Dirty Rice Recipe

Have you ever had Cajun rice before? This is a classic dirty rice recipe that serves 8 to 10. Dirty rice is a wonderful soul food recipe that is hearty, flavorful and brown in color – even though it is made with white rice! The rice turns brown because old-fashioned recipes for dirty rice used to call for the white rice to be cooked in chicken livers and gizzards, which would “sweat” their brown color into the white rice. Hence, the rice’s light brown color. This Cajun rice recipe can either be served as a side dish or as the main meal, depending on what you are in the mood for and how much cooking you really want to do. In my recipe, I use spicy Andouille link sausage if I am serving it to men. If I am serving it to “the girls” I like to use healthier spicy chicken sausage.

Dirty Rice Recipe:

1 pound of rice (white or brown)
1/2 pound of Andouille sausage
1 pound of red onions, peeled and finely diced
1/4 cup of olive oil, cooking oil or bacon drippings
2 cloves of garlic, skinned and finely minced
4 green onions (chives) finely chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 to 2 cups of water
2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

Cook the rice according to directions, but stop just short of the rice being fully cooked and then set it aside. In a small skillet or fry pan, while the rice is cooking, cook the sausage until brown and then cut it into bite-sized pieces and set aside.

In a separate pan or skillet, cook the diced onions over medium heat in the oil or bacon drippings until the onions are soft, about 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic, green onions, bell pepper, parsley and salt. Next, add the water and stir well. Continue to cook over medium heat until the bell pepper is slightly tender, about 3 minutes. You do not want the bell pepper to be crisp, nor do you want it to be limp. At the end, add the chopped up sausage in order to re-heat it.

Finally, put the cooked rice into the skillet and cook and stir until all of the water is absorbed into the rice and the rice is thoroughly cooked. Add the cut up pieces of butter for additional flavoring and cover this dirty rice recipe until it is ready to serve.