Louisiana Red Beans and Rice Recipe

I’ve had a lot of posts about my visit to New Orleans such as my Visual Food Tour, Collard Greens Recipe, and Boudin Preparation. Normally, I like to mix things up, but when there is so much great food to choose from in New Orleans, why limit yourself?

On my first visit to New Orleans, my friend who lives there took me straight to a local bar called Coop’s after my flight landed for some amazing red beans and rice. Those red beans had sausage in them, but my recipe below does not. However, I urge you to add sausage if you want, but I didn’t have any on hand when I came up with this recipe. Nonetheless, I was very pleased by how they turned out. They were spicy, but not overly so and they contained tons of New Orleans Cajun flavors. Serve them over white rice or just as a side on their own.

Makes 1028 calories per pot or 10 servings at 103 calories each.

Ingredients

• 1 pound kidney beans (70 cal/serving or 840 cal total)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (120 cal)
• 1 large onion chopped (40 cal)
• 1 large green pepper chopped (8 cal)
• 2 tablespoons of garlic crushed (20 cal)
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (you can skip this, if this is too spicy for you)
• 1 teaspoon dry thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon dried sage
• 2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
• 1.5 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 5 cups of water
• 2 bay leaves
• optional: andouille sausage

Equipment

• Slow cooker or large pot
• Large bowl
• Large Sautee/Frying Pan
• Cup, tablespooon, and teaspoon measurement tools
• Knife
• Cutting Board
• Spoon and wooden spatula

Directions

1. Open a bag of dried red beans, place them into a large bowl, cover them with cold water, and let them soak overnight.
   
2. Drain the beans, rinse them, and drain again before placing them into the slow cooker or large pot.
   
3. Roughly chop a whole onion into 1/2 inch pieces and roughly chop a whole green pepper into 1/2 inch pieces as well.
4. In a large sautee pan, place 1 tablespoon of oil and set the stove to medium-high heat.
   Note: Before sauteing the onions, you can cook the sausage first if you want to add sausage. Then use some of that grease to saute the onions instead of olive oil.
5. When the oil gets hot, but isn’t smoking, toss in the onions and sautee them until they start to get slightly translucent.
   
6. Then add in the green peppers and sautee them until soft.
7. Next add in the garlic and mix it with all of the ingredients until the garlic is aromatic. Be careful not to burn it.
   
8. Once all of the ingredients are cooked a bit and mixed well, add them to the beans in the pot.
   
9. Add in all of the remaining spices and the bay leaves before mixing all of the ingredients thoroughly.
   
10. Add 5 cups of water to the beans, cover them and let them simmer for 6 hours on Low in the slow cooker or 2 hours on the stove at low heat. If using a slow cooker, you can leave them in there up to 8 or 9 hours, but they should be ready in 6.
    
11. When the beans are ready, check on them and make sure that all of the flavors have mixed well. Taste the beans and add salt to taste, but I didn’t feel like it needed any more. Remove the bay leaves before serving!
    
12. Serve the beans over white rice. You can serve them over dirty rice or something like that, but I think the flavors of the beans are enough on their own.