If you’re staring at a soupy, watery bowl of refried beans, you need a solution – and fast!
I have personally experimented with 9 different thickening techniques, to see what delivers the best consistency, without impacting the flavor.
In a rush? Here’s the short answer.
The best way to thicken refried beans is to cook them for longer. Heat the beans in a saucepan on a low heat, stirring frequently until your desired consistency is reached. Other methods for thickening refried beans include frying the beans, using a cornstarch slurry, and adding extra beans.
A note on my experiment
I cooked up a big (delicious) batch of refried beans making sure to add more water than recommended so they ended up a little soupy.
Then I tested nine different ways of thickening the beans up.
- Cooking the beans for longer – medium thickening power
- Frying the beans in a skillet – medium to strong thickening power
- Adding a cornstarch slurry – very strong thickening powder
- Adding a beurre manie – strong thickening power
- Adding some extra mashed beans – weak to medium thickening power
- Adding some xanthan gum – extremely strong thickening power
- Adding potato flakes – strong thickening power
- Thickening the beans in the fridge – weak thickening power
- Straining the beans – weak thickening power
My favorite options were adding more beans, cooking the beans for longer (either in a pan or a skillet), or using a cornstarch slurry.
Related: How Long Can Beans Soak In The Fridge?
How to thicken refried beans
Here I got into each of the methods in more detail and give step by step instructions for you to follow.
Cooking the beans for longer
- Transfer the beans to a saucepan and heat them on a low heat with no lid.
- Stir every minute or two to prevent the beans from burning or sticking to the pan.
- Keep heating and stirring the mixture until it reaches your desired consistency.
Cooking the beans for longer allows the excess liquid to evaporate, leaving you with thick, creamy beans.
It can be tempting to turn the heat up to get the liquid to evaporate faster, but this massively increases the chances of your beans burning.
Also, you might find that the moisture evaporates off too fast, and your beans will dry out.
How long you need to heat the beans depends on how watery they are. 5 minutes will be enough for a light thickening, but you might be waiting 15-20 minutes for a significantly thicker mixture.
Pros: simple and easy, no extra ingredients needed.
Cons: takes some time.
Frying the beans
A quicker alternative to cooking the beans for longer is to fry them in a pan.
- Heat some neutral-tasting oil or butter in a skillet on a medium heat.
- Add the refried beans a few scoops at a time and fry them in the pan until they’ve reached your desired consistency.
- Stir continuously.
This method works better with smaller quantities. You want to be able to stir all the beans easily, so nothing gets burnt.
If you have a lot of beans to thicken, fry them in batches.
You could even choose to only fry half the mixture and reduce it until it’s really thick, then stir this back into the original runnier mixture to reach a middle ground.
Pros: this method gave the beans a nice ‘just-fried’ taste and added some texture in the form of crispy bits of bean.
Cons: you had to dirty a second pan, which meant more washing up!
Using a cornstarch slurry
- Mix together equal parts cornstarch and cold water (e.g. one tablespoon of each) until they form a smooth paste. Using one tablespoon of each will give you enough slurry to thicken 1-2 cups of liquid.
- Heat your refried beans to the point of simmering.
- Slowly mix the cornstarch slurry into the beans, constantly stirring to keep it lump-free
- Allow the slurry to work for around 2 minutes before assessing the thickness of the beans.
- If the beans aren’t thick enough, add some more slurry.
Cornstarch is a well-known thickener, you need to mix it with water first and then add it to hot beans. It won’t thicken a cold mixture.
Don’t heat the beans for too long after you’ve added the cornstarch slurry because it will eventually thin out again.
The same goes for heating the beans past boiling point – this reverses the thickening effect of the cornstarch.
Be aware that using a lot of cornstarch can give the beans a glossy finish and more of a gooey texture.
Also, avoid using cornstarch if you want to freeze the refried beans because it gets a funny texture after freezing.
If you don’t have cornstarch (or want to freeze the mixture), you can substitute it for a different starch-based thickener.
- Arrowroot powder has a similar thickening ability, so it’s a 1:1 sub. It’s a good gluten-free alternative.
- Potato starch is another 1:1 substitute.
- Flour is a popular option, but you’ll need to use double the amount, so a one tablespoon slurry will thicken a maximum of one cup of liquid.
- Rice flour or tapioca flour are good alternative flour options. Again, you’ll need to use double the amount.
All of these substitutes are fine for freezing. With the flour options, you’ll have to cook the refried beans for an extra few minutes to cook off any raw flour flavor.
Pros: the mixture thickens really quickly and I didn’t notice any changes in the taste.
Cons: depends on you having some cornstarch on hand.
Using a beurre manie
- Measure out equal parts flour and hand-softened butter by volume (one tablespoon of each will be enough to thicken 1 cup of liquid).
- Mix the flour and butter together until you have a smooth paste.
- Heat your beans until the point of simmering.
- Take a few tablespoons of the refried beans mixture and mix it into the beurre manie until there are no lumps.
- Then take this mixture and slowly mix it back into the main pot of refried beans.
- Wait 2-3 minutes for the thickener to take effect before deciding if you need to add more.
- Simmer the mixture for 5 minutes after adding the last of the beurre manie to cook off any raw flour flavor (or do this by taste).
Making a smaller mixture with some of the refried beans and the beurre manie helps ensure the final product is smooth and doesn’t have any lumps of flour in it.
Always taste the mixture before you finish cooking it to make sure you can’t taste any raw flour. If you can, keep heating it until the flavor cooks off.
If you don’t have butter, you can mix the flour with water but you’ll have to be more vigilant to lumps forming.
Pros: the butter added a nice hint of richness to the beans and the mixture thickened well.
Cons: if you need to add a lot the butter can become too rich and the flour can dull the flavors of the beans.
Adding extra beans
- Drain a can of beans (or cook some and drain them).
- Mash or puree the beans, using some olive oil to help get a smooth texture if needed, but don’t add too much liquid.
- Mix the dry mashed beans into your refried beans.
- Taste the mixture and add some more seasoning to taste.
It doesn’t matter what kind of beans you add because they’re not going to make up the bulk of the dish.
Just use whatever’s in your cupboard, whether that’s black beans, kidney beans, butterbeans, chickpeas, etc.
Adding extra unseasoned beans will dilute the flavors and could result in a dull dish. Always taste the dish after you’ve added the beans and see if it needs some more flavor.
Psst… this method is best when you only need a little boost of thickness.
Pros: you get more refried beans which means leftovers!
Cons: I had to mash the beans by hand which was a bit of effort, and you need a lot of beans to make a big difference.
Using xanthan gum
- Weigh your refried beans and make a note of the results (see notes below if you can’t weigh the beans)
- For a light thickening, weigh out 0.5% of the total weight of the beans in xanthan gum. For a heavy thickening, you can use up to 1% of the total weight of the beans.
- Create a vortex in your refried beans with a whisk and sprinkle the xanthan gum into the vortex as you continue to whisk (alternatively, use a blender).
- Continue whisking for 20-30 seconds. The sauce should have thickened. If you want it thicker, add some more xanthan gum.
Xanthan gum is a popular keto-friendly thickener and is super powerful.
So powerful that the main danger is over-thickening your sauce. Too much xanthan gum will turn your refried beans horrible and gummy.
If you don’t want to bother with weighing, then just go pinch by pinch. As a general guide, 1/8th of a teaspoon of xanthan gum will moderately thicken 1 cup of sauce.
If you’ve never used it before, I suggest practicing on a small portion of beans first. That way you’ll get an idea of how much you need to add to see an effect.
It’s important to add the xantham gum while the beans are moving because the powder will clump as soon as it hits liquid. If you sprinkle it over the beans and stir slowly, the xanthan gum won’t disperse properly, and you’ll get gummy lumps in your beans.
Pros: xanthan gum is a magic ingredient. It thickened my beans instantly and didn’t affect the taste at all. It also works at any temperatures.
Cons: you can quickly ruin your dish and make it inedible if you add too much. It’s also fiddly to use.
Using potato flakes
- Heat your beans to the point of simmering.
- Add in a small amount of potato flakes and stir until well incorporated. One tablespoon of flakes will thicken one cup of sauce.
- Wait 2-3 minutes for the potato flakes to take full effect.
- Check the thickness of the beans and add more potato flakes if needed.
- Taste the mixture and and season.
I never eat instant mashed potatoes, but I always have a packet of instant potatoes in my cupboard reserved for emergency thickening.
When you add potato flakes to a liquid, they absorb said liquid and expand, thickening the sauce.
You might need to add some extra seasoning, because the potato flakes are a starch and will dull the flavors in the beans.
Pros: this method works well for light thickening.
Cons: I wouldn’t recommend it for heavy thickening, because too many potato flakes will give the beans a grainy texture.
Leaving the beans in the fridge
Refried beans naturally dry out and thicken as they cool. The effect will be more pronounced the more fat you have in the beans because the fat will harden as it cools. So if you don’t plan on eating the beans soon, you can simply reply on this natural thickening process.
However this will only work is you need a light-medium thickening effect! After an hour in the fridge me beans were a little thicker, but not much.
I also tested using the freezer to see if it would speed up the process, but it didn’t. After 20 minutes my beans were still quite runny.
Pros: a really easy option if you have time.
Cons: you need to have thought ahead and not be planning to eat your beans soon!
Straining the beans
If the beans are really watery, a good start is to put them into a sieve or cheesecloth and let the excess water drain out.
But this method only works if your beans aren’t fully mashed yet. If you’ve already mashed or pureed the beans, I don’t recommend this method.
Pros: good for getting rid of lots of liquid at once.
Cons: won’t work in the majority of cases.
Related: How To Stop Bean Skins Coming Off
Tips for next time (how to avoid soupy refried beans)
The main reason people end up with ‘soupy’ refried beans is using too much liquid, so here’s a tip for next time.
To have total control over the thickness of the beans, drain all the cooking water into a separate bowl and slowly add it back in while you mash or puree the beans.
It’s pretty hard to add too much water this way because you can see the consistency develop as you go.
If you want to have the liquid and the beans all ready to go, I suggest having the water level just slightly above the beans.
You should be able to move the beans around easily, but they shouldn’t be drowning.
What to do refried beans are too thick
If your refried beans are too thick, simply thin them out with some extra water. Bean cooking water is best because it has the most flavor, but plain water is fine if you used canned beans or have just run out of cooking water. You could also use stock to get some extra flavor into the beans.
The BEST Way To Thicken Refried Beans
Ingredients
- 1 portion refried beans
Instructions
- The best way to thicken refried beans is to cook them for longer. Cooking the beans for longer allows the excess liquid to evaporate, leaving you with thick, creamy beans.
- Transfer the beans to a saucepan and heat them on a low heat with no lid.
- Stir every minute or two to prevent the beans from burning or sticking to the pan.
- Keep heating and stirring the mixture until it reaches your desired consistency.
- It can be tempting to turn the heat up to get the liquid to evaporate faster, but this massively increases the chances of your beans burning.Also, you might find that the moisture evaporates off too fast, and your beans will dry out.
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