Beans and Rice
Ingredients 14 Steps 9
This recipe for beans and rice is great to make on the weekend and bring to work during the week. It's also great for entertaining on a budget, since you can feed 5 or 6 people for less than ten dollars. It is a vegan adaptation of cajun rice and beans, similar to gallo pinto.
Ingredients
- 1 package (16 oz) dry beans (kidney or black beans preferred)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped
- 1 celery stalk, sliced thin
- 1 bulb garlic, minced
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp ground basil
- Olive oil
- Salt to taste
- Pepper, to taste
- 1–2 whole dried or fresh hot peppers (optional)
- 1–2 cups rice
Steps
Beans
- Soak beans overnight, or bring to a boil and sit for one hour.
- Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil in Dutch oven or large pot on medium heat until onions are translucent.
- Add green pepper and celery. Sauté a few minutes more.
- Add beans and enough water to cover.
- Add spices. Bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until done (1–2 hours).
Rice
- Add rice and twice as much water to pot (1 cup rice + 2 cups water).
- Bring to rolling boil. Cook until water has boiled down to the level of the rice.
- Reduce heat to light simmer. Cover. Cook 20 min.
Serving
- Serve beans over rice. Cornbread optional.
Notes from the original
- You can use canned beans instead of dry. This greatly reduces cooking time, but doesn't allow for the flavor to soak into the beans as well.
- To make this in a crockpot, sauté the vegetables in a pan, then add all ingredients (except rice) to the crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours.
- You can make this in an Instant Pot or pressure cooker.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Beans and Rice” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2025-08-28, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo. Rice and beans stew in bowl.jpg by daSupremo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia. Resized; otherwise unchanged.