Caribbean Rice and Beans
Caribbean Rice and Beans delivers a flavor explosion with garlic, onions, and intensely delicious spices. Infusing it with bay leaves, thyme, scotch bonnet, and coconut milk creates an incredible rice meal!
I would like to say that with what the world is experiencing right now, every day should be a gratitude day. So, I’m beyond thankful for this gift of life and my beloved family by my side.
And while I’ve been daydreaming about my next Caribbean trip, a tropical food trip in my kitchen, starting with this rice and beans recipe, will have to do. Or if you’re into Jamaican food, it’s rice and peas. 😍
What Type of Beans for Caribbean Rice and Beans
When making this scrumptious meal, I don’t have any favorites, so whatever is in the pantry works. Traditionally, Caribbean beans and rice use red kidney beans. However, it’s just as delicious with black or pinto beans or pigeon peas. The look may change slightly, but that’s about it.
Recipe Ingredients
- Rice – Long-grain separates more easily. However, medium-grain, jasmine, and basmati rice work just as well.
- Seasoning – Garlic, onion, hot pepper (scotch bonnet peppers are my fave), Creole seasoning, thyme, bouillon powder, bay leaves, optional smoked paprika, and good ol’ S&P pack a flavor punch.
- Kidney Beans – Dried beans are cheaper, but for convenience’s sake, I’ve gone with canned. Choose which is best for you and your Caribbean red beans and rice.😉
- Coconut Milk – Full-fat coconut milk provides liquid to cook the rice and a tropical taste.
- Chicken Broth delivers the rest of the needed liquid and adds extra flavor.
How to Make Caribbean Rice and Beans
- Wash rice until water runs clear. Drain water.
- Sautee Aromatics – Heat a saucepan with oil. Then add onions, garlic, thyme, and hot pepper, and sauté for about a minute. (Photos 1-2)
- Simmer – Stir the rice into the pan, then the beans, and cook for about 2 minutes. Then add coconut milk, bay leaf, bouillon powder, Creole spice, and broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer until rice is cooked (about 20 minutes). (Photos 3-4)
Note: Stir occasionally to prevent burning, adding water as needed. - Serve – Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper. Discard bay leaves. Serve warm and enjoy!
Recipe Variations
- Jerk Rice and Beans – For even more spice, add a teaspoon of jerk seasoning to the traditional recipe.
- Bean Swap – Pigeon peas, kidney beans, and black beans are all conventional choices. You can also use other beans, such as pinto beans, red beans, or lentils.
- Vegan Version – Replace the meat-based broth with vegetable broth; done.
Tips and Tricks
- Test the rice to avoid overcooking. It should be tender but still have a slight bite, and the beans should be tender but not mushy.
- Almost any chili pepper, such as habanero and jalapeño, will work if you don’t have a scotch bonnet.
- Don’t skip rinsing the rice because it removes excess starch and keeps the rice from getting sticky.
Make-Ahead and Storage Instructions
Cool the rice and beans after cooking and freeze them in meal-size portions in airtight containers for 2-3 months. It will last in the fridge for 3-4 days—the same works for leftovers.
Thaw frozen rice and beans in the refrigerator overnight. Then simmer (stirring occasionally) in a pot until it bubbles. Add water or broth as needed to keep it from burning—a microwave works, too.
FAQs
Caribbean rice and beans definitely have a West African influence. Enslaved Africans brought the recipe to the Caribbean, and it quickly became a staple in many Caribbean cuisines.
It depends on who you ask and where you are in the world. In Jamaica and other Caribbean countries, it’s known as rice and peas. That’s because, in the West African Akan language, the word for pea refers to most legumes, including beans.
Rice and beans are a nutritious meal. So you can serve it as a complete meal or add meat and sides, such as ripe fried plantains.
What to Serve With Caribbean Rice and Beans
It’s traditionally served with chicken, beef, or pork. It goes excellent with brown stew chicken, Jamaican curry goat, or jerk chicken. Fried sweet plantain and Caribbean coleslaw are wonderful sides.
More Popular Jamaican Dishes to Try
Conclusion
This Caribbean rice and beans recipe takes rice to a whole new level. Would you like more African-based recipes? Then follow me on Facebook for more! ❤️
Watch How to Make It
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This blog post was originally published in February 2014 and has been updated with additional tips, new photos, and a video.
Caribbean Rice and Beans
Ingredients
- ¼ cup vegetable oil (or canola)
- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ medium onion, diced
- 2 teaspoons Creole seasoning
- 2 cups uncooked long grain rice
- 1 sprig fresh thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried thyme)
- 1 13.5-ounce can coconut milk (about 1¾ cups)
- 1 15.5-ounce can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
- 2 small bay leaves
- Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
- 2¼ cups chicken broth or water (see notes)
- 1 teaspoon chicken bouillon (optional)
- 1 whole scotch bonnet pepper
- 1 teaspoon paprika (optional)
Instructions
- Wash rice until water runs clear. Drain water.
- Heat a saucepan with oil. Then add onions, garlic, thyme, and hot pepper, and sauté for about a minute.
- Stir in rice to the pan, followed by beans, and cook for about 2 minutes. Then add coconut milk, bay leaf, bouillon powder, and Creole spice with 2¼ cups of broth or water, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover with a lid, and simmer until rice is cooked, about 20 minutes (more or less). Stir occasionally from the sides to prevent burning add more water as needed.
- Adjust for salt and pepper. Discard bay leaves You have to stir occasionally to be preventing any burns.
- Serve warm.
Tips & Notes:
- Use 3 cups of water or broth for really moist rice and beans. If you want your rice to look just like in the picture, use 2 cups of water or broth.
- I used paprika and Creole salt to enhance the rice’s flavor. It’s not traditional, so if you want traditional rice, omit the paprika and use regular salt instead of Creole salt.
- Feel free to switch the coconut milk with 2 cups of water.
- If you want to make it vegan, vegetable broth is fine.
- If using dry pigeon peas, boil them until tender, then replace beans with pigeon peas in the recipe instructions. You may also use pinto or black beans instead.
- I use uncooked long-grain rice. No need to parboil; just rinse it until the water runs clear. One of our readers here has used Japanese short-grained rice, and it works. Brown long-grain rice works, too.
- Too much liquid and stirring would make your rice mushy.
- You may cook it ahead and refrigerate it. It heats up very well the next day.
- If you don’t have chicken bouillon, you may leave it out or use half of a Maggie cube and add it to the pot.
- For those who want to cook it using an Instant Pot, one of the readers shared this: saute everything like you usually would and cook for 3 minutes at high pressure with a natural pressure release.
- No Creole spice? You can use my jerk spice.
- You can add your favorite cooked protein to the mix, like shredded smoked turkey, diced chicken, ground meat, sausages, and so on.
- Please keep in mind that nutritional information is a rough estimate and can vary greatly based on the products used.
The Caribbean Coconut rice is fabulous! The coconut milk and creole seasoning make this recipe delicious! I will be making it over and over again! Thank you!
YASS!!! So happy to hear this. Thank you for taking the time to share this with me Tiffany.
Found this recipe ,made it for Thanksgiving and everyone loved it. The whole pot want so fast. Now everyone is requesting it for Christmas. Thank you for posting this.
My pleasure!!! Thanks for giving it a try.
We tried a different restaurant the other night and I was so excited because the flavors are supposed to be Caribbean. I expected an explosion of flavor! Oh my gosh, it was SO bland. Everything. One thing i had ordered was beans and rice and I thought, really, add some garlic or even salt and pepper, people! So today I came across your recipe and cannot wait to try it!! Looks like lots of flavor in there!
What a terrible Experience !!! This is packed full of flavor. And it’s cheaper too! Do let me know how this works out for you
Happy Cooking!!!!
I wanted to come back and tell you I made this tonight and it was SO good!! Mine looked creamy, not as pretty as yours, but it was DELISH!! Way, way better than that restaurant. Husband liked it, too! Thank you so much for a great recipe!
I tried this tonight for the first time…unbelievable! I didn’t imagine all those ingredients would turn into this glorious dish. Thank you OP for an incredible recipe.
My pleasure ! Glad you liked it.
This is the best red beans and rice recipe I have ever eaten! I can’t wait to try your other recipes. I eat a very restricted diet but I can eat most of the ingredients in your recipes. Yay!!
Yay! Thank you so much . Glad it fits into your diet.
These are the absolute best rice and beans! First time I tried this recipe, I was surprised by how good such a simple dish could be. Now it’s my go-to meal anytime I’m looking forward to payday, or as a delicious side for a dinner party. It has the perfect amount of heat for the average eater, but I like to double up on the peppers when it’s just me. Thanks for this awesome recipe!
YESSSS!!! Thank you for thing the time to let me know !!
Just. Yum. Subbed light coconut milk and added the optional spices you recommended. Turned out lovely. Quick and easy and delicious accompaniment to the slow cooker Jerk chicken. Thanks!
Awesome! Thanks for the feedback Jessica
My brother in law is jamaican and often made me rice and peas with chicken stew…this is identical to his recipe.
Thanks for sharing!!!
I made this last weekend. The flavor is amazing. I could not find Scotch Bonnet peppers but used a Scotch Bonnet sauce and it was amazing. I paired this with Jerk Chicken and everyone raved about how good both dishes were. As a single man I find your dishes easy to make and everyone wants to know where I find the recipes. Thanks for sharing these.
My pleasure!! So happy these recipes are working out for you. Thank you for taking the time to share this with me.
I’ve made this twice now (vegan version) and it is absolutely delicious. I serve it with saute kale and even our non-vegan friends love it. Great recipe!
Awesome!!! Glad it was a hit!!!
OMG, this dish was awesome!! I made a double size of the Caribbean beans and rice yesterday and my family and I loved it! I subbed the canola with olive oil, and in addition to the recipe ingredients, I added a bit of shredded smoked turkey, red and green bell peppers, green onion, onion powder, and a bit of of all spice. It was DEELISH! I now have a dish to take to my family reunion this weekend!!! Thanks for posting 🙂
My Pleasure!! So happy to hear it worked out well for you. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
I just tried your rice and red beans recipe. The results were awesome!
Thanks Bruce! Glad it worked out well for you.
is there a recipe for oxtail gravy? please respond,,quick and easy works best for me
Check out this one here https://www.africanbites.com/jamaican-oxtail-stew-2/
Really easy, fragrant and yummy! I followed recipe to the T. Except I couldn’t find scotch bonnets and subbed a habanero. TBH, instructions were unclear at certain points: to oil pan before adding chicken? Jerk or creole seasoning on chicken? When is the 2nd seasoning added? When to add scotch bonnet (my only sub-habanero)? How long to boil w all ingredients? Cover pot? Luckily, I used the other links to the rice and chicken solo recipes to answer most of these. End result was awesome but perhaps the liquid ratio was too high. My rice was realllly soggy and clumpy, hardly any individual grains. And the skin wasn’t crispy enough. But if I closed my eyes, all the flavors were spot on. I did use a Dutch cast oven instead of a traditional cast. Do you think this affected the liquid ratio/crispness of chicken? Thank you for recipe but perhaps add more detail for beginner cooks!
Hi Gabrielle,
Sorry about the mix up. Are you referring to the Jerk chicken and rice dish?
I made this tonight and it was good! I used fish sauce at the end instead of salt because I love it on rice. I also used some wursts that were waiting in the fridge, because my sister actually doesn’t like beans that much. Actually she sentenced the rice was “too spicy”, oh well, I guess rice and beans is all mine now. About that, Imma, please, do you have some rice recipes that even a picky eater with a child’s tastebuds could enjoy? I am afraid of trying new recipes because I know that in the end I will have to finish them all alone…and that’s sad after a while…Still I would like to try making her taste new things. Thank you and I can’t wait to try some meat recipes!!
I sure do. Here are a couple , . The chicken recipes would definitely do it for the household. Give them a try and let me know what you think . Thanks!
Thanks for posting this recipe, I made it with black beans last night to go with jerk chicken and mango salsa, and it was delicious. I’d used all the scotch bonnet I had in the jerk chicken marinade, so I used a couple of turns of ground ghost chillies instead which gave it just the right kick. I didn’t have creole spice mix, so I made my own with celery salt, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder and allspice. This one’s a keeper!
AWESOME! So happy you enjoyed it Steve.