-organised.:
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Equipment
- Large frying pan
- wooden spoon
- Potato masher
- measuring jug
Ingredients
- 2 cans Kidney beans 400g cans
- 3 tbsp Olive oil
- 1 Onion
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 1 tsp Ground cumin
- 1 tsp Chili powder
- 120 ml Vegetable stock
- Jalapenos sliced in a jar
- tbsp Milk, cream or yoghurt totally optional if you want to boost the creaminess
- Chilli sauce (Tabasco or similar) for extra kick if you want
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
Prep in Advance
- Pour the 2 cans Kidney beans in a sieve and rinse under cold water until the water runs clear. Wash all that sludge out! Then leave to drain
- Finely chop the 1 Onion
- Mince the 2 cloves Garlic
- Boil the kettle enough for 120 ml Vegetable stock
- Add the right amount of stock cube to a measuring jug (read the packet, do the maths!) pour the boiling water on and stir it up
Let's Cook!
- Heat the 3 tbsp Olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat
- Add the chopped onion. Cook until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Do not burn it! Just get the onions soft.
- Add the minced garlic and cook for another 30 seconds until fragrant. You can estimate 30 seconds..
- Stir in the 1 tsp Ground cumin and 1 tsp Chili powder, cooking for another 30 seconds.
- Add the drained kidney beans and vegetable stock to the frying pan
- Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes, allowing the beans to soften. You may want to cook a little bit longer as we want to get the beans soft enough to mash up.
- Use a potato masher to mash the beans to your desired consistency, adding more stock, or boiling water, if necessary. This may take some trial and error. If the beans are too hard to mash, just keep the heat on and give them a little longer. You'll get there. You can either mash fully into a sort of mushy paste. Or you can go half way and create something that's half mushy paste, and half has some full but squashed beans in it! Either is fine. Sometimes keeping beans alive in the mix can look quite good.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste, and optionally some jarred jalapenos and extra chilli sauce (or Tabasco)
- Continue cooking for another 5 minutes or until the beans are thick and creamy.You can optionally add a tablespoon of milk or cream or even yoghurt if you want to nudge the creaminess further! If so, you may want to balance the flavour back with some more salt, pepper or chilli powder.
Please share with us how you went!We need your feedback so we can improve the recipes and help others succeed! Please let us know by leaving a comment 🙂