Red Beans and Rice
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Easy and quick red beans and rice! An authentic Louisiana recipe with smoky andouille sausage, the holy trinity, and the creamiest beans!
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Why you’ll love red beans and rice
- Comfort food goodness. Firstly, this dish is quintessential comfort food, consisting of thick, creamy, tender beans, smoky andouille sausage, and Cajun seasoning. The best part? The recipe uses canned beans for the speediest weeknight meal.
- Budget-friendly. Not only is this budget-friendly but it is also incredibly filling, making it an economical, high protein, and high fiber dinner for the entire family to enjoy.
- Versatile and flexible. This is an incredibly flexible and forgiving dish. It can easily be customized and adapted with different proteins, various beans and rice types, or even made completely vegetarian. You can also make it mild, make it hot, or make it fiery!
- Makes for the best leftovers. The flavors get a chance to meld and marry even more overnight, making for the most exceptional choice for leftovers and meal prep, packed with fiber and protein.
What is red beans and rice?
This is a classic Louisiana dish made with red beans, sausage, and the “holy trinity” (onions, bell pepper, and celery), typically served over white rice alongside cornbread and hot sauce.
Monday tradition
This was served on Mondays known as the “wash day” tradition, a day devoted to laundry. Cooking a pot of red beans, a slow cooked, no-fuss meal, allowed more time for chores to be completed.
How to make red beans and rice
- Cook the rice. Cook the rice to package instructions. Long grain white rice (ex. jasmine) is generally the gold standard for red beans and rice.
- Brown the sausage. While the rice is cooking, brown the sausage in batches until lightly browned; set aside.
- Add the holy trinity. Stir in the onion, bell pepper, and celery until tender.
- Cook the aromatics. Stir in the tomato paste, garlic, and Cajun seasoning until fragrant.
- Simmer. Add the red beans, chicken stock, hot sauce, bay leaf, and cooked sausage, simmering for 15 minutes covered, and then an additional 15 minutes uncovered.
- Mash the beans. Using a wooden spoon, mash the beans for a creamier consistency.
- Serve. Top with the cooked white rice, garnished with parsley, and served alongside some cornbread.
what to serve with red beans and rice
Tools For This Recipe
Red Beans and Rice: Frequently Asked Questions
Not at all! There is no need for an overnight or quick soak here. This is a super quick recipe using canned red beans, perfect for when you just don’t have the time to soak dry beans.
I recommend using small red beans or kidney beans.
Kielbasa is an excellent substitute.
The spice level can be adjusted to mild by using mild andouille sausage and omitting the hot sauce.
Absolutely! Similar to lasagna, red beans and rice taste better the very next day, really allowing the flavors to meld and intensify overnight.
Yes! You can freeze the leftovers without the rice (or else they will get mushy) in individual freezer bags. To reheat, thaw overnight and gently reheat on the stovetop, adding freshly cooked rice when serving.
Red Beans and Rice
Video
Ingredients
- 1 cup basmati rice
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 (12.8-ounce) package smoked andouille sausage, thinly sliced
- 1 medium sweet onion, diced
- 1 green bell pepper, diced
- 2 celery ribs, diced
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 ½ teaspoons Cajun seasoning, salt-free
- 3 (15-ounce) cans small red beans or kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 3 cups chicken stock
- 1 teaspoon hot sauce
- 1 bay leaf
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Instructions
- In a large saucepan of 2 cups water, cook rice according to package instructions; set aside.
- Heat vegetable oil in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Working in batches, add sausage, and cook, stirring frequently, until sausage is lightly browned, about 3-4 minutes; set aside.
- Add onion, bell pepper and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 3-4 minutes.
- Stir in tomato paste, garlic and Cajun seasoning until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Stir in red beans, chicken stock, hot sauce, bay leaf and sausage; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Uncover; continue to simmer until reduced, an additional 15 minutes.
- Using a wooden spoon, mash beans until slightly thickened, if desired; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Serve immediately, topped with rice and garnished with parsley, if desired.
Equipment
Notes
- Serve with long grain white rice. Use long grain, basmati or jasmine rice – all light and fluffy to absorb and soak up the creamy, saucy beans. Avoid short grain, sushi rice or instant rice.
- Tomato paste adds so much flavor. Tomato paste adds body and richness in small amounts without adding too much liquid. Opt for tomato paste in a tube, using up only what you need at a time without having to open up a whole can.
- Use small red beans or kidney beans. Soaking dry beans is not required here. Canned red beans (or kidney beans) allows this recipe to come together so fast, making it a true weeknight hero.
- Mash the beans. Add the finishing touches by mashing up about 1 cup of the softened beans off to the side of the pot – this is what makes the red beans and rice so thick and velvety creamy.
- Make it vegetarian. For our vegetarian friends, substitute plant-based sausage for the andouille sausage, and vegetable stock for the chicken stock.
- Pair with cornbread. Serve with a scoop of white rice and a side of cornbread, a quintessential pairing!
Did you make this recipe?
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Dis good
Amazing! Better than what I’ve had in New Orleans. Thanks for the recipe.
It is a good recipe, we are smoky and spicy house, so we upped the creole seasoning by another 1/2, 1/2 tsp paprika and added in extra hot sauce, we used Red Hot. That was the right spot, its great as is for a whole household of flavor!
Ok, I never leave reviews, but I had to for this one! These red beans and rice are LEGIT! Soooooo good! They tasted like the red beans and rice from my favorite cajun restaurant! I didn’t change a thing in the recipe. I will definitely make these again! Thanks for sharing!
I just made this and it was the most delicious thing I have ever made. I’m not much of cook, but this was pretty simple. I will definitely be making this on a regular basis. Thanks.
I made this for dinner tonight and it was outstanding. It will go in out recipe book. I made the beans from scratch and used the whole bag. Mashing a cup of beans really thickened everything nicely.
Very tasty and easy recipe! I didn’t have red beans so I used canned black beans. Also did not have Cajun seasoning so I used a packet of Goya Sazon. This has salt as does the chicken broth so I did not add any additional salt. Otherwise followed the recipe and I really liked it! Definitely would make it again!
I followed this recipe with a few exceptions. I used dry red beans and precooked them in the instapot. I used Eckrich smoked sausage. I seasoned the beans with smokey bacon. It was so delicious, I ate until it hurt.
Hahah, ate until it hurt; this cracked me up.
I’ve reviewed this recipe before, still loving it. 🙂 Just wanted to note that we most recently made this with Spanish Chorizo since we can’t find Andouille where we’re living now, and Sriracha since it was what we had on hand. Added some Cayenne to that and it came out really nice.
Good recipe but I would like the nutritional information please
I didn’t go exactly by the recipe but close enough
Hi it came out great! Thank you!
Can I use the red beans instead of black beans in a “black bean and rice recipe”?
Thank you!
Very tasty. I followed the recipe exactly. I feel it could’ve used salt, but otherwise, very tasty. I used Marie Sharp’s Habanero hot sauce
This was good! It was a delicious and hearty dinner that my husband and I both enjoyed.
This is my go-to red beans and rice recipe! My favorite part about New Orleans is the red beans and this is a delicious and easy recipe that anyone can make!
Made this recipe today because we were missing red beans and rice from one of our favorite restaurants. We decided that this was so incredibly yummy and it might even been better than what we had at the restaurant. Definitely a keeper!
I made this tonight and it was so good! The whole family loved it! The only thing I did differently is the rice, I went with regular short grained white rice. I look forward to making it again.
Loved this recipe. I typically cook riffs of recipes where I am familiar with the flavors. Today I made my version of this. Some of the riffs used was more celery, roasted garlic bouillon, v8 and rotel tomatoes with Serrano shinies, green onions, crab boil seasoning, raw bulk sausage rather than smoked, and probably other things.
It ended up being more of a chilli than a traditional preparation, but it was great.
Really good recipie, totally enjoyed it! Making it again today unfortunately don’t have all the correct ingredients to match the recipe due to the quarantine and low pantry but have sausage, Jacobs cattle beans and chicken rice soup so off I go.
Excellent. I’ve made these several times and at a couple of parties, I had to share the recipe. From a N’awlins boy, just learning how to cook, these are very good.
I didn’t know canned beans could taste sooo good! Excellent recipe. My husband and sons loved them and were being for more!