Crescent City Red Beans & Rice

By Addie

"I grew up working in our family restaurants around New Orleans, which is known as "The Big Easy" or "The Crescent City" (due to the shape of the Mississippi River which runs through the heart of this southern city). Like most mom & pop places, we always served Red Beans & Rice on Monday. Always! I've changed the restaurant version a bit to reflect the fact that I use my Crockpot now. I hope you enjoy these yummy beans as much as I did growing up and as my own family now does. Serve over hot, fluffy white rice and a warm piece buttered and grilled French Bread with a side salad or bowl of coleslaw. Sweet iced tea rounds this awesome southern dish off quite nicely."

Ingredients

• 1 lb dried kidney beans (I prefer the pink ones to the dark red ones)
• 1 ham hocks (optional)
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 teaspoon black pepper, fresh ground
• 1 tablespoon chicken stock, powdered
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1 teaspoon dried chipotle powder, I use one Knorr mini cube (optional)
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke (optional)
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 1 onions, chopped
• 1 bell peppers, chopped
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1-2 tablespoon salt, according to your taste
• 1-2 teaspoon cajun seasoning, Tony Cacheres and Zatarains brand are both very good
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce, Chipotle flavored is really nice
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch or 2 tablespoons cornflour
• 1 lb smoked sausage

Preparation

Step 1

These directions are long because I am covering the method quite thoroughly for new-comers. (-;.

SOAK BEANS: On Sunday night (or the night before you want to eat these yummy beans), check beans to be sure there are no stones then place beans in a large bowl and fill almost to the top with water. It's better to have too much water than not enough. The beans will more than double in size overnight. In the morning, I drain beans in a colander and rinse well.

A FEW PERSONAL TRICKS: One of the first things I do in the morning is fill my Crockpot with hot tap water just to bring it up to temperature much faster. This saves on cooking time and electricity. I also fill and boil my electric jug (or kettle) - this is the water I will use to cook my beans.

PLACE IN CROCKPOT: Beans, ham hock, black pepper, chicken stock powder, chopped garlic, garlic salt, bay leaves, and optional Chipotle powder and liquid smoke. Note: Save adding salt until the end of cook time.

COVER WITH HOT WATER: Cover beans with hot water from your jug or kettle just until fully covered. Then add an extra inch of water on top of that. This will give your beans a chance to swell even more during cooking. Cover Crockpot with lid.

QUICKLY: Sauté onions and bell-pepper just until they begin to cook. Add these to the beans and stir.

COOK: If you are going to be gone all day, cook beans on low setting for 6 to 8 hours. If you will be around to stir, etc., I recommend cooking them on high until they are almost fully cooked (about 4 or 5 hours). Then turn them down to low for the last bit of cooking.

ONCE COOKED: When beans are fully cooked, remove bay leaves (if you can find them all) add butter and stir. To thicken beans, add 2 tablespoons corn flour mixed with just enough cold water to dissolve it. Add this to beans and stir for a minute. Beans should thicken a bit in fairly short order. Repeat until you get the desired consistency.

ADD: Add salt by half-teaspoon until you reach the level of your liking. It may not take much for you. Also add a bit more fresh ground pepper.

NOW: Put your rice on to cook. Slice smoked sausage and cook in a medium-hot cast iron skillet until nicely brown and starting to emit those nice juices. Take skillet off heat but leave sausages where they are. Don't cover.

RINSE your rice with hot water. Once drained, place about half a cup of hot fluffy rice in a wide, shallow bowl.

COVER rice with a generous amount of red beans. Top with a good amount of hot smoked sausage slices.

SPRINKLE with hot sauce and/or more Tony's if you want it spicy like I do.

SERVE with hot buttered, grilled slices of French bread, salad or coleslaw, and a big glass of iced tea.
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REVIEWS:


I'm from New Orleans and I can vouch that this dish is authentic and delicious, as well as easy! Since we're watching our weight, I didn't add in the butter, used smoked turkey sausage instead, and didn't use the garlic salt and it still came out great! I did do it exactly like the recipe for our friends with butter and spicy smoked sausage and they all raved about it! Thanks for a great recipe, highly recommended!

Have tried several red beans & rice recipes - made yours tonight... best red beans to ever come out of my kitchen, by far. Thank you for sharing!

I've never been a big fan of red beans & rice, so I can't say that I'm an expert, but I liked this dish! It was flavorful and fairly easy to make. Thanks!

Today,was my DH birthday,and as usual he wanted red beans and rice for dinner. I nevered cared much for it,or at least didnt with the old recipe I was using. But I would make it for him..Today I made this crockpot version and it was really good..I did boil water on the stove to cover beans in crock.Took 3 1/2 hour on high for beans to tender...I used Mrs dash southwestern chipotle omitted ham hock. I fried up some johnsonville New Orleans style smoked sausage..My DH was very pleased said he likes this recipe much better .Nice and spicy...Froze 4 meals of red beans..This is the recipe I will be using from now on.

This is the best red beans and rice recipe I've ever tried! I love spice and these were perfect for me. Next time I will mostly likely have to cut back on the chipotle and cajun seasonings for my husband. I didn't have any garlic salt but didn't miss it. Thank you for posting.

Great Stuff!!!! The family couldn't get enough of this and I couldn't get over just how easy it was! It was just the right dish for easy over night and morning prep, long slow cooking while we were at work/school, and simple finishes before dinner. It is not surprising that this is in the Best of 2009 collection because it's going into my tried and true collection too!

My family loved this one. I used canned chipotle - one whole pepper and about a tablespoon of the adobo sauce, a ham steak instead of the ham hock and mixed in about 4 cups of rice. This one's a keeper!

Loved it! Thank you for the detailed directions! I don't really cook with a crockpot and everthing felt foreign so the directions really helped. I followed it exactly and used the optional ingredients. I think the ham hocked is a must! I used a smoked one. I used red beans, added 1 1/2 tsp salt, about 3 tbs cornstarch and a smoked beef sausage (Hillshire Farms) then served with white, long grain rice. The recipe didn't say how many bay leaves, so I put 2 large ones and I also added 1 tsp of cajun seasonings while cooking. I cooked it on high for about 4 hours and then low for 2 hours. It takes a long time, but it's soo easy! Thanks so much for sharing this! My DH doesn't like many crockpot recipes, but he and the kids really loved this one.

I loved the ease of this recipe. This is the type of meal my father would have loved. I didn't have liquid smoke or andouille sausage so I am sure it would have been even more phenomenal. Still delicious and worth keeping in

So so good! I used some cooked ham I had. Very satisfying, filling, warming comfort food! Just want to add that I used andouille sausage.

The smell of the andouille sausage while it cooks is reward enough for making this recipe! Add to this the convenience of using your crock pot, and this recipe is a slice of heaven. While chopping the green bell pepper and onion, I almost added celery to complete the Cajun trinity, but I usually don't put celery in my red beans and rice, so didn't with this recipe either. I didn't have a ham hock, but I diced up some ham and threw in half a slice of bacon to season the beans. I used popcorn rice, brought back from New Orleans because I really love the special taste with red beans and rice. I used a little cajun seasoning, but no salt. I felt the salt from the andouille sausage would be enough. I used half the amount of corn flour suggested, as I like my red beans and rice a little soupy...I like the rice to absorb the yummy flavor. I cooked my andouille in a skillet to get rid of the grease, but instead of serving on top of the beans, I added them to the crockpot while the rice cooked so the beans could take on some of the flavor of the sausage. I did add some hot sauce sprinkled over the top when serving. Served this with Zydeco Salad 367912 featuring Central Grocery''s Olive Salad and a nice big piece of crusty french bread. Delish!

Very good and tasty red bean recipe. Thanks for the great directions. I followed them exactly except I did as others had suggested and mashed a few of the beans and added them back to thicken up the juice. These beans had a great flavor with all the onions, garlic cloves, and spices. Thanks for sharing your family recipe.

I had to quickly think of something for dinner yesterday because I knew I was having a busy day. This recipe fit the situation great. I did however change things up, and no disrespect to the recipe :( but I just went with what I had on hand. I used some pigs tails that I had in the freezer that need to be used (I'm Portuguese so pigs tails aren't gross to us LOL) For the smoked sausage I used Portuguese Bacon cut into 1/2 in pieces. Also being that I decided to make this the same day, I used 4 cans of red kidney beans (I was having company over so used 4 cans) I up's the chicken broth, but couldn't tell ya by how much cuz I just poured it in. In all this was excellent. I didn't serve it over rice, being Portuguese we love our bread ;) Thank you for the recipe and I will make it again one of these days the way the recipe is written :)

These were delicious! I used cubed ham, no chipolte seasoning, liquid smoke, and just mashed about 1 1/2 cups beans to thicken it up.

Instead of using a ham hock, I added in about a cup of cubed ham that I needed to use up. Otherwise followed the recipe. I served cornbread along with this and it was some mighty fine eating.

When the weather warms up I use my crock pot A LOT! This recipe is a keeper. I soaked my beans overnight. I had a ham bone I had saved in the freezer, so it finally got to make an appearance. I buy the Minor's concentrated soup bases, and used about 2 teaspoons of the chipotle base for this dish, as well as chipotle flavored Tabasco. I also added some of the Minor's garlic base and bacon base (about a teaspoon each) which really added richness. So many red beans and rice recipes are too bland for my tastes. This recipe packs the flavor and spice, and using a crock pot it's fix-and-forget. Like Galley Wench, I used my stick blender to mash up and thicken the beans, so did not use the flour. Made for ZWT5 Zingo, for the Hell's Kitchen Angels.

You got to love crock pots! I didn't plan in advance enough to soak the beans overnight so did the quick soak method. Instead of ham hock, I cut 4 slices of bacon into quarters and lightly browned and then add to the bean pot! Also added a small diced jalapeno and little red wine. About an hour before serving added the sausage to the pot. Instead of thickening with flour, I used my submersible blender to mash up a portion of the beans. Worked perfectly!

Especially for such humble-looking fare, this is amazingly good! Because of a mixup on what should be done before and after cooking, we left out most of the salt, and didn't miss it; the garlic salt, chipotle cube, and hot sauce gave it flavor aplenty, without being unreasonably hot. Very satisfying; you can see why it's a regional tradition.

The crock-pot is the only to cook beans and your directions were very nicely done. I was in New Orleans about a month ago and purchased several packages of Camellia Red Beans one of which was used for your recipe. I omitted the extra garlic salt and found upon taste testing that the beans were salty enough for our taste with the chicken stock, ham hock, liquid smoke and Cajun seasoning. About of a cup of the beans were mashed and returned to the pot to thicken eliminating the need for the cornstarch. These were served with a fresh fruit salad and Rustic Oatmeal Cornbread.

This was amazing!!! I vegan-ized it hope you dont mind. Cooked on low for about 11 hours.

This dish was simply divine. I'll not make red beans and rice any other way. Only change I made was to substitute some smoked pork butt for the sausage, because it was what I had on hand. I appreciated the specific instructions. I did freeze the leftovers (without rice), and they warmed up just great.

Great dish. I'd like to add some heat the next time. I added frozen cut okra the last 15 minutes and thought it turned out great.

Really great flavor!! My ham bone must have had a lot of fat. Had trouble with this being greasy. But no fault of the recipe.

This was my first time having red beans and rice. It was pretty good, but I dont think it would be a meal that I would like very often. I guess Im one of those people that dont care for it as much. I used the smaller red beans, and next time if I make it again, I will get the bigger kidney beans. The beans had great flavor. I didnt use a hamhock, I just chucked a piece of the smoked sausage in to cook with it all. Thanks for the recipe!

I made this last night and it was absolutely fantastic. I didn't use ham hocks and used garlic chicken sausage and chicken andouille sausage. I also was a little heavier on the chipotle powder and cajun seasoning than the recipe called for. My girlfriend and my son loved it, and so did I. This is definitely going on our make-often list. Two thumbs up and two lip smacks...and slap my mama for good measure!

Very tasty. This recipe will have a place of honor in my recipe box. Thanks for sharing.

Can I just say thank you for all the detailed instructions, I have never made anything like this before and your details were very helpful. I never thought beans and rice could be so tasty with just a wee bit of sausage. You don't get dishes like this here in Scotland. I used chipotle chillies and I bought liquid smoke by mail order as you just can't buy it here and I recommend you do use it as it makes it taste wonderful I used a low fat smoked sausage and my beans were a mix of small red beans and larger kidney beans to make up the amount, other than that I followed your recipe to the letter and I must say I will be making this again, it was a great big hit in our house and so cheap too. Thank you for posting.

So good! This was the first time I cooked red beans in a slow cooker and they were fantastic. I followed the recipe as written. It was very creamy with a perfect spicy flavor. My husband loved this dish and had two servings. Definitely a keeper!

I have tried a LOT of recipes for red beans and rice. This is - hands down - the best yet! Tiny modifications made based on what I had on hand: (1) I sometimes have trouble finding true 'red beans' so used adzuki beans instead. Their smaller size results in a nice, creamy texture. (2) I used homemade turkey stock in place of water when cooking (it is just after Thanksgiving and I have more stock than I know what to do with right now... Also omitted the garlic salt. (3) Bone from a smoked ham lent the dish a lovely smoky flavor without the addition of liquid smoke which always somehow tastes artificial to me. I will be making this dish again and again!

If you want a rich, creamy, flavorful Red Bean dish, this is the one for you. This reminds me of my grandma's beans on wash day. Thanks for posting an authentic New Orleans dish!

Just delicious! I used andouille sausage and found it too spicy, but my husband loved the kick! I loved it with toasted french bread. I will definitely be making this again. Thank you!

I am a native New Orleanian and have been cooking beans my whole adult life, and have been eating then since I was a child. This is the absolute BEST recipe for slow cooker red beans and rice that I've ever made. I will NEVER cook my beans the conventional way on the stove top ever again. This recipe is perfect just the way it is. Thank you!

This was a really tasty red beans and rice recipe! My house smelled so good when I returned home from work. I followed the recipe as posted except I did not use the ham hock and used a soy chorizo from Trader Joe's since I am vegetarian and this worked out really well. Thanks for posting, this was great!

This was a big hit. The only thing I did differently as to add extra Tobasco. We love it spicy!

This is excellent. I lightened it up a bit by using turkey sausage. I also serve over brown rice and make whole grain biscuits (sometimes with cheddar cheese). And I used smoked ham hocks.