Monday, February 8, 2010

Recipe: Slow-Cooker Black Beans and Rice

written by Megan

This morning as I was going through my options for dinner I knew I had a bag of black beans, knew I wanted to be able to throw them into a pot and forget about them, and knew I wanted to have a tasty (and cheap) dish for dinner. So beans and rice it was. I got this recipe by doing a quick search on the internet. It was simple - I cut it all up and threw it in the crock pot and my kids loved it - my toddler ate two big bowls of it! Not to mention it was all REAL food. The recipe calls for canned tomatoes but I used fresh partly because of this article and partly because I had a couple ripe romas sitting on my counter in need of eating. And we ate it on white rice just because we were out of brown. But it would have been good on brown as well.


I got a new crock pot (or slow cooker) back in December and it has rejuvenated my desire to cook this way. It makes it possible to make some really healthy soups, stews, and main dishes with very little work. If you've got one you know what I'm talking about and if you don't - you're really missing out.

Here's the recipe:


1pound dried black beans (2 cups), sorted and rinsed
1large onion, chopped (1 cup)
1large bell pepper, chopped (1 1/2 cups)
5garlic cloves, finely chopped
2dried bay leaves
2cups diced tomatoes (from 28-oz can), undrained
5cups water
2tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
4 teaspoons ground cumin
2teaspoons finely chopped jalapeƱo chilies
1teaspoon salt
3cups hot cooked rice



1. Mix all ingredients except rice in 3 1/2- to 6-quart slow cooker.

2. Cover and cook on high heat setting 6 to 8 hours or until beans are tender and most of the liquid is absorbed. Remove bay leaves.

3. Serve beans over rice. We added lime and cilantro to really make it authentic. Easy, healthy, yummy!

6 comments:

  1. Yum! I love my slow cooker! I have a bunch of healthy slow cooker recipes that I post on my blog if you're interested.

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  2. I ate beans and rice every day for 2 years when I lived in the Dominican Republic. If there was one meal that I had to eat every day, this would be it. My kids think it's weird that I crave it but I still do.

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  3. I checked out the link as to why you didn't want to use canned tomatoes -- in a bit of irony the ad right next to the article was for Hunt's tomatoes. :)

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  4. Thanks! I am always looking for new recipes for black beans. This sounds delish.

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  5. sounds yummy! I also read the article you linked. We canned tomatoes last year so I can use those..
    :)

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  6. Thank you for this recipe! I have a bag of black beans that I've been wondering what to do with. I also didn't know what to have for dinner tonight. Both problems solved! Thanks!

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