Reviewed: Feb. 23, 2012

I made these tonight to have for meals tommorrow Mine looked more like the pic. by Acacandy. The problem I had was I thought they were "super salty." I wish I would have done 1/2 the salt and added more if it was needed. By the time they are done cooking they do absorb every bit of water. I was surprised with a full 10 cups. The only change I made was using vegetable oil instead of lard. I do that a lot, with no problem. I also expected them to have a creamier texture to for some reason. Maybe, that depends on the bean. I may just use them in bean and cheese burritos. If looking to make beans and rice or refried beans, I would look for a recipe specifically for that with the right flavorings. This is just a basic cooked and salted bean, kind of like the can but without any liquid, in my opinion.

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Reviewer:

Baker Bee

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Cooking Level: Expert

Home Town: Detroit, Michigan, USA

Living In: Richmond, Virginia, USA

Reviewed: Jan. 23, 2012

Delicioso! I had never made frijoles de la ola'....they came out perfect!

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Reviewer:

sinsumama

Cooking Level: Expert

Living In: Whittier, California, USA

Reviewed: Oct. 8, 2011

This same recipe can be cooked in a pressure cooker. If you soak the beans and use natural release, the beans can be cooked in 1 to 3 minutes!! If you use the quick release method of steam, cooking time goes up to 4-6 minutes. Amazing time saver and fuel saver as well. Once I got over the false fear of it blowing up and buying one (actually got two). I use it all the time and am so impressed with the time I save. This recipe can be done and you'd save yourself literally hours. Best thing I ever bought. I want to share with others so that more recipes appear for pressure cooking adaptions. Think about it: 5 minutes vs. 3 hours. Kind of a no-brainer once you get over any fear. Many safeguards have now been built in so that it is virtually impossible to have them blow up.

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Reviewer:

Barbara

Reviewed: Oct. 4, 2011

I have been cooking pintos like this for over 50 years. I thought it was the only way to cook them along with some cubes of salt meat or bacon. Someone mentioned using bacon grease instead of lard but, lard is rendered pork fat or in short, bacon grease. I always save all my bacon grease, strain it thru cheese cloth and freeze until needed for seasoning.

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Reviewer:

waha

Cooking Level: Expert

Reviewed: Oct. 3, 2011

same way I make BUT I do not put lard. I will put canola oil after they are made BUT only if I refry them. I do add a whole onion, couple of cloves of garlic and a jalepeno .. yummy

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Reviewer:

mar

Reviewed: Oct. 3, 2011

I haven't tried this, but I wanted to say that it seems much like the recipe that Taco Bell used back in the late 1980's. We'd put 13 lbs. of Pinto beans, 1 lb. lard, about a cup of salt and 4 gallons water into a large pressure cooker and cook for 2 hr. 25 min. That's how they made the refried beans, back then. Now, they reconstitute dehydrated beans. The beans tasted much better, back when we made them from scratch.

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Reviewer:

Duane Close

Reviewed: Aug. 27, 2011

I make this for my family all the time. Instead of lard, I use bacon grease.

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Reviewer:

Busibee

Reviewed: Jul. 25, 2011

Dadgum good! After many previous failed attempts, I finally made a pot of great tasting beans! The secret must be simplicity. I will use this recipe time and time again.

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Reviewer:

Lori

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Reviewed: Jan. 12, 2011

I was always taught to soak the beans first in water overnight. After soaking, I cook these in a crockpot with salt pork. I cut the salt pork into ~ 1/3" strips and fry the salt pork for a bit first. You add the salt pork and the grease to your beans - this just gets more grease out in the water to flavor your beans. As other reviewers have said, add the salt later when the beans are about done. You can dress up the beans if you like by adding onion, cilantro (my favorite), garlic, cumin, mexican flavored chopped, stewed tomatoes, and some beer if you want to make these boracho style. But, these are fantastic done simply as well. Serve this with a batch of cornbread, some green onions and slices of cheddar cheese and you've found heaven.

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Reviewer:

MELPRES

Cooking Level: Expert

Reviewed: Sep. 23, 2010

I was surprised at how tasty this turned out. I did use bacon grease instead of the lard. This is a very simple recipe to do and can be easily adapted to personal tastes. This one's a keeper!

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