About a year ago, I decided that my enchiladas needed a side dish. I thought, "Hmmmm, Mexican. Enchiladas. Rice and beans!" And since then, my rice and beans recipe has been a staple side dish for anything Mexican that Marc and I make. This recipe is my ultimate "Pantry Dish". Some of the pantry ingredients used can be homemade, but when in a pinch, these work for me! I will **star** any items that are easily homemade, but for the sake of this recipe, I will share the storebought variety. (See the notes at the bottom for substitutions for these ingredients.)
In addition to one of my favorite side dishes, I will take the opportunity to make this blog post a 2-for-1 and tell you how to turn it into an amazing main course - can you say stuffed peppers?
Rice and Beans
Hardware Needed:
1 large saute pan
Ingredients Needed:
1 red onion, diced
1 bell pepper, seeded and diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans Goya black beans
2 cans Goya pinto beans
**3 bags Uncle Ben's 90 second brown rice**
**2, 12 oz. jars Goya Sofrito**
Olive oil, for drizzling
Salt and pepper, to taste
I will give you 2 options - both equally tasty when it comes to using canned beans. Option 1: Drain the beans in a collander and rinse. When folding in the beans, add 1/2 cup of chicken or vegetable stock. Option 2: Empty cans of beans right into the vegetables, rice and sofrito, without draining and rinsing. No need for stock. (FYI: I always go with the 2nd option...just saying...)
Place saute pan over med-high heat and drizzle in oil. Saute onion, bell pepper and garlic until soft, about 7 minutes. While this is happening, prepare each bag of rice as per directions on packaging.
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| Make sure you season with salt and pepper as these are softening. |
Once the vegetables are softened, stir in the beans.  |
| Look at how colorful this is when you add in the beans! |
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| Doesn't that look good? |
From start to finish, this side dish takes less than 20 minutes! And it's a one dish wonder which means easy clean up!!! Also, it's great for leftovers as the flavors get better on the second day! This dish alone makes enough rice and beans to feed a small army, so you can easily cut it in half if you want.
Enjoy!!!
2-for-1 Special: Stuffed Peppers
At this point, you will basically need everything from above, plus:
Hardware Needed:
9 x 13 baking dish
Foil
Ingredients Needed:
1 lb. chicken sausage, casings removed (I use the hot variety)
1 cup chicken stock
4 additional bell peppers, seeded (you may use more if you like since you'll have tons of rice and beans)
Provolone cheese, sliced (or any other variety of cheese that you like)
Preheat oven to 350. Place seeded peppers in baking dish, season the insides lightly with salt and pepper. Pour stock into the base of the pan (around the peppers) and cover lightly with foil. Place in the oven to get a head start.
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| If the peppers don't sit level in the pan, trim the bottom of the pepper. |
Brown sausage in saute pan over medium high heat with a drizzle of oil in the pan. Remove and set aside until later. Prepare rice and beans as directed above and fold in sausage when adding in rice. (No need to add oil to the pan prior to sauteing vegetables because the sausage has drippings. Drippings = flavor.)
Remove peppers from oven, fill with rice mixture. Top each pepper with a slice of provolone (or other cheese) and return to oven for 15 minutes - uncovered. If you want, after this time is up, pop the stuffed peppers under the broiler to brown the cheese.
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| Serve over a scoop of the rice and beans. |
Enjoy!
NOTES:
1) 3 packages of the rice is approximately 4-5 cups of prepared rice. If you like, you can easily make your own rice instead of my Uncle Ben's choice. Or, you can use white rice. I prefer brown rice in this recipe because it has better health benefits and I prefer it's flavor.
2) Sofrito is a base sauce that is used a lot in Mexican cooking. You can make your own by combining tomato (seeded and juices removed), bell pepper (seeded), onion, garlic and cilantro in a food processor until smooth.
3) This dish is very easily vegetarian for all you animal lovers. You can just use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock. Also, you don't need to add the sausage to the rice and beans before you put it in the peppers. I just think that it can boost up the flavor, and gives it more of a main dish quality with meat. But then again, I'm not a vegetarian...
4) I'm sure we've all had stuffed peppers before. Since the filling is completely cooked before putting it in the peppers, I choose to give my peppers a head start in the oven. My guess is that the peppers are probably in the oven about 15 minutes before I stuff them. The stock helps steam the peppers a little so to soften them up.
5) This recipe is tame in terms of heat level. If you like your dish a little on the spicy side, dice up a jalepeno and saute along with the vegetables in the beginning.
6) Goya is a great product! And in case you didn't know, it's typically cheaper than any store brand by at least 10 cents! Yes, that's right, it is cheaper at Wegmans to buy Goya than to buy Wegmans brand beans. You can find Goya in the International section of most supermarkets.
7) This dish is healthy!!! If you choose to make the stuffed peppers, cut them in half after serving because half of one is more than enough for a serving.
I hope you're enjoying this blog as much as I am in sharing my food with you! Have you tried any of the recipes I've posted?
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