Jim’s Infamous Frito-Bean Salad Recipe
November 11, 2008 by Greg
So, for years now, Jim, a fellow neuroscience grad student, has come to parties with his salad (Including the July 4th pig roast this past summer). When we have parties, essentially at this point, we have come to expect that he will be there. Not necessarily with beer or wine, or anything but the frito-bean salad. I also know what you’re thinking right now. ”Fritos? I haven’t had them since 6th grade. And a bean salad with fritos? This cant be good!”. Well, I’m here to tell you that this assumption is completely incorrect. The salad is great and is always a the hit of the party.
In order to make the salad, you will need:
- 1 small to medium white onion chopped fine
- 1 green bell pepper chopped (remove seeds & core)
- 1 fresh medium tomato chopped
- 1 x 8oz can of dark kidney beans (make sure to rinse & drain multiple times)
- ~6 oz shredded *sharp* cheddar cheese
- ~12 oz Kraft Catalina salad dressing (or equivalent, see below)
- 1 1/2 tsp powdered Chipotle pepper
- ~1/2 tsp powdered Cayenne pepper
- 2/3 Bag of Fritos (NOT the single serving size)
To start, you should open the bag of fritos and crush them (If you didn’t open them, you will pop the bag, just be fore-warned). Mix all of the ingredients together, sans fritos, and then fold them into the salad to serve.
It’s simple as can be, though there are some caveats you should think about.
- Tomatoes should be acidic and juicy. Avoid Beefsteak and other
extra firm tomatoes. - Depending on how juicy the veggies are, you need to adjust the
liquid content so that it slightly wet but not soupy. You accomplish
this by adding more or less salad dressing. The chips should not be
dry & crunchy. - Be careful of the Cayenne pepper. It’s hard to go too heavy on
Chipotle, but, you need to taste the salad as you add red pepper.
This mix should have a slightly warm burn but not be biting hot. - The low fat Catalina dressing is just as good as full fat. Avoid
the fat free version. (I don’t necessarily believe this, but for now, until I get feedback from myself or you, the readers, I’ll have to trust it!) - Sometimes you just can’t get Catalina dressing. An interesting
substitute is a container of Ken’s Country French dressing plus 2
heaping Tbs Mayo plus a little sugar if the mix is sour (don’t use
Kraft or Wishbone French or any of the other typically cheap French
dressings). It’s not the same, but still tastes good. There are
multiple recipes to replicate Catalina online. I can’t vouch for any
of them. - It kind of sucks to have 1/3 a bag of crushed Fritos left over, so,
if you go a little large on the other ingredients, you can use the
whole bag.
This recipe comes right from Jim, though he does say that it has existed for a while. However, Jim does spice it up a bit, so of course, you can tweak the direction of the spice whichever way you want it, higher or lower. Personally, I think it’s nice where it is, or even a tiny bit hotter, but do as you please! This is a great cold salad, worthy of any occasion but especially welcome in summer events.
[...] So, for years now, Jim, a fellow neuroscience grad student, has come to parties with his salad (Including the July 4th pig roast this past summer). When we have parties, essentially at this point, we have come to expect that he will be .. Original post [...]
[...] has come to parties with his salad (Including the July 4th pig roast this past summer). When we. View post Add your [...]
[...] Greg wrote a fantastic post today on “Jimâ??s Infamous Frito-Bean Salad Recipe | food, wine, beer, culture”Here’s ONLY a quick extractSo, for years now, Jim, a fellow neuroscience grad student, has come to parties with his salad (Including the July 4th pig roast this past summer). When we. [...]
[...] this time, Jim (of the infamous Frito Bean salad dish) had dropped by on way home from the lab, so he grabbed a couple brews. I know that he enjoyed [...]
So I very much enjoyed frito beans at the octoberfestish party and having been asked to make a salad for this years school reunion back in the UK I thought Frito bean would go down well. And I made it, however I was lacking the most integral ingrediants - fritos, america only and the catalina dressing which Kraft apperently deem only fit for Americans also. Hmmm, well fritos are essetially crisps, not ‘chips’ (chips are pieces of real potatoes fried whilst they are thick cut and which are then suitably doused with malt vinegar and heinz ketchup) so not hard to forfeit. The catalina dressing however presented more problems. I even have a friend who works for Kraft in the UK, whatsmore she is from N.America and yet, no, catalina dressing is not to be had in the UK. I was forced to opt for one of these ‘clone’ recipes. This is the one I used:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Clone-Krafts-Catalina-Salad-Dressing-44124
Apart from celery seed is not as easy to come by as you’d expect so I substituted cumin seed. Also the dressing turned out very red and ketchup-esk. My distinct memories of frito bean were all purple so lucky for me my mother makes alot of fresh beetroot so a few tablespoons of beetroot juice gave the necessary effect.
Salad went down well in general. It did have to compete with such english delicacies as pork pie and sausage roll so I’m understanding why there is still a whole casserole dish full left in the fridge waiting to accompany turkey sandwiches at about 5pm on thursday. But, we can safely say that frito bean is now an internationally accepted ’salad’, a hit world wide!
haha, excellent Harriet! Next time, we’ll try to export some of our finest American cuisine over to the UK for you to assemble the full recipe