Mexican Pork Beans
If you’re a fan of refried beans, you’re going to love this recipe for frijoles puercos (pork beans). Smooth and creamy, this savory dish can be served as a bean dip, an appetizer, or a side dish, paired perfectly with Mexican Carne Asada or Arrachera (Skirt Steak) Tacos.
Learn how to make your own with our step-by-step frijoles puercos recipe.
What Are Frijoles Puercos?
Frijoles puercos is a flavor-packed dish made with refried beans, chorizo, cheese, and pickled jalapeño chiles. Like most Mexican food, you’ll find variations of these pork beans throughout the different regions in Mexico.
In some states, they use cheeses like queso Chihuahua (Chihuahua cheese), queso añejo (aged cheese), queso fresco (fresh cheese) or queso Cotija (Cotija cheese). Others make this dish with avocado, bacon, chiles Serranos, and even sardines as they do in the state of Sinaloa.
One thing everyone can agree on is that frijoles puercos are delicious no matter how they’re prepared—and they pack a protein punch!
How Are Frijoles Puercos Different from Frijoles Charros?
While frijoles puercos are blended and smooth, similar to refried beans, frijoles charros (cowboy beans) is more like a soup or stew with whole beans in bean broth and larger pieces of meat and vegetables.
In frijoles puercos, the chorizo is broken into small pieces, whereas the chorizo in frijoles charros is in slices. Finally, frijoles puercos are typically served as an appetizer or side dish, while frijoles charros can be served as a main entrée.
What to Expect From This Recipe
This frijoles puercos recipe starts with bayo beans cooked in broth, so you’ll need to make a pot of frijoles de la olla (beans in a pot) first. Then you’ll do some chopping and grating, blend the beans, cook them with the vegetables and chorizo, stir in the jalapeños and cheese, and it’s time to eat!
How the Frijoles Puercos Recipe Is Structured
These instructions are broken down into three simple sections:
- Preparing Your Ingredients
- Cooking the Veggies, Chorizo and Beans
- Serving and Eating
Are you ready to make a creamy batch of Mexican pork beans?
Learn How to Make Frijoles Puercos
Prepare Your Ingredients
Get started with your Mexican pork beans by dicing the onion, slicing the garlic, shredding the mozzarella cheese, and cutting the butter into pats. Remove any plastic casing or metal clips from your chorizo, and have your bowl of cooked bayo beans ready to go. (You can use our recipe for frijoles de la olla to make your beans.)
Spoon cooked beans into the blender, adding broth as necessary. Be sure to blend in parts.
Continue to blend the beans until they reach a creamy consistency. Pour your blended beans into a separate bowl and set aside.
Cook the Veggies, Chorizo and Beans
Heat a pot over high heat. Add the sliced garlic and cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant, stirring constantly so the garlic doesn’t burn.
Next, spoon the onions into the pot and give it a quick stir.
Add the chorizo to the pot with the onions and break it up using a wooden spoon.
Cook the chorizo until it darkens in color and becomes slightly crispy. Then lower the heat to medium.
Pour the beans into the pot.
Cook the beans for 10 minutes, stirring constantly so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.
Sprinkle in salt to taste and stir to combine.
Pour in the pickled jalapeños, along with the liquid. You can use as many jalapeños as you like for this recipe, either whole or chopped. Here, we used six whole jalapeños. Stir the chilis and liquid into the beans and cook for 5 minutes, continuing to stir constantly.
Now, turn off the heat and sprinkle the grated mozzarella cheese onto the beans.
Stir well to melt the cheese into the beans.
Serve and Eat
Garnish with grated mozzarella cheese and whole jalapeños. Can’t wait to dig in!
Serve with a stack of hot, fresh tortillas, tortilla chips, tostadas, or as a side dish to any of our taco or beef recipes. Either way, you’re going to love these frijoles puercos!
Frijoles Puercos
Equipment
- Kitchen knife
- Prep Bowls
- Cutting board
- Wooden spoons
- Blender
- Cheese Grater
- Pot
Ingredients
- 6 cups Cooked bayo beans in broth (See recipe here, which calls for Flor de Junio beans. Feel free to use bayo beans or Mexican pinto beans instead.)
- ¼ Onion diced
- 1 clove Garlic thinly sliced
- 5 ozs Chorizo
- Pickled jalapeños chopped or whole to taste
- ½ stick Unsalted butter Optionally, you can use bacon grease, pork lard [manteca], or vegetable oil.
- 2 cups Mozzarella chese grated. Optionally, you can use Mexican cheese like Queso Oaxaca or Chihuahua
- Salt to taste
Instructions
Prepare Your Ingredients
- Dice the onion and slice the garlic.
- Shred the mozzarella cheese and cut the butter into pats.
- Remove any plastic casing or metal clips from your chorizo.
- Spoon cooked beans into the blender, adding broth as necessary. Blend in parts until creamy, pour into a bowl and set aside.
Cook the Veggies, Chorizo and Beans
- Heat a pot over high heat. Add the butter.
- When almost melted, add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant.
- Spoon in the onions, stir, and immediately add the chorizo.
- Break the chorizo up with a wooden spoon and cook until darkened in color and slightly crispy, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium.
- Pour in the beans. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly so beans don't stick.
- Sprinkle in the salt. Then add the pickled jalapeños and juice and stir to combine.
- Turn off the heat and sprinkle the grated mozzarella cheese onto the beans. Stir to melt the cheese into the beans.
Notes
More Tasty Mexican Bean Recipes from the Blog
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