Black Beans and Rice

Here's how to make the all-time black beans and rice! This archetype Latin-manner side dish is perfect with tacos or as a luncheon idea.

Black beans and rice

Black beans and rice are a classic Latin-style side dish: simply there are and so many unlike ways to make them! There are two main styles you may think of. Starting time you've got Cuban black beans, saucy and savory, served over rice. Then you've got black beans, jumbled with rice and light-green bell pepper, and seasoned with cumin, lime and cilantro. That's the style Alex and I accept made for you in this recipe! It'south the perfect side to serve with tacos, or as a lunch idea (it saves well for eating throughout the week). Permit'south get to it!

Black beans and rice

How to make the best black beans and rice

Turns out, in that location's non one fashion to make black beans and rice. If you're thinking of a saucy-fashion black beans you lot'd serve with rice, head to Cuban black beans. It's 1 of our favorite recipes and oftentimes we serve information technology as a master dish. Simply this one: this is a mix of blackness beans and long-grain white rice that's a perfect side dish! Here are the features of the best black beans and rice:

  • White long-grain rice. Long-grain rice is traditional hither and is the perfect contrast to the chewy blackness beans. Though we oftentimes use brownish rice in our cooking, white rice is nice here for the color contrast (plus, it cooks faster). Encounter below for tips on cooking rice!
  • Onion, green pepper and garlic. Using these aromatics brings big flavor to the unproblematic dish.
  • A mix of butter and olive oil. Combining butter and olive oil brings large, rich flavor! If you eat vegan or plant-based, you can easily substitute more than olive oil for the butter. Only the butter adds a savory annotation that has a prissy nuance.
  • Cumin and lime. Of course, like many Latin-style recipes, earthy cumin and tangy lime circular out the flavors.

Information technology sounds uncomplicated, simply altogether these flavors truly pop! Yous tin go information technology together in most 30 minutes if you phase it as follows: First the white rice, chop the veggies, get-go the saute, then add the cooked rice in at the end.

Black beans and rice

Tips on cooking rice

Rice is infamously like shooting fish in a barrel to screw upwards! Y'all'll want information technology perfectly cooked for this black beans and rice recipe, because mushy rice plus mushy beans would be a disaster! (Ew.) Luckily, Alex and I take a method that results in perfectly al dente rice every time. It's called the Pasta Method.

Head to How to Cook Basmati Rice for the recipe! Instead of cooking rice the standard way where y'all simmer until all the water is captivated, y'all'll cook it like pasta! Boil the h2o, then add the rice and cook until tender. Drain the rice when you're done, and let it sit in the pot covered to steam for nigh 5 minutes. In that location y'all have it: perfectly cooked rice! Another plus: if you use this method for brown rice, it'due south loads faster.

How to Cook Basmatic Rice

How to cook blackness beans: 2 ways

Yous tin easily utilize canned blackness beans for this blackness beans and rice recipe, and it comes out fantastic. However, if y'all're looking for an alibi to cook beans from scratch, can we bend your ear? If y'all accept the time, here are a few advantages to habitation-cooked beans:

  • It's more delicious. Canned beans are fine, but abode cooked beans are slap-up. They accept a firmer texture and an elevated flavor.
  • Information technology'southward cheaper! Information technology can be about ⅓ the price to melt your beans at abode.

There are 2 ways that we take cooked beans at domicile. Our favorite manner is to use an Instant Pot (pressure level cooker) if yous take ane. It's seriously fast: it takes virtually one hour to cook dried beans! Our other favorite method is using a Dutch oven: this takes virtually 1.v hours. If you lot don't have a Dutch oven, you can too melt them on the stove: it takes 2 to 3 hours, and also requires a 14 60 minutes soak. For that reason, we prefer the showtime two methods!

  • Instant Pot Black Beans (required equipment: an Instant Pot!)
  • How to Cook Dried Beans in a Dutch Oven (required equipment: a Dutch oven!)
  • How to Cook Black Beans on the Stove
How to cook black beans
Want more than with black beans? Head to our All-time Black Beans Recipes.

Top ways to serve black beans and rice

In that location are so many ways to serve black beans and rice! Since they take about xxx minutes to make, they're corking for entertaining. Or, make them up alee of time and reheat: just throw them into a skillet and reheat over medium heat until warmed through. The all-time ways to serve black beans and rice:

  1. Enchiladas. Try them with our Vegetarian Enchiladas with Quinoa.
  2. Tacos! Of course. Pair with Epic v Minute Tacos, Best Jackfruit Tacos or Shrimp Tacos with Cilantro Sauce.
  3. Equally a dejeuner! Make for your weekend meal prep, then refrigerate and bring to the office. It's good room temp or cold as well. Top with salsa.
  4. With pizza. Why non? Attempt our Best Ever Taco Pizza or Best Mexican Pizza.
  5. On a salad. Throw it on greens, add some corn and Greenish Goddess dressing, and you've got a tasty salad.
  6. In lettuce wraps. Use up leftovers in lettuce wraps with mango salsa!
Black beans and rice

This blackness beans and rice recipe is…

Vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, dairy-gratis and gluten-gratuitous.

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Description

Hither's how to brand the best blackness beans and rice! This classic Latin-way side dish is perfect with tacos or every bit a lunch thought.


  • 3 cups cooked (1 loving cup dry out) white long grain rice
  • one medium sugariness onion
  • ane dark-green bong pepper
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • two xv-ounce cans black beans or (or iii cups cooked or Instant Pot black beans)
  • two tablespoons salted butter (substitute olive oil for vegan)
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons cumin
  • two teaspoons oregano
  • 1 teaspoons kosher table salt
  • ii tablespoons lime juice (juice of 1 lime)
  • Fresh cilantro, for a garnish

  1. Start the rice: utilize How to Melt Basmati Rice or Instant Pot White Rice.
  2. Mince the onion. Chop the pepper into a small dice. Mince the garlic.
  3. Bleed and rinse the beans.
  4. In a large skillet, rut the butter and olive oil over medium high estrus. One time melted, add the onion, bell pepper, and garlic. Cook for ten minutes, stirring occasionally until the onions are translucent and lightly browned. Add the beans, cumin, oregano, and kosher salt and stir to combine. Cook for 3 minutes until warmed and fragrant, then stir in rice for one minute until heated through.
  5. Remove from the heat and add the lime juice. Serve garnished with fresh cilantro.
  • Category: Side Dish
  • Method: Stovetop
  • Cuisine: Latin

Keywords: Black beans and rice

About the authors

Sonja & Alex

Meet Sonja and Alex Overhiser: Husband and married woman. Expert habitation cooks. Authors of recipes you'll desire to make again and again.