web-log/container/site/content/posts/refried-beans/index.md

+++ categories = ["food"] tags = ["recipe","reverse-engineer","taco bell"] date = 2025-04-14T20:40:00-05:00 description = "Formulating seasoned refried beans inspired by Taco Bell, with a repeatable process and direct comparison to the original product." draft = false slug = "refried-beans" title = "🫘 Taco Bell Seasoned Refried Beans" author = "nicholas" +++

Formula

ingredient	%
pinto beans, cooked, drained	100.00%
water	60.00%
lard	6.00%
salt	1.50%
lime juice	0.60%
cumin	0.10%
oregano, dried	0.10%

Process

1. place beans in water

2. soak 8+ hr.

   ALTERNATIVE: QUICK SOAK:

   1. place beans in water
   2. bring water to the boil
   3. maintain boil, 2 min.
   4. remove from heat
   5. cover
   6. soak, 1 hr.

3. drain the water

4. place beans in fresh water

5. simmer ~2 hr.

6. drain

7. combine ingredients in blender

8. blend until very smooth

{{< image src="images/pinto-beans-cooked-drained.JPG" caption="Pinto beans cooked and drained" >}} {{< image src="images/pinto-beans-cooked-drained-weight.JPG" caption="Pinto beans cooked and drained, weight" >}}

{{< video src="videos/refried-beans-blend.MP4" width="100%" loop=true autoplay=true >}}

Results

Here are the beans, finished, in a big steaming bowl. I imagined that it would be difficult to make these beans appear appetizing, but frankly they look just downright edible to me, which I consider a feat. It surprises me because, of the the thankfully very few memories that remain of me emptying a can of refried beans, the ones that do stick out to me as being among the more vile ones. The job produces a whole constellation of bad sensory inputs: the sucking, flarping noises that accompany each attempt to shake the beans loose from their can, the glossy organic slime that coats the brown pâté, and then finally the last blows of the assault-- a sudden new smell of what you hope is ordinary canned refried beans. I report none of these experiences here.

Early in the blending process, the beans seem watery and loose as though measurement mistakes were made. But eventually they become unblendably thick, despite the mixture being composed of well over 50% water.

{{< image src="images/refried-beans-product.JPG" caption="Refried beans finished" >}}

---

Taco Bell - Seasoned Refried Beans

I am curious about the makeup of Taco Bell's Seasoned Refried Beans. I want to see how it compares to my own refried beans formulation. So I navigate to their nutrition calculator and try to isolate their bean nutrition by selecting a menu item that contains Seasoned Refried Beans and removing all of the other ingredients until only the beans remain.

{{< image src="images/taco-bell-refried-beans-nutrition.jpg" caption="Taco Bell Refried Beans nutrition" >}}

---

It turns out I can tweak the calculator values a bit to get better data. If I ask for 1000 servings, the calculator is forced to reveal the original, unrounded numbers. At least, this is what I imagine is happening. Anyway, I am able to get slightly better nutrition resolution this way.

{{< image src="images/taco-bell-refried-beans-nutrition-x1000.jpg" caption="Taco Bell nutrition calculator x1000" >}}

---

Taco bell also publishes an ingredient list, plainly listing the ingredients that make up their Seasoned Refried Beans (although, confusingly absent is water. Probably some trick of FDA labeling guidelines):

{{< image src="images/taco-bell-refried-beans-ingredient-list.jpg" caption="Taco Bell Refried Beans ingredient list" >}}

The ingredient list reveals roughly 5 ingredients that I care about:

• beans
• fat
• salt
• sugar
• spice

I will ignore the remaining ingredients.

First, I would like to know the weight of the serving size, which has been unhelpfully represented in terms of whole burritos. I will need to find the information elsewhere. This will allow me to calculate the ratios of each ingredient to the total weight, but I cannot know this without knowing the total weight.

This is only a problem if I care about how much water is present in the finished product (it is the only ingredient that contains no nutrients and therefore is not represented in the nutrition label, and is missing from the ingredient list), since the remaining nutrients have known ratios to each other. I could add any amount of water. This would work fine, but I would like to know more.

Like I mention, the nutrition calculator at the Taco Bell website does not produce a nutrition label that contains a serving size, so I will have to find the information elsewhere. This is not hard. I found an image on the internet that lists each Taco Bell ingredient and their respective target weights per portion. One portion of Seasoned Refried Beans is 3.0 oz (85 g).

If I assume that the nutrition information provided by the nutrition calculator for one Bean Burrito minus everything but the Seasoned Refried Beans contains a 3.0 oz portion, then I have everything I need to proceed.

{{< image src="images/taco-bell-target-weights.jpeg" caption="Taco Bell target weights" >}}

Now I can create a formula for the beans. I will be using grams / the metric system as my base unit of weight.

Nutrient	Calculation
Fat	\frac{3.4\ \text{g fat}}{85.0\ \text{g total}} = 0.04 \rightarrow 4\%
Salt	\frac{\left( \frac{395\,\text{mg salt}}{10^3} \right)}{85.0\ \text{g total}} = 0.0118 \rightarrow 1.18
Sugar	\left( \frac{0.62\ \text{g sugar}}{85.0\ \text{g total}} \right) = 0.0073 \rightarrow 0.73
Water, etc.	\frac{\left( 85.0\ \text{g total}- 3.4\ \text{g fat} - 1.0\ \text{g salt} - 16.2\ \text{g carbs} - 0.62\ \text{g sugar} \right)}{85.0 \text{g total}} = 0.75 \rightarrow 75\%

Water

The water calculation overestimates and establishes an upper bound on the true value. The calculation assumes that all of the weight of the serving size is accounted for by the nutrition weights, i.e. protein, carbohydrates, fat. This is not true, there is almost always other components, such as water, minerals, and other non-nutritives as seen in the image below.

{{< image src="images/food-data-central-pinto-bean-cooked-drained.jp" caption="Food Data Central - pinto beans, cooked, drained" >}}

Comparison

It looks like Taco Bell's formulation uses a little more fat and a little more salt. My formulation contains:

• $\approx 0.9$% salt
• $\approx 3.6$% fat

Versus Taco Bell's Seasoned Refried Beans:

• $\approx 1.18$% salt
• $\approx 4$% fat.

Pretty close.