So you have taken care of your leftovers in a frugal manner and are looking for a dish which can soak them up and turn into something really tasty as well as being laughably cheap?
Red beans and rice! A Creole favourite, it uses simple basic ingredients which you should already have in your pantry and soaks up leftovers like nobody’s business. You can also toss everything into the slow cooker and come home to a wonderfully fragrant house with dinner ready and waiting for you.
1 pound dry red kidney beans
3 qts water or stock*
1 pound diced cooked ham, bacon, or sausage*
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup Worcester sauce*
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper (chili)
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
3 bay leaves
hot cooked rice
Wash and sort the beans, discarding any that are broken. Combine beans and water in a large Dutch oven and cook for 40 minutes.
Add the next 8 ingredients, cover the pot, reduce the heat, and simmer for 2 hours. Bring to a boil, uncover the pot, reduce the heat to a simmer, and simmer uncovered until desired level of thickness is reached. Discard bay leaves and serve over rice. You can also do what I do and toss all the ingredients into the slow cooker and let it rip all day!
* Vegan/vegetarian alternative: swap out about 1/4 cup of the beans for 1/4 cup of black turtle beans, add about a cup of coarsely chopped dried mushrooms and soy sauce to taste.
8 responses to “Red beans and rice”
[…] its own comedy later!) and now have 5 quarts of incredibly tasty ham stock to make soups, stews, or red beans and rice […]
[…] the likes. It has a higher capital cost, but vastly increases what you can put up – see my red beans recipe for an example of what you can do with previously pressure canned […]
You forgot bell pepper, celery, thyme, sage, and cajun seasoning!! Otherwise, looks awesome! Can’t wait to try 😉
very much depends on how you want to customise the recipe… but that’s the joy of making it yourself, isn’t it 🙂
After you make your beans can you can the leftovers?
only if you have a pressure canner. You cannot boiling water bath can beans.
Hey Stuart
I am wanting to can Red Beans & Rice for my son on deployment. What is the difference between the water bath and the pressure canning? I don’t have a pressure cooker.
water bath canning is for high acid foods, such as pickles, jams, relishes. You need a pressure canner to preserve low acid foods such as vegetables, beans, meat, stocks, soups etc.
I use a Presto 23 quart pressure canner (Amazon ASIN B0000BYCFU, currently on sale for under $63 which is a phenomenal price) for all my low acid canning. Beans, being a low acid food, need to be pressure canned.