Refried beans Refried beans Refried beans (Spanish: "frijoles refritos") is a dish of cooked and mashed beans and is a traditional staple of Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine, although each cuisine has a different approach when making the dish. Refried beans are also popular in many other Latin American countries. The name is a direct calque of Spanish "frijoles refritos", "refritos" meaning "rehashed" or "reheated" in English. In this dish, after being boiled and then mashed into a paste, the beans are sometimes then fried or baked, though usually neither, thus making the term "refried" even more misleading. In northern Mexico and in
Tex-Mex popular foods for more than a century. A taste for "cabrito" (kid goat), "barbacoa de cabeza" (barbecued beef heads), "carne seca" (dried beef), and other products of cattle culture is also common on both sides of the Rio Grande. In the 20th century, Tex-Mex took on such Americanized elements as yellow cheese, as goods from the United States became cheap and readily available. In much of Texas, the cooking styles on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border were the same until a period after the U.S. Civil War. With the railroads, American ingredients and cooking appliances became common on the