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 burritos. Moreover, Tex-Mex has imported flavors from other spicy cuisines, such as the use of cumin, introduced by Spanish immigrants to Texas from the Canary Islands and used in Berber cuisine, but used in only a few central Mexican recipes. And in recent years Tex-Mex has incorporated elements of traditional Mexican food into the cuisine, including the more creative use of chile peppers and the serving of so-called "street tacos" (which would be simply called "tacos" in Mexico --- normally a small serving of meat with onions and cilantro in place of the lettuce and cheese served on Tex-Mex tacos