Red Beans and Rice: 30-Minute Meal

No Comments | Written on January 25, 2012 at 3:00 pm, by The Editors

Louisiana Red Beans and Rice They don’t call New Orleans the Big Easy for nothing. Life moves at a gentler pace in Louisiana, where folks even take their cooking slow, in order to bring out the best flavors. Red beans and rice is a signature of Creole Louisiana, a dish that was traditionally served on Mondays, acquiring one of its key ingredients—a ham bone—from the baked ham that was customarily eaten on Sundays.

Cooking the beans for a couple of hours, along with that ham bone and some onions, garlic, green pepper, and plenty of spices, put the South in them. And when the rice was ready, so were the beans (small Louisiana red beans, by the way, which are a bit milder than red kidney beans). (When you have the time, try Big Irv’s Red Beans and Rice, the easygoing way.)

But life isn’t as slow as we wish it could be. Some days we barely have time to call for takeout. So with a nod to red beans and rice in its traditional form, we’ve got a quick and easy way to put the Louisiana classic on the table in a half-hour.

This Louisiana Red Beans and Rice is a leaner version, using Canadian bacon instead of andouille sausage (as is traditional), and has some heat from ground chipotle pepper (or cayenne). Canned kidney beans cut down on time, too. And although this recipe suggests brown basmati rice (which will bring your total cooking time in at 50 minutes), we suggest cooking white basmati rice to bring the cooking time down to 30 minutes. Brown rice has more fiber, so if you have the extra time, go for it!