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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This was very good! We used kielbasa. Because that’s what we had. My mom was looking for a recipe to use up her red kidney beans that she was soaking. Also. We didn’t have any kind of hot sauce. So we used red pepper flakes and paprika. we didn’t have a bay leaf either. This was easy and delish!
Oh my gosh, just what I needed!!! Delicious. I had to substitute chorizo for andouille as I couldn’t find it in the UK (especially these days!) But it turned out delicious regardless. fantastic thanks for sharing made my day!
My husband from the other room with his second bowl of taste test beans was, “Yum. Yom yum yum yum yum.”
Him and the children are more sensitive to the spicy ingredients so I adjusted it to a heaping half teaspoon of Cajun seasoning (I like Louisiana Crawfish and Seafood Boil), just a few shakes of Valentina hot sauce, and added a teaspoon of sugar. This recipe is a keeper. Thank you!
Thank you for posting this great recipe. I am using dry Camellia beans, so I will prep per your instructions in an earlier post, but I would also like to use our Instant Pot to speed up the process.
I made tasso ham which I will use in addition to the andouille sausage.
I made this today during Covid quarantine. I actually cooked the beans separately in my instant pot with just some salt and the new made dirty rice with the rest of the ingredients. Delicious.
My husband loved it. He exclaimed this is SERIOUS!! many times. My son surprisingly said something too, he usually is picky.
Made my homemade cornbread too!
Absolutely will be making this again and again!
Looking on site for another of your recipes!
Thanks,
Mrs. Jones
Thank you so much. Made this tonight and it turned out fantastic.
I added a bit of cayenne and it was spicy and delish.
Will definitely use the recipe again.
Hi!! Relatively new cooker here!! I have not made red beans and rice before (). I was unable to find canned red beans at my grocery but purchased bagged, dry red beans. What can I do? Thank you I’m advance! I am so excited to cook this recipe!!!
You can cook the beans before you need them for the recipe. If you happen to have a slow cooker that would be the easiest – start the beans in the morning and they would be ready for dinner time and just use them as you would the canned beans. About 3/4 cup of dried beans is equivalent to a 15 oz can of beans. If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can just do it on the stove. Here are some suggestions. Although soaking dried beans isn’t strictly necessary, sometimes it helps speed up cooking if they’ve been sitting on the store shelf for a bit. Fresher dried beans (an oxymoron, I know) cook more quickly.
Regardless, if you are starting from dried beans – first sort through them on the counter to look for rocks and other debris. Once sorted and when you are ready to start, rinse the beans in a colander under cold running water. If you want to soak placed the clean beans in a big bowl and cover with cold water and leave overnight. When you are ready to cook, place the beans in the slow cooker or pot, fill the pot so the beans are covered by two inches of water. People have different theories on salting, but I prefer to salt before cooking. If you are doing the 3/4 cup I would say about 3/4 tsp of Kosher salt. If you were making the whole 16 oz bag I would do 2 tsp. If you made the whole bag you could simply freeze the cooked beans in their liquid and use them in the future. In the slow cooker – cook on low for 8 hrs or high for around 6. You can test for doneness at the 6 hour mark. Cook till tender. On the stove, bring the beans to a rapid boil and then boil for 5 minutes. Then simmer until tender – this will take several hours. On the stove you will need to monitor the water level – just add hot water if it gets low. Hope this helps!
Extremely good.
So very delicious! Definitely adding it to my week night rotation!
Stuck at home with pantry items, but fortunately, the pantry items included home jarred red beans and homemade (frozen) vegetable stock. My wife is vegetarian so I excluded the sausage and added a few drops of Wrights Liquid Smoke. Everyone (except the 10-year-old) loved it. I definitely will make this again.
Delicious and easy! Made it with Andouille and hot links. Used two cans of black beans bc that’s what I had. So much flavor!
I just made this for dinner and it was really delicious- full of flavor and nice and spicy! Stuck at home under the coronavirus quarantine and still can’t find dry beans so had to use canned kidney beans which made me nervous but the texture was fine. I drained and rinsed them thoroughly before adding them. I also had to use water instead of chicken broth but this recipe has so much other flavor I don’t think it lost anything. I am excited to make this again next week with some homemade hush puppies.
My son asked if I would make something that included andouille sausage, as he was feeling nostalgic from our New Orleans visit. I searched online for a recipe and came across yours. I followed the directions (except for scaling down the veggies and seasoning) but only used two (2) cans of beans because I didn’t have three. Didn’t want to overpower the dish since I was not using the full three cans the recipe called for. I must say, it was delicious!!! The cajun seasoning and hot sauce gives it just enough heat to not be unbearable. This is definitely going to be put (and kept) in my rotation. I’ve been trying to find new ways to incorporate beans into my meals and thanks to you, I’m one step closer. My son, who can be a pit picky, loved this. Thank you for sharing!!!
My 1st time ever making red beans and rice. I used dried dark red beans. Cooked the beans in water and chicken bullion. Saved 3 cups of that liquid to combine later with the recipe. SO FLAVOR FULL!!!! Followed every step to a “T”. DELICIOUS! Love finding a recipe that is “THE ONE”, the first time I make it. Definitely a keeper!
I made this today and OH MY LORD!!! It is sooooo good! I followed the directions precisely. Only thing I changed is I used Louisiana Cajun Seasoning that had salt included. I will be making this again and again!
Fantastic recipe – have made as written several times and it never disappoints. Easy and delicious!
This recipe is fantastic and easy to follow! I used kielbasa (what I had on hand) and it was really good!
I just made this dish and honeyyyyy. Flavorful and such an amazing taste.
Wow! This recipe blew my socks off! I made it exactly according to the recipe except that I used Jenny-O Turkey Andouille sausage. You’d never know the difference! Your recipes are always spot on!
Thanks!
Can I give you 100 stars. WOW !!!!! This recipe is so deliciously amazing that it has been added to my kitchen cookbook. This is my go to meal when I need my NOLA fix. Yes I will be signing up.