Bean Dip Recipe with Ground Beef (Refried Bean Casserole)
This Bean Dip Recipe is rich, spicy, and thick enough to snap a chip clean in half. You’ll go back in after it. Everybody does.
You smell it before you even see it. Warm chile, cumin, a little smoke, and the whole house finds a reason to wander through the kitchen.
We call it Refried Bean Casserole around here, and in ten years it has never once made it back to the fridge on a night we had people over.
Twenty minutes, one pot, and the thing that makes it scoop like that is sitting in a can in your pantry right now.
Why You’ll Love This One
- Twenty minutes start to finish on the stovetop.
- Three pounds of seasoned beef, so this ground beef dip eats like dinner instead of a snack.
- One batch feeds us all week, and it’s still good on day four.
I batch cook once a week, and lately this goes into the fridge every single time alongside our Mexican Crack Chicken. Then everybody takes it and does whatever creates whatever lunch or dinner they want with it.
Chad turns his into nachos. Although honestly, half the time he doesn’t even bother, he just puts it in a bowl and eats it with a spoon. Sassy makes herself a burrito or a taco.
I’ve made it well over a hundred times, and Sassy has loved it since she was little. She makes it herself now and still asks me to make it anyway. That’s the part that gets me. She says it tastes better when Mom makes it. {{{gush}}}
When company comes, I go straight to bean dip nachos. We love, love, love this recipe.
Donna’s Pro Tips for Bean Dip Recipe
- Leave about two tablespoons of the grease in the pot. Chile powder, cumin, and smoked paprika are oil-soluble, so that fat is what carries the seasoning through all three pounds. It’s a game changer.
- Keep the spices moving the whole time they’re in there. Smoked paprika and chile powder scorch fast on a hot pot. Constant stirring gets you that even brick red instead of burnt specks.
- The bag of shredded cheese is the right call here. In a smooth sauce the anti-caking starch turns it pasty, which is why I grate my own for those. This gets stirred in off the heat for gooey pockets, so the bag works and nobody will ever know.
Mashed pinto beans are mostly starch, and starch granules swell up to thirty times their size in a hot, wet pot, tangling into a mesh that thickens everything around them.
So one can suspends three pounds of beef and all the fat it renders, which is why this warm bean dip holds on a chip instead of sliding off it.
That mesh does the exact job cream cheese does in every other hot bean dip out there.
Bean Dip with Ground Beef
Three pounds of it, cooked down and seasoned in the same pot.
A bean dip with ground beef in it behaves nothing like a refried bean dip built on cream cheese, and that’s why my family eats this ground beef dip as a meal more often than a snack.
Bean Dip Recipe Ingredient Notes
Mexican seasoning blend: Our Homemade Mexican Spice Blend is the whole personality of this dish.
Ground beef: 88% lean leaves the perfect amount of dripping in the pan but. Anywhere from 85 to 90 works.
Refried beans: I use Rosarita Spicy Jalapeno. Plain ones make a milder refried bean dip, and either way they are what turns this into a ground beef dip you can scoop.
What Do You Serve With This Bean Dip Recipe?
Chips and Fritos Scoops first, then pico, guacamole, sour cream, and lime so everyone builds their own.
- In a bowl with chips. Cheese and guacamole on top, no plate, no assembly. This is how Chad eats the refried bean dip most nights.
- Sheet pan nachos. Chips on the tray, spoon it over, more cheese, under the broiler. See our Sheet Pan Baked Nachos with Ground Beef.
- Tacos, tostadas, and quesadillas. Soft flour, hard shells, a flat crispy tostada, or just cheese and a hot pan.
- Loaded sweet potatoes. Split, fluffed, and spooned full.
Set our Chunky Guacamole and Baked Queso Dip beside it, or make our 7 Layer Mexican Bean Dip for the cold one.
Refried Beans Casserole FAQ
The beef. Three pounds, cooked and seasoned right in the pot. Most versions are a cream cheese base with beef as an optional add-in, so this beef and bean dip is closer to a casserole with refried beans than a dip.
Yes. A bean dip without cream cheese works because the bean starch thickens it and suspends the fat, which is the job the dairy does everywhere else.
Cook three pounds of beef with salt in a Dutch oven, stir in the seasoning blend, then the refried beans.
Pull it off the heat and stir the cheese through. That is the whole hot bean dip recipe, twenty minutes, oven off.
Yes, and I make this refried bean casserole weekly for exactly that reason. Covered in the refrigerator it’s best within three days, safe for four, and it freezes for three months.
Fritos Original Bean Dip is still on shelves. It’s a smooth, mild, room-temperature scoop, so it’s a different thing from a hot beef dip you build with seasoned beef and melted cheese.
Yes. Make this hot bean dip on the stove, then hold the warm bean dip in a slow cooker set to warm, stirring every half hour.
A covered 350 degree F oven keeps a hot beef dip party-ready just as well.
One can of beans to one pound of beef, with a ¾-1 tablespoon of seasoning per pound. That bean dip with refried beans ratio stretches the meat a long way and turns it into a casserole with refried beans that feeds a whole table.
Back the seasoning off once you’re doubling or tripling.
Enjoy!
With love, from our simple kitchen to yours.
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Bean Dip Recipe (Refried Bean Casserole)
Ingredients
- 3 pounds 88% lean ground beef
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons Mexican seasoning blend, store-bought or homemade (blend recipe in Donna’s Notes)
- 16 ounces spicy jalapeno refried beans (1 can, about 1 3/4 cups)
- 8 ounces shredded Mexican cheese blend (about 2 cups)
For Serving (optional)
- 1 cup pico de gallo, store-bought or homemade
- 2 ounces queso fresco or cotija cheese, crumbled (about 1/2 cup)
Instructions
- COOK THE BEEF: Set a 5-quart or larger Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add 3 pounds 88% lean ground beef and 1 tablespoon kosher salt. Cook for 10 to 12 minutes, breaking the beef into very small crumbles with a wooden spoon as it cooks. Small crumbles make the finished casserole easy to scoop with a chip and spread in a tortilla. This is taco meat, so cook it just until it is done and keep the crumbles soft. The salt pulls juice out of the beef, so the pot looks a little watery early on, and that is exactly right. It is done when every crumble is cooked through with no pink left. Tilt the pot, and if more than about 2 tablespoons of grease pool in the bottom, spoon the extra into a heatproof bowl.
- STIR IN THE SEASONING AND BEANS: Sprinkle 2 tablespoons Mexican seasoning blend over the beef and stir for about 1 minute, until every crumble is coated in red and a warm chile and cumin aroma rises from the pot. Add 16 ounces spicy jalapeno refried beans (1 can, about 1 3/4 cups) and stir for 2 to 3 minutes. The thick beans soften and melt into the beef until the mixture looks even, with no pockets of plain beans left. Scrape the bottom of the pot as you stir so the beans stay creamy and the pot stays clean.
- MELT IN THE CHEESE: Turn off the heat and slide the pot to a cool burner. Stir in 8 ounces shredded Mexican cheese blend (about 2 cups) for about 30 seconds, just until the cheese is streaked all through the beef. Stop when you see soft, gooey pockets of cheese throughout. Off the heat, the cheese melts just enough to leave those gooey pockets all through the casserole.
- SERVE: Spoon the casserole into a large serving dish, such as a 9×13-inch baking dish. Top with 1 cup pico de gallo and 2 ounces queso fresco or cotija cheese, crumbled (about 1/2 cup). Serve it warm as a dip with tortilla chips, spooned into warm flour or corn tortillas, over white rice, or piled on chips as the base for nachos.
Donna’s Notes
Originally published June 2024, updated and republished September 2026
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We’re Donna and Chad, the dream team behind The Slow Roasted Italian. Our focus is on taking complicated OUT of the kitchen. Life is busy enough, making meals should be fast and easy, to help make your life as simple as possible. Read More >>
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Hi Lydia!
We’re glad you enjoyed the recipe!
TSRI Team Member,
Devlyn