Our Inexpensive, Healthy, and Delicious Dinner!
I am really psyched about this dish if you can’t tell…The other day I mentioned the dinners I had planned for the week. Tonight’s was the Red Beans and Rice recipe from Epicurious. I had never made this dish before tonight, and in fact had only just found it on Epicurious because I had some left over dried red beans and leftover wild rice to use up.
Well, let me tell you, those 72 commenters on there were on to something! Personally I can’t believe a single recipe that uses red beans and rice could even garner that many comments, but I guess people get passionate about their food. (And here I am writing a whole post on the dish so apparently I have become one of these types!)
Anyway, this is definitely a dish you should try out if you want something cheap, delicious, and healthy all at once. The only downside is that I had to start the cooking at 2:00 with dinner scheduled at 6:00. That’s because I was using dried beans instead of canned - they take about 2.5 to 3 hours to soak and cook. The wild rice takes an hour to cook. Then you put the beans, stock, onion, garlic, and sausage together for another good 45 minutes of cooking. So it does take a long time. But you do get A LOT of food out of this. I think we’ll be eating it for days on end actually.
I’ve looked up the cost of the meal using the Safeway.com site and here’s the breakdown:
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil | $0.32 (1 pint @ $5.11)
- 1 pound sausage | $1.33 (Hormel Pork Sausage)
- 1 onion | $0.67
- 4 garlic cloves | $0.20 (1 head @ $0.50)
- 3 14/5 oz cans of kidney beans | $4.50 (1 can @ $1.50)
- 1 cup chicken broth | $0.40 (49.5 oz @ $2.39)
- 1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning | $0.14 (3.18 oz @ $2.87)
- 3 cups cooked rice | $0.26 (white long-grain rice @ $0.62/pd)
TOTAL COST: $7.82 !!!
COST PER SERVING: $1.30
Now, the recipe says that it makes 6 servings and that is what I base the “cost per serving” off of (7.82/6) BUT for our family I would say this recipe makes more like 10 servings which would make the cost per serving $0.78.
Note: all prices shown are the lowest prices that I found for those items at Safeway. If you buy fancy rice or sausage the cost will go up but I still think it would wind up being a relatively cheap meal.
June 30th, 2008 at 8:18 am
My family likes red beans and rice also. I’ve not made it with the sausage. I usually use a ham bone. The sausage and the Cajun seasoning would spice this dish up nicely. I’ll have t try it this way soon.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Carol - thanks for your comment and welcome! Definitely try it with the spices - they make a big difference. If your family really likes meat you could add a bit more sausage than what’s called for and it might even be a bit better!