Whenever I think of red beans and rice I can’t help but sing Baby Got Back in my head and laugh at the fact that I had never made this dish before, let alone try it! I figured I should keep it simple for my first go of it and stick to a recipe that didn’t involve many ingredients. That way I could add my own spin on it later without compromising the underlying flavors.
Yum
With my list of ingredients ready, I got to work constructing this dish and was surprised at how quickly it all came together, I opted for canned red kidney beans to cut down on prep time, but you can use dried beans and soak them if you prefer.
One thing to note is that this makes a lot of food, so choose your pan accordingly, the recipe that I found called for a “large saucepan” but they must have a different opinion on what that entails… Instead I used my trusty Lodge Dutch Oven
If you are pressed for time, you can swap out the regular white rice for minute rice and I’m sure the results will be just as good, I happened to have tons of jasmine rice lying around from the last time we made curry, so I chose to use up what I had on hand.
The finishing touch to this dish (at least this version) was the addition of the fresh cilantro at the end. I also added some chopped-up garlic shoots, but if you don’t grow your own garlic, you could add chives or green onion too.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 large cloves garlic, minced
- 1 large red onion, diced
- 1 stalk celery, diced
- 1 green bell pepper, stem and seeds removed and small diced
- 2 (1¬pound) cans red kidney beans
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon hot sauce
- 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup white rice
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro leaves
Instructions
- Heat olive oil over medium ¬high heat in a large saucepan.
- Sauté the garlic, onion, celery, and bell pepper until tender, stir in kidney beans, onion powder, salt, pepper, and hot sauce (I used sriracha)
- Reduce heat to low, allow to simmer while you cook the rice.
- In a separate sauce pan, bring the chicken stock to a boil and stir in rice and butter. Return to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 20 minutes without removing the lid. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes.
- Fold rice and beans gently together. Serve garnished with cilantro, chopped green onions, or garlic shoots.