Mexican Charro (Cowboy) Beans with A Twist

The official start to this year’s autumn season began just a few days ago, September twenty-three. The temperatures are slowly dropping in many areas of the Northern Hemisphere and people are starting to spend more time indoors. For me, autumn and cooler temperatures mean hearty stews and soups. Today I’d like to share with you one of my favourite Mexican stews that is perfect for autumn, winter…and even the warmer temperatures of the Tropics.

This scrumptious and hearty bean stew is known as frijoles charro, or cowboy beans. The dish is popular around Mexico and often served at parties and many restaurants. When I was growing up frijoles charros were always a favourite of mine, and today they continue to be so. The Mexican recipes and versions of cowboy beans are quite different than American versions. For starters we don’t use ketchup or barbecue sauces — at least I’ve never seen that in the Mexican charro beans I’ve eaten. There are many recipes for charro beans, it’s almost like every family has their own version — I alone have several that I like to switch between. But you know one of the amazing things about this dish is just that, you can play with the recipe and make it your own. This is one of the reasons why I love frijoles charros so much.

You can find the recipe and more interesting facts about Mexican frijoles charros in the article I wrote for my Spicy Food website on About.com. By the way, thank you so much for all of the supportive messages regarding this new and exciting chapter of Spicie Foodie.

Stop by for the recipe, I promise you’ll want to get the beans on the stove right away. As we say in Mexico, buen provecho or bon appetite!