Intro: Welcome, welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.

Susie Weinrich: Beans, beans, the magical fruit. Is it magical or musical? I always said it was the magical fruit, but then somebody on Instagram had a post where they said musical fruit, which would make sense because it’s talking about farts.

Welcome to this episode of Let’s Make Dinner. Alright, so you guessed it. Today we are making a bean dish. We’re making Instant Pot Refried Beans. If you have never made your own refried beans, if you’ve been intimidated or you’ve tried to make them and they don’t really turn out, this is a fool proof, fool poof, fool proof recipe for refried beans that you make in your instant pot, which is so great because it’s mostly hands off and they’re so delicious when I make them, I eat them straight out of the Instant Pot, and then I regret it later because I have a stomach ache. 

Tips and Tricks: Okay, so not a ton of tips and tricks here. The Instant Pot that I use is a 6 quart Instant Pot, and so I will link that for you in the show notes. If you don’t have an Instant Pot, I highly recommend getting one. I love my instant pot, especially in the fall when I’m making soups or large cuts of meat like pot roast or shredded beef or shredded pork, anything like that, it is just wonderful for. 

Instant Pot Refried Bean Recipe: So let’s go ahead and just get straight into the recipe for your Instant Pot Refried Beans. We are going to start this recipe by taking care of the pinto beans. That is what refried beans are made of. So you need one pound of dry pinto beans. What you want to do is just put those dry pinto beans into a mesh sieve or a colander and give them a really good rinse. If there’s any stems or any weird pieces in there, take those out. and then you can just set them aside.

Now you need to grab your instant pot and we’re going to pop that onto saute mode and you’re going to add three tablespoons of olive oil or you could use a vegetable oil that would work here as well. Then once that’s nice and warm you’re going to saute one white onion, four garlic cloves, and one jalapeno. All of those can just be roughly chopped because they’re going to be pureed down later on.

So saute those for about four to five minutes just to start to enhance their flavors and get them softening. After that, you’re going to add in one tablespoon of chicken base. Chicken base is like a paste form of bouillon and you can find it in the soup aisle. It’s a way more flavorful option than regular bouillon, and we love the brand, it’s actually called Better Than Bouillon. Okay. So that’s a great one to look for in the grocery store. 

Then you’re also going to add two teaspoons of chili powder, two teaspoons of cumin. One teaspoon each of onion powder and kosher salt. Just give that all a stir so that it coats the onions and garlic and jalapeno.

Next, you’re going to pour in four cups of chicken broth or stock and one and a half cups of water. If you have any bits that have browned to the bottom of the Instant Pot, you want to scrape those up at this point. Now you can turn off that sauté mode and you can add in those rinsed, dry pinto beans and one bay leaf. Now give everything a really good stir. 

Now we’re going to get to the cooking part. You’re going to close the lid on the Instant Pot. Make sure you set that pressure valve to seal. You’re going to set it to cook on just your manual normal pressure cook, high pressure, normal heat for 50 minutes. Then at the end of the 50 minutes, you’re going to do a 15 minute natural pressure release and then finish with a quick release. 

Now once you open up your Instant Pot, if some of the very top layer of beans didn’t stay down in the liquid, some of those may have a little crunch or a little dryness to them still. You can skim off that top layer of beans and just use the beans that cooked really well and soft down in the liquid.

At this point, you also want to remove the bay leaf and discard that. Now, some recipes will have you draining the liquid off the beans and then adding it back. We don’t need to do that. There is the perfect amount of liquid in the beans so that they puree up really, oh my gosh, so creamy and so good. You are absolutely going to love these.

So what I like to do is actually use my immersion blender and just start to puree everything up. We like our refried beans really smooth, so I puree them until they are creamy and smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender and you like your refried beans a little bit more chunky, you could just use a handheld potato masher. But if you do like the smooth consistency and you don’t have that immersion blender, you can transfer the beans and the liquid to either a food processor, or a food mill, or a really strong blender. If you’re using the blender, make sure that the beans and the liquid are slightly cooled before you add them, or your blender may explode. No worries. Your Instant Pot’s not going to explode, but your blender might explode. 

Okay. So once you’ve got them pureed up, you’re going to squeeze some fresh lime juice into the beans. I usually like to do one small lime and I just squeeze the entire thing in, stir it up, and then give it a taste. See if you want a little more kosher salt. Do you want a little more lime juice? Do you want a little more spice? At this point, if you like them a little bit more spicy, I would put in a couple dashes of cayenne pepper. 

So the trick is with your refried beans, if you want to serve them immediately, once they’re sitting, they will start to thicken up and firm up and then the top will also dry out. So if you do need to hold them for a little bit, I recommend putting a little plastic wrap right on top of those beans so it doesn’t get that dry layer on top. So of course, refried beans go excellent with any Mexican dinner. So you’re talking tacos, burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas. Think about when you go to a Mexican restaurant, and the side dish is usually rice and beans. So that’s where we like to serve these. I’ll tell you what, these refried beans, leftover, they’re thick and delicious, and they make the most killer refried bean burrito, ever. So you can use the leftovers for that too because this does make quite a few beans. I will link some delicious Mexican dinner recipes in the show notes for you as well so that you can have something to pair these refried beans with. 

Outro: So that does it for the full recipe and as always I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya!

Double Dip: All right, everybody. Thank you so much for sticking around. Now it’s time for your double dip. Every week I share the recipe that we will be making next Thursday on the podcast so that you can have all of the ingredients ready and cook along with me next week. So we will be making a Marinated Grilled Tri Tip with mustard Butter next week.

This is a great recipe as the temperatures start to cool and you’re ready to get out and cook on your grill again. So for this recipe next week, you’re going to need a 2 to 3 pound beef tri tip, 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, some extra virgin olive oil, 2 garlic cloves, smoked paprika, onion powder, brown sugar, kosher salt, and a coarse ground black pepper.

Then for the mustard butter, you only need three ingredients and you probably already have all of them. Salted butter, Dijon mustard, and black pepper. So, basically what we’re doing is we are marinating a tri tip and you can marinate it in the morning and then cook it in the evening or you can marinate it on Thursday and grill it on Friday for dinner.

The mustard butter can also be made ahead of time, so if you want to make that in the morning and have it for dinner in the evening, or you can make it on Thursday and have it ready in the fridge for dinner on Friday. But that is all you need. So I hope you will join me then. But until that episode, I hope you guys have a wonderful week ahead.

Intro: Welcome, welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: What’s good everybody? So if you’re listening to this episode in real time, then it’s either back to school day or it’s back to school time for you. For us, our kids went back to school on Wednesday and the house has been very, very quiet ever since. So now that we’re getting back into the rhythm of schedules and running to soccer practice and swim practice and basketball practice and all of the things, dinner time gets the shaft basically. So what we need now, and I think you’re the same if you’ve got kids, you need easy, quick recipes that are still delicious and nutritious for your family.

So that’s what we’re focusing on today. We’re making something called a Pesto Lasagna Skillet. The nice thing about this is that you get flavors of a full lasagna, but it is made in a skillet. It’s made super quick, like 30 minutes, and it is delicious with very few dirty dishes. So I hope that you like this recipe and that you’ll make it for dinner. If you do and you love it, give it five stars on the actual recipe card and leave me a little comment that you listen to it here on this podcast. 

Tips and Tricks: As for tips and tricks today, the only thing I want to talk about really quickly is the pesto. Obviously this recipe has a pesto, Pesto Lasagna Skillet. When you’re looking for pesto, if you aren’t going to make fresh pesto, which actually I will link a fresh pesto recipe right in the show notes for you. It’s actually pretty easy. It’s just done right in a blender. If you’re not gonna make your own pesto, then buy one at the store and your best bet is going to be buying a refrigerated pesto. It’s gonna have the best flavor. It’s gonna be the freshest. Now if you want to go shelf stable, what I recommend is that you look at the ingredients of the pesto bottles and make sure that basil is one of the first at least three ingredients.

The other thing you’re going to need is a large skillet. So whenever I make a skillet lasagna, I use my all clad pan and it is not nonstick. You could use a nonstick pan, but it’s not necessary. It’s about a 12 inch pan. It’s got about two to three inch high sides and then it has a nice tight fitting lid. You definitely need a pan with a lid to trap that heat and steam to cook the lasagna noodles. 

Pesto Lasagna Skillet Recipe: With all of that said, let’s go ahead and get into the full recipe for Pesto Lasagna Skillet. The first thing you’re going to do is actually toast a quarter cup of pine nuts. We’re going to actually add those at the end, but before you put anything in your skillet, you want to toast those nuts.

So, take that large skillet, put it over low heat, pop a quarter cup of pine nuts, and just roll them around in the pan until they start to brown, not burn, just brown, and they’ll start to smell really nutty. They actually, to me, when pine nuts start to toast, they smell like bacon. Take them out of the pan and just set them aside in a little bowl. We’ll use those later. 

Now set that empty skillet back over medium heat and you’re going to cook and crumble one pound of Italian sausage. You can use hot, mild, sweet, whatever bulk Italian sausage you want, go ahead and use that. Now after that’s browned and nice and crumbled up, you’re going to drain any excess grease from the pan.

Now to that, you’re going to add a half a cup of chopped onions, two chopped garlic cloves, one teaspoon of dried oregano, and a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt to the pan. Saute that around for about four to five minutes. 

Now it’s time to get things going. You’re going to need to add one and three quarters cup of water, a 15 ounce can of diced tomatoes that has been drained and then about 6 to 7 ounces of the pesto to the pan. You’re going to give that a really good stir and then bring it to a boil over medium high heat. 

As soon as that starts boiling, you’re going to take 8 to 10 lasagna noodles and break them up into 1 or 2 inch pieces and start nestling them down into that hot liquid. Now for the lasagna noodles, you can use either oven-ready noodles or you can use traditional noodles. Both work. But what I’ll say is that I usually prefer the traditional noodles because they’re just a little bit thicker and heartier than the oven-ready ones. 

After you have all of the lasagna noodle pieces nestled down into that liquid, you’re going to lower the heat to low and you’re going to pop that lid on the pan and cook for 12 minutes. After that 12 minutes, you’re going to open that pan back up and you’re going to take a half a cup of ricotta and you’re going to just dot spoonfuls all over the top of the lasagna and then you can shimmy them down into the sauce. Then top that with about 4 ounces of shredded mozzarella all over the top. You’ll pop that lid back on and cook for an additional 10 minutes. After that 10 minutes, you remove the lid, remove that pan from the heat, and just let it sit for about five minutes. Then right before serving, you will garnish it with those toasted pine nuts, and it’s ready to eat. 

So you can serve this up with a really nice side salad and some garlic bread, and you are good to go. You have a really easy and quick dinner that’s perfect for a weeknight, but also delicious enough for a weekend family dinner. 

As always, I will link this full recipe for you in the show notes so that you can take a look at it, you can print it, you can pin it to save the recipe, and hopefully make it for dinner.

Outro: So, until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinnertime a little easier. See ya!

Double Dip: All right, now it’s time for your weekly double dip. In the double dip we just go over the recipe that we are going to make next week on the podcast so that you can have the ingredients you need to cook along with me every Thursday. So next week we have more of a side dish that we’re making but such a good side dish. We’re making Instant Pot Refried Beans.

If you’ve never made your own refried beans, this is your opportunity. It’s amazing. Highly, highly recommend. You don’t need much to make them, so let me tell you what you’re going to need to grab. 

You’re going to need about one pound of dry pinto beans, three tablespoons of olive oil, a white onion, some garlic cloves, one jalapeno, one tablespoon of chicken base. Chicken base is kind of like chicken bouillon, but way more flavorful. You can find it in the soup aisle by the bouillon. But it usually comes in a tub or a jar, and we like the Better Than Bouillon brand. 

From your spice cabinet, you’re going to need cumin, onion powder, kosher salt, and a bay leaf. You need four cups of chicken broth, some water, and then a fresh lime. Then of course, you’ll need an instant pot. 

So if you plan to make this, it goes great with any kind of Mexican dinner, enchiladas, burritos, tacos, quesadillas, you know, any kind of Mexican dinner where you would serve rice and beans on the side. I hope you’ll join me next week to make these Instant Pot Refried Beans.