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First published 6/17/14; recipe updated 2/24/16
Easy. Super-cheap. Nutritious. Flavorful.
What’s not to love?
As with all of my recipes, tweak to your heart’s delight. I’ll tell you how I did it , but you adapt this to your family’s tastes.
I served this with oven-roasted asparagus and cabbage. This is one of my favorite ways to make vegetables. Simply cut vegetables of your choice (I used cabbage and asparagus tips – the asparagus stems I am currently lacto-fermenting because I’m weird like that), spray with a little cooking spray (coconut oil spray would be ideal; if you Trim Healthy Mamas are eating S, toss with some olive oil instead), layer on a baking sheet, and sprinkle with some garlic salt and a little parmesan cheese from the shake container. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes, stirring part-way through.
I like to cook my own beans because it’s really cheap, it makes me feel adventurous, and there’s no nasty stuff in them. Soak your beans overnight for best results, then allow a good 2 hours for cooking.
You can pin this recipe here.
You can find this recipe in my cookbook, Necessary Food.
- 6 cups cooked black beans, drained
- 1 10-oz. can diced tomatoes with green chilies (or plain diced tomatoes if you can't handle heat)
- 1 cup water
- 1 T chicken bouillon
- 2 tsp. minced garlic
- 2 tsp. cilantro (fresh would be awesome in this, but I didn't have any so I used dried)
- 1 tsp. dill weed
- ½ tsp. garlic powder
- ½ tsp. black pepper
- Salt to taste
- 3 cups cooked brown rice
- 2 tsp. chicken bouillon (dissolved in 1 T hot water)
- 2 tsp. parsley
- 1½ tsp. curry powder
- 1 tsp. dill weed
- ½ tsp. garlic powder
- ½ tsp. black pepper
- Salt to taste
- Mix all the bean ingredients together in a saucepan and heat. Add more water to thin down if desired. Taste and add salt if needed.
- Mix all the rice ingredients together and heat.
- Serve together!
Have you ever made the rice portion in an instant pot? I think I may try that tonight. I’ll add all the rice ingredients at once before it is cooked, then cook it in the instant pot and see how it turns out.
No, I’m afraid I haven’t!
This recipe rocks! I just made it last night and had some leftovers for lunch. Even my 9 month old twins loved it.
Hi Briana, wondering what the protein source is for this meal or if it is as I learned years ago that ‘beans + rice = a complete peotein?
The addition of a turkey sausage would thrill DH so will have to look for that.
TIA!
The beans are your protein source. 🙂
Yum! I made this tonight. I don’t remember Rotel being that spicy, but it was still good. About halfway through the meal I decided to add some Greek yogurt and that helped cut down the spiciest a bit. We will definitely be adding this to our list of keepers.
My husband especially liked the rice. I added the ingredients in the recipe before cooking the rice. He is a big fan of the “yellow rice” from the store (he tried to Add a bag to the cart at Walmart the other day, in fact), and thinks your recipe is just as good!
I’m basically using your Walmart edition meal plan this week, because I was to busy and tired to think up one myself. I’m not good at freestyle. Things tend to go bad in my fridge if I don’t have a plan for them!
Thanks for another terrific recipe!
I’m so glad you (and your husband) enjoyed it!
This looks delicious! My dilemma is knowing how much to eat in an E setting. How do you measure out an appropriate serving so you don’t eat too many carbs?
I usually just take a moderate portion and don’t worry about measuring. 🙂
Briana,
Would you be so kind to please post your favorite bread recipes (THM friendly) and the baking blend mix that you make. Thanks so very much! Side note: I am looking forward to making the bean recipe above! …sounds yummy!!
You can see all my bread recipes (and baking mix) in this handy recipe index: https://www.briana-thomas.com/indexes/complete-pictorial-recipe-index/breads/
I can’t wait to try this recipe!! Question 🙂 I might be able to swing this w/o any meat, but do you think I would be okay adding ground turkey to it? I can’t recall the fat in beans right now so I’m not sure if it would push it over or not.
Sorry! Just saw someone basically asked the same question! That’s what I get for not reading all the comments 🙂 I will probably use 99% FF turkey to make sure I stay in safe range.
As long as the turkey is really lean (97% or so), that should be fine. 🙂
Just wondering if I added smoked TURKEY sausage to the mix how it would end up? The Butterball Turkey Sausage that is hardwood smoked looks like it would still get me in with an E meal. The serving size of 2 oz has a total fat of 5g.
I am making this in the crockpot for dinner tomorrow night. I’ve soaked my beans today, and I’m just going to dump everything else in the pot in the morning and turn it on low! I’ve got my fingers crossed on how it will turn out!
Thank you for all of your wonderful recipes. I “stalk” this site since being on THM for 6 weeks and only losing 6 pounds (on a good day). I’ve got to get more on plan recipes, just so that I’m not making mistakes without knowing it.
Thanks again!
Hi Mandie! I bet turkey sausage would be really good in this! Just keep your fat to 5 grams or less per serving and you’ll be fine. I would probably fry the sausage separately and add it in at the end before serving. Let me know how the crockpot idea turns out!
First of all, my family LOVES this recipe! I, too, add sausage for the “menfolk” 🙂 (and occasionally have a few bites of it too, even if it’s a crossover!). Question- is it possible to use canned black beans in a pinch?! I’ve only ever done the dry but am just wondering if that’s possible… Thanks so much!
I’m sure you could but I don’t know how many you would use. I would just eyeball it, like I do everything else. Haha…
I’m glad to find another “pungent” food lover! Anything Spicy or Sour is right up my alley, although I have never been crazy about dill pickles for some odd reason. I love my ACV, though! 🙂 And thank you for clarifying the meal as a Crossover…I was pretty sure that it would classify as that but wasn’t sure. I only had a few pieces myself to be safe, but I think I still went over the two-teaspoon fat limit! I am loving the THM plan so far, but I have realized that I don’t need to beat myself up if I slip up once in a while and have, say, a breaded and fried store bought jalapeño popper…. not that I had a couple for snack yesterday or anything…. 😛 I have maintained a healthy weight before with counting calories, and while I never want to go back to that, I remind myself whenever I accidentally have carbs and fats together, or eat fresh taters and corn from the garden, that they are still healthy and (sometimes) low-calorie foods. My family eats our squash like that, too! Whenever I sauté squash it just gets mushy. We have a roasted vegetable dinner about once a week just to keep the counters from overflowing with veggies. Ha, I’ve rambled! Thanks for replying, and I’m sorry for clogging up your comments! 😛
Oh, no problem. I think you are my favorite commenter. 😉 Btw, there’s a one teaspoon fat limit for E meals, not two teaspoons. It’s 5 grams of fat, and usually a teaspoon of butter or another oil like that contains about 5 grams.
YEEEE-UMMMM!!! I made this for dinner tonight and it was delish! I had my doubts about the curry, and I was going to omit it but decided to be a good girl and follow the recipe. I am SO glad I did, because this is now (no lie!) one of my new favorite meals! 😛 Total comfort food and easy to boot! I added one and a half packages of sliced sausage to the beans to appease the menfolk, and it totally gave the dish a spicy Cajun taste. I am totally going to be making this again, and I might experiment with adding some cubed yellow squash to it next time, as it is coming out of our ears right now. You have any good squash recipes? 😛 Thanks for the delicious recipe, Briana! And I started another batch of bread yesterday, and I am SO excited to use your new and improved recipe! I didn’t think it could get any better, but we shall see! 🙂 ~Carolyn
Hahaha…you just made my night. I love your feedback. 😛 I’m glad you liked the recipe so much; it happens to be one of my personal faves as well because it’s so flavorful and I like “pungent” food. Just an fyi (which you probably already know, but I want to add it just in case someone is reading through the comments and gets confused), the sausage with the rice would be a crossover, but that totally sounds like a crossover I would like to jazz up Cajun style and eat. I think you may have something there… Squash recipes…I don’t have any posted (although I’ve had tons of ideas), but my favorite way to eat yellow squash is to slice it, toss it with olive oil and garlic salt, and roast it in the oven layered on a pan at about 400 degrees F (15-20 minutes). It tastes like candy, which is funny because I was never a yellow squash person. It’s not that great sautéed, imo. I hope the bread turns out for ya. I’m still kind of in denial that it’s so “normal”; I honestly never thought that would happen. I shouldn’t say that cuz it’ll make people worry about my cooking…
This looks yummy and I am making it right now!:) I’m planning on using it for E lunches throughout the week…but it’s going to be more than enough. Have you tried freezing it as well? I’m hoping I can freeze half the batch for lunches for next week.
Yes, I’ve frozen the bean mixture. It works great. 🙂
You are a very talented chef! I love your THM recipes. Thank you for sharing!!