I love experimenting with rice and beans. They don’t have to be boring, as their reputation generally suggests! These were excellent. The pineapple juice gave just enough sweetness to balance the coconut milk. We will certainly have this again!
I also cooked up some extra beans and I put them into the freezer so I can quickly incorporate them into a future meal!
Coconut Rice and Beans
Yield – 4 servings
Preparation Time – 10 minutes
Cooking Time – 25 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 15 oz. can of lite coconut milk ($1.39) Used coupon in this week’s newspaper for Thai kitchen products!
- About 1/3 cup of pineapple juice from a can of pineapple ($.25-ish)
- 1/2 cup of water
- 1 cup uncooked white rice ($.20)
- Salt/Pepper, to taste
- 2 cups cooked pinto beans ($.40)
- 4 carrot sticks, peeled and cut into circles ($.40)
- Honey drizzles ($.25)
- 2 broccoli heads ($.74) On sale for $1.48/bunch this week!
Directions
- If you need to cook your beans: Cook about 1 cup of pinto beans in 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium high. Cover and cook for 1.5 -2 hours, or until beans are soft. Remove from heat, drain liquid.
- In medium saucepan, bring coconut milk, pineapple juice and water to a rolling boil. Add 1 cup of rice and return to boil. Cover and reduce heat to medium low and cook for 15 minutes. Turn off heat and let stand for 5 more minutes (do not uncover!). Fluff with fork before adding the beans.
- Combine beans and rice in saucepan.
- Steam carrots in steamer, or cook in 1/2 cup of water in small saucepan. Drizzle with honey to sweeten them up a smidge!
- Steam broccoli in stovetop steamer or in microwavable bowl covered with plastic wrap.
- Serve Coconut Rice and Beans with Honey Sweetened Carrots and Steamed Broccoli!
Cost $2.24
LOVE coconut milk. It turns ordinary “meh” meals into “wow”! When I’m making a steamed rice dish to go on the side, often I’ll make coconut rice. Even fancier if you toast a little shredded coconut to top the rice! This looks yummy.
Great idea! Thanks!
This looks great. I’m always up for coconut rice! 🙂
I have a SILLY question — did you use instant white rice or regular white rice??? Can’t wait to try this recipe!
I always use regular white rice. It’s MUCH cheaper!
This sounds very yummy! I’m hoping my kids like it, too, so I can add it to my list of “regulars” while cutting our food budget. Thanks for sharing.
We do a similar recipe without the pineapple and using blackeye peas. Tastes awesome. As a matter of fact everything tastes awesome to me with coconut milk. LOL!
Would you be able to use Jasmine Rice with this? I am in love with Jasmine and won’t go back to regular white rice.
Absolutely! Just follow the directions on the box…replacing the coconut milk for some of the liquid that’s indicated on the box.
I like your idea of also adding the pinapple juice. This will be on our menu next week. Thanks for another great idea!
Jenelle
Mmmm. Made this last night with some steamed dill green beans and steamed carrots. Everyone loved it.
I want to make this tonight but I only have canned beans. Have any suggestions on when I should add them to the rice? Can I throw everything in a slow cooker instead? Thanks!
Would this work with brown rice and a rice steamer?
Warning: Don’t scale this recipe 4x unless you add a lot more rice for all the amount of liquid. I made that mistake last night. I also used my rice cooker to attempt to make the rice with all of the liquid. I ended up cooking the rice twice in order to use up all the liquid. That didn’t really work all that well. I ended up with a ton of rice paste. Stirring the beans into it is impossible. So don’t make my mistake.
Now I just need to find a use for some really, really sticky rice paste. Any ideas? Would baking it work to make some sort of rice cake? I just don’t know.
This is great if you live in America but here in Australia things aren’t cheap like that 🙁