The Spicy Mexican Staple That Gives Canned Refried Beans A Bold Kick

Done well, refried beans' pleasantly starchy, rich, and flavorful character makes it a popular staple in traditional Mexican, Mexican-American, and Tex-Mex cuisines. There are many options to craft the dish, whether it's using distinct bean varieties, throwing in unique seasonings, or — especially important — choosing the fat you integrate.

Without this compound, your beans will be dry and less flavorful, so some vegetable oil or the more traditionally employed lard will do the trick. However, for a bolder kick with an enhanced texture, opt for chorizo. Alongside some simple aromatics like onion, peppers, and tomatoes, this fatty, spiced pork product is all you need to enhance canned refried beans. Just make sure to go for the Mexican rather than Spanish chorizo variety. 

Integrating chorizo into refried beans is simple. Start by cooking the sausage. Crucially, remove the chorizo from its casing and break it up with a spatula. Once it all starts to brown, many cooks follow by removing the meat from the pan to prevent burning (you can add it back later if you want). But it's important to use a slotted spoon so all the beautiful golden and aromatic fat remains, ready for the beans and aromatics to sop up. That flavor is why using the Mexican variety is so important.

Unlike its Spanish counterpart, Mexican chorizo is raw and extra-fatty (since additional pork fat is traditionally mixed into it). So when you fry it up in the beginning of preparation, it forms a delightfully fatty canvas to distribute flavors with. This chorizo is packed with seasonings like chile powders, oregano, cumin, garlic, and cinnamon. So with only a single ingredient, you're getting a spice rack's worth of flavor that easily distributes throughout the dish on waves of fat.

Just remember that "refried" doesn't mean what you think it means in this case. In Spanish, the suffix "re-" is an intensifier, so "refritos" means "well-fried," not "fried again," as it would in English. So while you do cook the beans twice when you make them from scratch — once in a pot of water to soften them and a second time in the pan with fat — you only fry them once. So if you're using canned refried beans, which are already ready-to-eat, you're just reheating those and incorporating the fat. So toss your canned refried beans into the greasy pan and mix it well until they're heated through to savor the result.