You Need Smoked Ham & Andouille Sausage For Unforgettable Red Beans & Rice
A Creole classic with creamy red beans stewed in smoked ham and andouille sausage, flavored with the holy trinity of vegetables, then served over steamed rice.
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00:00 Hey everybody, it's Brooke,
00:01 and I'm in Delish Kitchen Studios.
00:03 Now, there are a few things that come to mind
00:05 when I think of Creole cuisine.
00:07 You've got etouffee, you've got gumbo,
00:09 you've got jambalaya,
00:10 but my personal favorite is the dish that does double duty
00:13 as both a side or a main, and that's red beans and rice.
00:17 It's got tender, creamy red beans and smoky sausage and ham
00:21 that give this dish such an intense depth of flavor.
00:24 One bite, and you'll swear you're on Bourbon Street.
00:27 It's super easy, I'm gonna show you how to do it.
00:29 First things first, you need red beans.
00:32 I know what you're thinking, I could just grab kidney beans.
00:34 No, you cannot.
00:36 Okay, you could, you could do that,
00:38 but it won't be real red beans and rice.
00:40 I've seen a lot of red beans and rice dishes
00:42 that call for kidney beans, which again, is okay,
00:45 but a red bean is much smaller than a kidney bean,
00:49 and you'll get a much more tender and creamy texture
00:52 from a red bean than you will from a kidney bean.
00:54 What you're looking for is called a small red bean.
00:56 They're also called Central American red beans.
01:00 Either one is fine.
01:01 The go-to brand in the South is Camellia Beans.
01:04 Now, unfortunately, I'm in New York,
01:06 so I wasn't able to find Camellia Beans,
01:08 but when I was tweeting about developing
01:10 this red beans and rice recipe,
01:11 they responded to my tweet, and they were so excited for me.
01:14 So for this recipe, you only need a pound of small red beans
01:19 and what you're gonna do is soak them at least eight hours.
01:22 I like to do it overnight.
01:23 If you're gonna soak them for more than eight hours,
01:25 you wanna throw 'em in the refrigerator
01:26 so they don't start smelling funky on your countertop,
01:29 but before you soak them, you wanna pick through the beans
01:31 to find any broken beans, or honestly,
01:34 sometimes there's small rocks in dried beans,
01:36 so you wanna make sure you get those out
01:38 before you put your soaking water in.
01:39 Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and dump these in our container.
01:42 I'm using a really big container
01:43 'cause you need about 10 cups of water per pound of beans,
01:47 so you wanna make sure you have plenty of room
01:48 to add your water.
01:49 Before you put your beans in the refrigerator
01:55 to sit overnight, add about two tablespoons of salt
01:57 to your soaking liquid.
01:59 I'm gonna cover this up and stick it in the refrigerator
02:02 for at least eight hours so that these beans can soak,
02:05 and the importance of soaking beans
02:06 is so that they cook more tender and more evenly,
02:10 and the skins won't pop off and burst everywhere all crazy
02:13 like they would if you didn't soak them.
02:15 I've got a pound of red beans here
02:16 that I soaked yesterday, obviously.
02:18 They're not done that quickly,
02:20 but these got soaked last night,
02:22 and I'm gonna go ahead and drain the bean water off.
02:24 A good way to tell if your beans are done soaking
02:33 is that they'll get nice and wrinkly and pruney like this,
02:36 the same way your fingers would
02:37 if they've been in water too long,
02:39 and that's a good sign that you'll get a nice, tender bean
02:41 after you cut them.
02:42 For the first cook on the beans,
02:47 grab yourself a pot that's at least five to six quarts.
02:50 You're gonna add the beans to the pot.
02:52 Cover them with about two quarts of cold, fresh water,
02:55 and you're gonna add half that onion you just chopped,
02:58 two bay leaves, and you're gonna crank the heat to high
03:01 and bring the beans to a boil.
03:03 Once your beans get to a boil,
03:04 you'll reduce the heat to medium
03:05 and let them cook for about an hour.
03:07 You wanna stir it occasionally
03:09 just to make sure everything is cooking evenly
03:11 and no beans are sticking anywhere in your pot.
03:13 When the beans have about 15 minutes left
03:15 on their cooking time, you wanna take a wooden spoon
03:18 and start mashing some of the beans on the side of the pot.
03:22 What that's gonna do is help create the level of thickness
03:24 that you want for your red beans,
03:26 and it's gonna turn into a nice gravy-ish sort of texture.
03:30 I've said a lot about beans,
03:31 but it wouldn't be red beans
03:33 if the rice didn't come on the side.
03:34 So let's talk about rice for a second.
03:36 I love using a nice, long grain white rice
03:39 to pair with my red beans, and quick story time,
03:44 I'm actually not that great at cooking rice.
03:47 If you tell anybody, I'll deny it,
03:48 but it's not my strong suit.
03:50 So I like to use a rice cooker
03:52 'cause it does all the work for me
03:54 and I don't have to second-guess myself.
03:56 With a lot of rice cookers,
03:57 they'll list the measurements on the side
04:00 so you know exactly how much liquid
04:01 you're supposed to put in
04:03 per however many scoops of rice you add to the rice cooker.
04:06 So for however many little scoopies of rice
04:09 I put in the rice cooker,
04:10 I'm gonna fill it up to that corresponding line with liquid.
04:14 I like to use vegetable broth or chicken broth
04:16 when I make rice 'cause it adds
04:17 just a little bit extra flavor
04:19 than using just plain water,
04:20 and I love adding flavor wherever possible.
04:23 While our beans are simmering away,
04:35 I'm gonna start prepping the main source of flavor
04:37 for the red beans, and that is two different kinds of pork.
04:41 We love multiple kinds of pork in the same dish.
04:44 In this case, we have andouille sausage and smoked ham.
04:47 You have to put sausage in red beans and rice,
04:50 and it has to be andouille.
04:51 Please don't use another kind of sausage.
04:53 Honestly, if you're gonna use kielbasa, you can.
04:57 Just don't tell anybody about it.
04:58 Pretend like it's andouille
04:59 and add a little bit of extra spice to it.
05:02 Just keep it a secret.
05:03 Once our beans are ready to go,
05:05 we're going to slice the andouille
05:07 and we're going to dice the ham into about 1/2-inch pieces
05:10 just so they're big enough to fit on the spoon.
05:12 The key to a delicious red beans and rice
05:15 is building layers and layers of flavor.
05:17 A good way to do that is by sauteing your ham
05:20 and your andouille sausage in a skillet
05:22 before it goes into the pot.
05:24 I'm gonna do the ham first,
05:25 and we're just gonna add a tablespoon of oil to the pan,
05:27 let it get nice and hot, saute the ham, add it to the pot,
05:30 and then we're gonna repeat that exact same thing
05:33 with the andouille sausage.
05:34 If you see the bottom of your skillet
05:35 start to get nice and brown and crusty like that,
05:38 don't fret, it's not burning.
05:40 It's just flavor building up on the bottom.
05:42 That's fond, we all know fond.
05:44 We're gonna get it out a little bit later
05:46 once we saute the vegetables in the same thing.
05:49 When I was thinking about the development of this recipe,
05:55 I had to go straight to the source
05:57 for all things Creole cuisine,
05:59 and that, of course, for me,
06:00 is the late, great Chef Leah Chase.
06:02 But when I was looking at her recipe,
06:03 I was thinking, how can I put my own spin on this
06:06 and really make this my own?
06:07 And to do that, I decided to add
06:09 the holy trinity of Southern vegetables
06:12 that is bell pepper, onions, and celery.
06:14 Holy trinity is the base of a lot of Southern dishes,
06:17 a lot of Cajun and Creole dishes,
06:19 and it's essentially like a Southern mirepoix.
06:21 So instead of carrots,
06:22 you throw the green bell pepper in there,
06:24 and that's really because bell peppers
06:26 grow so abundantly in the South,
06:27 and they're easier to find.
06:29 Now that we've got our andouille and smoked ham
06:31 already in the pot,
06:32 I'm gonna go ahead and chop up this bell pepper,
06:35 a little bit of celery, some garlic, and some thyme,
06:38 and we're gonna throw all those in the pot
06:40 and let them simmer for a little bit longer.
06:42 Now that we've got all that wonderful flavor
06:44 coaxed out of our andouille and our smoked ham
06:47 from a quick saute,
06:48 we're gonna use the flavor that's left in the pan
06:50 and the oil that's left in the pan
06:51 to saute up our holy trinity of vegetables,
06:54 and we're gonna add that to the pot
06:56 along with a cup of chicken broth.
06:58 The chicken broth is gonna deglaze the pan
07:00 to make sure we get all those lovely flavor bits.
07:03 See, guys, I was telling the truth.
07:07 The liquid from the vegetables
07:08 is already getting to the bottom of the pan.
07:10 And now we can see the pan again.
07:14 We've got our vegetables all nice and soft.
07:17 They've been cooking for about four or five minutes.
07:19 Next, we're gonna add some garlic and some chopped thyme.
07:22 Then we're gonna deglaze the whole skillet
07:24 with a cup of chicken broth
07:25 and add the whole thing to our pot of beans.
07:27 This smells so good,
07:37 and I wish I could eat it right now,
07:39 but we need to let this simmer for about 30 more minutes
07:42 on medium, medium-low, and then it'll be ready to eat.
07:46 We'll just spoon it over some white rice that we steamed,
07:49 top it with a little bit of parsley, and enjoy.
07:51 One quick tip,
07:52 if your beans start to get a little bit too thick,
07:54 feel free to add like half a cup of chicken broth
07:57 till they get to the consistency that you want.
07:59 (upbeat music)
08:02 There's just a flavor symphony going on
08:10 in these red beans, y'all.
08:11 There's the andouille,
08:12 which has given it that perfect amount of heat.
08:14 I can taste the green bell pepper, the celery, the onions,
08:17 the thyme, and the garlic, but nothing's overwhelming.
08:21 It's all super balanced.
08:22 Now, like I said, red beans and rice is great as a side dish,
08:25 but it's also a main.
08:27 Beans and rice are a complete protein,
08:29 and then you got your extra proteins in there.
08:31 So this is a whole meal in itself.
08:33 But if you do wanna serve it as a side dish,
08:35 it would go great next to some fried chicken,
08:37 some ribs, whatever you have, honestly.
08:40 And y'all, you cannot have a good classic Southern meal
08:44 without a glass of sweet tea.
08:46 If you want more Cajun, Creole, Southern recipes
08:50 just like this one, keep it right here at delish.com.
08:53 (upbeat music)
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