Make our family’s favorite vegan red beans and rice recipe in just one pot. With vegan sausage and liquid smoke, this easy recipe is the most scrumptious Cajun “Southern Comfort” food with a vegan twist. You’ll savor every last soft and spicy bite of one of my two signature dishes (highly approved by my non-vegan husband who lived in Louisiana). Get the easy recipe below.
Vegan Red Beans and Rice Recipe
- Yield: 4-6
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
Ingredients
- 6-8 cups cooked basmati or other long-grain white rice
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 package vegan sausage
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 1 green pepper, sliced into 1-2 inch strips
- 2 celery ribs, thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 ½ teaspoons Cajun seasoning
- 3 cans red beans, drained and rinsed
- 3 cups vegetable stock
- 1 tablespoon mild hot sauce, or 1 teaspoon of a spicier hot sauce
- 1 bay leaf
- 5 drops of liquid smoke
- salt and pepper, to taste
- green onions, thinly sliced
- hot sauce, drizzled
- Optional: sliced and toasted French bread, served on the side
Instructions
- Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large stockpot or Dutch oven. Add onion, green pepper, and celery. Stir until tender, for about 3-4 minutes.
- Stir in tomato paste, garlic, and Cajun seasoning for about 1 minute.
- Stir in red beans, vegetable stock, hot sauce, liquid smoke and bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Uncover. Continue to simmer until reduced into a thick gravy, for an additional 15 minutes.
- While the red beans are simmering, cook rice according to package instructions and set aside.
- While the red beans are simmering, grill or pan-fry the vegan sausage. Slice thinly and set aside.
- Using a wooden spoon, mash some beans repeatedly until sauce is thickened, and season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Stir in vegan sausage.
- Serve in bowls, with scoops of rice, and garnished with green onions, hot sauce and/or French bread.
Tips
The end result should be thick like gravy in consistency. While it should be somewhat reduced, it should not be totally reduced. The extra broth will be soaked up by the rice and/or bread upon serving, like a curry.
I store and reheat the red bean mixture separately from the rice, so the rice doesn’t soak up the gravy.
When reheating this dish, it helps to add a tablespoon or two of water to the gravy to loosen it up.
Frozen or microwave-ready rice (or even cauliflower rice) will save you tons of time. And, cauliflower rice will save you tons of calories! We have tried it, and we didn’t miss the “real” rice at all.
For a fun night of self-care at home, pair this Cajun recipe with the best fiction books about New Orleans.
Recommendations
(The first two recommendations come from my husband, who went to college in Louisiana.)
We highly recommend Crystal, Louisiana’s Pure Hot Sauce. This particular type of hot sauce is a “must” for this dish because it provides a ton of complex flavor with only a bit of heat. Other hot sauces are more focused on heat than complex flavor. When you use Crystal, you can amp up the flavor while also not making it too spicy.
We highly recommend Tony Chachere’s Original Cajun Seasoning, which also originates in Louisiana, and is a great mix of spiciness and saltiness.
We usually use Tofurky Original Sausage in the Kielbasa flavor, which is similar to the Andouille sausage traditionally used.
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