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Lard-free refried beans that actually taste like the real thing

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I went through every fat substitute over three months: olive oil, coconut oil, vegetable shortening, avocado oil. None of them produced the result I was looking for. The problem with all of them is that they add fat without the flavor compounds that rendered lard carries. The actual solution, which I found by accident: the bean broth itself, reduced until thick, is the best fat substitute. If you cook your beans in a decent amount of water with aromatics and then reduce the broth before adding it back to the mashed beans, the starchy, savory broth does what the lard does. It is not the same — lard has a richness the broth cannot replicate — but it is dramatically better than any of the oil substitutes.

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FrijolFrank

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The broth reduction is the correct answer because it is what the lard is actually doing — the fat carries the bean flavor and provides emulsification. A reduced broth does both of those things without animal fat. It took me a while to accept this but it is true.

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the_bean_broth

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This is the most important bean post I have read here. The broth is everything. People who drain their beans and throw away the broth are discarding the most valuable part of what they just made.

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