Truly one of the simplest dishes I've made this semester, I absolutely love a good Louisiana red beans and rice night. The ingredients are simple, and you only need to put things in a pot and let it simmer for awhile. Most recipes call for about 2 hours of simmering, but we're college students with no time, no patience, and a need for good food. Here's the ingredients and recipe:
White rice, as much as you want to make. We usually make 3 cups of rice that 4 people eat, and still have a lot left over for lunch the next day.
Bell peppers and onions, frozen or fresh
Garlic, fresh and minced/diced
Red beans or kidney beans, canned. If you get dry beans, you'll need to soak them overnight.
Celery, 2 stalks at least, chopped. This is actually optional because the dish tastes good without it, but it would be even better with it.
2 bay leaves
Pinch of ground cayenne pepper, proportional to amount you're making (a pinch for me is about 1/2 teaspoon)
Dried thyme, 1 teaspoon or more
Dried sage if you have it, 1/4 teaspoon (optional)
Cajun seasoning, 1 teaspoon or more (do more)
Smoked paprika if you have it, pinch
Dried parsley for garnish
Andouille sausage
Water, about 2 cups
If you have canned beans, first strain and rinse them. Then take your beans and put them in a cup of water in a pot, then get them to a boil.
At the same time, saute the peppers, onions, celery, and garlic in some olive oil for 3-5 minutes on medium-high heat.
Once you're done with the peppers and crew, put them in with the beans and another cup of water, and reduce the heat to a low simmer. Add your spices at this time. Most recipes (the one linked as well), will have you simmer this for about 2.5 hours, but we don't have that time, so we simmer for about 30 minutes.
After the initial simmer, add in your Andouille, which should be sliced into circles about a quarter of an inch thick. We usually even cut those in half to get a bunch of sausage chunks because it's so damn good. Simmer everything for another 20 minutes. The sausage usually comes "precooked", so it doesn't take long. If you do have a completely uncooked sausage, raise the heat and let it go even longer.
For the rice, here's how to cook that if you don't already know:
Stove-top Rice:
Put your rice in a pot, along with the equivalent amount of water or chicken stock (1:1 ratio, i.e 1 cup rice = 1 cup liquid)
Bring to a boil
Reduce to simmer, simmer for 20 minutes
Instant Pot Rice:
Put your rice in the Instant Pot, along with the equivalent amount of water or chicken stock (1:1 ratio, i.e 1 cup rice = 1 cup liquid)
Hit "Rice" button. Hit it again if you like your rice overcooked. Hit it one more time if you like your rice slightly under-cooked.
Wait about 20 minutes and you're golden
Serve the beans and vegetables over the rice. As a side, we've done cornbread multiple times just using a Jiffy mix (I couldn't wrest my mom's recipe from her hands). We've also actually done a full-on Cajun side with fried green tomatoes and a Cajun ranch dipping sauce, which was probably one of my favorite things we've done. I won't go into that one, but we followed the linked recipe exactly, and they turned out delicious.
If you make the rice, start the beans, and saute the vegetables all at the same time, you can make this dish in under an hour, though the fried green tomatoes did add a lot of time on to that.
Pictured:
Main dish (Red Beans and Rice)
Side dish(es): cornbread muffin, fried green tomatoes, Cajun ranch
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