New Orleans Red Beans

Red beans have been a staple in my diet since before I can remember. While I only lived in New Orleans for the first few years of my life, the kitchen at our house has stayed firmly rooted in the spicy, slow cooked traditions that my mom and dad were raised with.

This dish is one of my favorites. Served with rice and corn bread, it makes an appearance on our table several times a month. I make it on the stove, but it can be made in a slow cooker, too, if you don’t have two hours set aside in which to stir every 20 minutes and keep the beans from sticking.

It is very easy to make a double-batch and freeze half, and leftovers would last a long time if anything around here was given the chance. It is just too delicious to not have a plate of cold red beans for breakfast the next day; this is the cajun version of a cold pizza breakfast . It is hard to resist, especially when the day promises to be hot and humid. Cold and spicy, the flavors meld together overnight the way no cooking on the stove could ever do.  Or, of course, you can eat it hot off the stove for dinner, like a normal person.

New Orleans Red Beans

1/2 pound red kidney beans

1/2 pound smoked sausage*

1 onion chopped coarsely

1 heaping tbsp crushed garlic

1 tsp italian seasoning

2 bay leaves

1/2 tsp black pepper

10 shakes of Crystal hot sauce

1 tsp baking soda

Soak the beans over night and then before cooking check for any rocks. Pour off enough water that the beans are covered. Chop the sausage into bite-sized pieces. Add all the ingredients to the pot with the Crystal last. We go for very spicy, and hot sauce is the only condiment on the table at my parents’ house, so use as much as your taste buds can handle without being overwhelming. When you add the sauce, it will make the baking soda foam up, which looks pretty neat. A discovery by one of my aunts, the baking soda helps the beans cook much, much faster.  So make sure if you alter anything in the recipe that it isn’t the baking soda.

Bring the contents of the pot to a boil and then cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook for about 2 hours, stirring every 20 minutes. If they seem too dried-out, it is fine to add water, though I rarely find the need. When finished they should be pretty mushy, and it should be hard to tell the difference between the beans and the sausage.

Serve over rice or corn bread.

*Now, my husband likes ”double-meat” red beans, though I prefer to stick with the 1/2 pound. I’m not really a purist and I use the prepackaged Hillshire far type that goes on sale and has coupons now and then. Comes in 1 pound, so I either get two batches per package or one. It tastes pretty much the same either way, but I prefer  red beans with a bit of sausage with whereas he likes sausage with a bit of red beans.