A Louisiana classic, red beans are slow cooked with smoked ham drumsticks, onions, celery, peppers and spices. Served over rice, it’s flavorful and filling.
Something tells me we’re not the only ones excited about beans and rice. Do you?
Hardly a week goes by that we don’t have beans, and my mom’s chili beans and rice is a staple here.
Traditional Louisiana red beans and rice also use andouille sausage, which we didn’t add but you could if you wanted to. There was a lot of flavor and a lot of meat with the smoked thighs.
Red Beans and Rice: Creole or Cajun?
That’s not easy to answer. Red beans and rice is a Southern Louisiana/New Orleans staple, and both Creole and Cajun cuisine are native to Louisiana. Creole cuisine often uses tomatoes, and Cajun cuisine uses tomatoes sparingly. This recipe doesn’t add tomatoes—although several commenters mention adding tomatoes when making the red beans and rice.
It also includes the holy trinity of Cajun cooking: celery, onion, and green peppers. Perhaps these red beans and this recipe are more like Cajun style than Creole style, although you can use either Cajun or Creole spices to flavor it.
More Cajun and Creole recipes
- Cajun style dirty rice
- Shrimp Creole
- Chicken gumbo with andouille sausage
- Becca’s Jambalaya
- Green Gumbo
From the editors of Simply Recipes
Red beans and rice
If you have access to ham shanks and not knuckles, you might want to make up the difference in meat (hacks have a lot less meat) with sausage. Just grab 1/2 lb of Andouille sausage, slice, brown first before adding to the beans with the ham thighs.
If you don’t eat pork you can try smoked turkey sausage, in which case I would substitute some of the water with chicken broth.
If you don’t have a Cajun or Creole seasoning, just leave it out and add some thyme (fresh or dried), a bay leaf (made with the beans and shanks in step 2), and some paprika.
Recipe adapted from Something Extra, Winter 2009 Edition, Raley’s and Bel Air Markets.
ingredients
-
1 lb dry small Red beans
-
1 1/2 to 2 lb fleshy Ham Legs
-
4 cups water
-
4 cloves Garlic, chopped
-
1 big Onionchopped (about 2 cups)
-
1 1/2 cups chopped celery
-
1 Cup chopped green paprika
-
1 tablespoon Worcester sauce
-
2 teaspoon cajun or creole Spice, or to taste
-
Tabasco sauce, to taste
-
Kosher Salt and freshly ground black peppertaste
-
Cooked white rice (from approx 3 cups raw rice)
method
-
Soaking beans:
Place dried beans in a large bowl and cover with cold water a few inches. Soak for 8 hours or overnight. (You can quickly soak them by placing them in a bowl and pouring boiling water over them, covering them 2 inches, and then letting them soak for two hours.) Drain.
-
Boil beans with ham, garlic, onion, water:
In a large (8 quart) saucepan, combine beans, ham thighs, garlic, chopped onion, and water and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cover, simmer 1 1/2 hours or until beans are tender.
-
Separate the meat from the bones:
Transfer the ham from the pot to a bowl. Allow to cool slightly and then separate the meat from the bones. Put the meat back in the pot.
-
Add vegetables and spices:
Add celery, paprika, Worcestershire and spices. Cover and cook for another hour or until the mixture thickens.
Season with Tabasco sauce, salt and pepper.
Serve over rice.
| nutritional information (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 323 | calories |
| 1g | Fat |
| 69g | carbohydrates |
| 8g | protein |
