The finest meatloaf ever is this one! This is a labor of love with a strong Ozarks influence! The best flavor comes from using fresh ground beef, fresh eggs, and handmade breadcrumbs.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 3 hrs 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 3 hrs 45 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 8 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 pound dry red kidney beans
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 12 ounces andouille sausage, diced
- 1 cup finely diced onion
- ¾ cup chopped celery
- ¾ cup poblano peppers
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 quarts chicken broth, or more as needed
- 1 smoked ham hock
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
- hot sauce to taste
- 4 cups cooked white rice
- 2 tablespoons chopped green onion, or to taste
Instructions
- Place beans in a large container and cover with several inches of cool water; let stand 8 hours to overnight. Drain and rinse.
- Heat vegetable oil in a large pot over medium heat. Cook and stir sausage in hot oil until oils slightly release from sausage and edges brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir onion, celery, and poblano pepper into sausage; cook and stir until vegetables soften and start to turn translucent, 5 to 10 minutes. Stir garlic into sausage mixture; cook and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Stir red beans, chicken broth, ham hock, bay leaves, black pepper, thyme, cayenne pepper, and hot sauce into the sausage mixture; bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for 1 1/2 hours. Add salt and continue simmering until beans are soft, meat is tender, and desired consistency is reached, 1 1/2 to 2 hours more. Season with salt.
- Spoon rice into bowls, ladle red beans mixture over rice, and top with green onion.
- You can substitute green bell peppers for poblano peppers. You can use water instead of chicken broth.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 542 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 63 g |
| Cholesterol | 46 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 10 g |
| Protein | 26 g |
| Saturated Fat | 6 g |
| Sodium | 1384 mg |
| Sugars | 4 g |
| Fat | 21 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I love Chef John’s recipes, but this recipe makes bean soup, not red beans and rice. This recipe calls for 2 quarts or 8 cups of broth for pre-soaked beans, which results in a soupy, watery bowl, but most other RBR recipes call for 6 cups of liquid for pre-soaked beans, which is the perfect amount. Use 8 c of broth for dry beans right out of the bag. Spices and technique here are great though.
Great basic recipe. Cooked as per instructions using chicken broth and substituted smoked pork ribs for ham hock. The 2nd batch doubled the cayenne. Put some on a Hebrew National hot dog with a Kings Hawaiian top cut roll and it was amazing. Thanks again Chef John!!!
I made this with Chef John’s shrimp etouffee and steamed rice and thought I was in heaven. Well, hopefully this wasn’t my last supper but if it is, I went out happy. Best ever combination. I feel sorry for those that didn’t like this.
This is outstanding. Takes time, but it’s mostly hands off. A good meal to cook on a weekend. You can adapt this to a pressure cooker if you don’t want to wait as long (see my last note). Ham hock isn’t carried at my local grocery stores, so when I don’t feel like visiting a butcher, an easy sub is any kind of bone in pork shoulder, like pork blade or country style ribs. Bone in country style ribs is my go to. I have also subbed jalapenos for the poblanos for more heat. I have also cooked this in a pressure cooker with great results. Use the same ingredients here except for the broth. Look up another recipe to get the liquid to bean ratio right and cook time. I think I ended up using 3 cups broth, 3 cups water, cook on high for 60 mins, 15 minute natural release, but confirm with another recipe. There are tons of them online. However I like Chef John’s flavors the best, hence the merging of recipes.
I made this last night! I was not able to use the ham hocks I bought, unfortunately. I used just regular smoked sausage and I used canned dark red kidney beans and simmered everything for an hour and a half. Everyone raved about it! The flavors were just so good. Even my almost 2 year old grandson could not get enough! He ate the sausage and the rice in the gravy and went to town. I cooked my rice in my instant pot, but instead of using water, I used chicken broth, I added extra powdered broth to give it a stronger flavor and it was just great! I hate that I needed to alter this recipe for our need, but we loved it anyway. Thank you, Chef John, for this great recipe!!
Very tasty. I made this recipe a few days ago and it was awesome. I took half to work and it disappeared quickly with many compliments thrown my way. The only thing I would change is to add another pound of beans… I prefer a higher bean to meat ratio. In the future, I will use Poblanos instead of green peppers in my chile bean recipe. Thanks for the recipe, I will definitely be making it again.
Delicious flavor! I left out the cayenne pepper for our taste. I followed another reviewers suggestion and made a pan of cornbread to serve with it. It really does go well together. This recipe needs all of the suggested cooking time, so save it for a day when you have plenty of time at home.
The family loved it, best ever
I have made this recipe many, many times. It’s a favorite and often requested in our house! The first time I followed the instructions and ingredients to the letter. It was a smash hit!! Since then, I have only ever made two consistent changes and one other change due to unavailability of an ingredient. Changes are as follows: 1. We don’t care much for kidney beans or the hassle of using dry beans, so substituted 5 cans of red beans (NOT kidney beans) – there is a difference. I rinse them before adding to the pot. This works out perfect and much easier/quicker than using dried beans. 2. I substitute hatch peppers for the poblanos. We always have hatch peppers on hand as we buy them fresh every September, roast them and freeze to use throughout the year. Hatch peppers come in mild, medium and hot. Roasted peppers add an extra level of flavor. 3. I can’t always get smoked ham hocks so have also used smoked ham shanks. There is absolutely no difference in taste or texture. The one thing I noticed is that the recipe instructions don’t mention pulling the meat off the hock/shank after it’s done cooking. You’ll want to do that, cut up the bigger pieces and return the meat to the pot. Chef John’s recipe is wonderful. I always suggest making the recipe exactly as written the first time. Then tweak to your own tastes and preferences. This recipe has huge flavor and great texture! Very filling and enough for multiple meals!!
I made it for a Mardi Gras Party. Excellent.
I made this recipe for the first time last night. We went to New Orleans for a conference last November and loved the food so I decided to make it. I grew up not soaking beans so that was different for me but I did it for about 5 hours and they turned out great. We Loved it! My husband could not stop eating it! I used the poblano peppers as recommended. Very tasty red beans and rice 🙂
I needed to to sub smoked spiral ham pieces for the ham hocks, as they were not available, but they turned out AWESOME & PERFECT. My children have always hated any beans other than green beans, but they LOVED these!! Will be having at least once a month. THANK YOU, CHEF JOHN!
I made this exactly as specified with a few exceptions. Instead of using only kidney beans, I used a 50-50 mixture of kidney beans and small red beans. I used a green bell pepper instead of a poblano pepper. I used a ham shank rather than a hock but the next time I make this I’ll probably use 1 or 2 smoked pork neckbones. I skipped the green onions because I didn’t have them. The recipe on Chef John’s blog tells you to use water or chicken broth and 2 teaspoons of kosher salt. Because I used 8 cups of chicken stock, I cut the kosher salt to 1 teaspoon. Finally, instead of using 12 ounces of andouille sausage I used 14 ounces because that was the amount in the package. They were Johnsonville brand. I ate it with rice that was flavored with Knorr chicken bouillon granules (powder). I topped it off with Crystal hot sauce. I was very pleased with this recipe and I would recommend it. I’m going to try several recipes which purport to be authentic so I can compare them and see which ones are keepers. This was a simple dish and I enjoyed it.
Absolutely love this recipe I’ve made it multiple times for my family. It’s not spicy at all unless you have very sensitive taste buds.
Left out a few ingredients that my husband won’t eat but it was still great and enough to freeze for another meal.
I made this and it was delicious; I used my hambone leftover from Thanksgiving and I did have to add more chicken stock because of evaporation. Other than that, I changed nothing. I even made cornbread muffin loaves to go with it (highly recommended). I Will definitely make it again.
Followed CJ’s recipe but the rice went on the bottom. Tasted good. Should have made more sauce but heyho was more than adequate.
Absolutely great the first time; even better the next deay. I couldn’t find a smoked ham hock so I used pig’s feet, and it was still good.
I did not use the hamhocks, because of the smoked sausage, but overall this was a delicious recipe.
All in all I thought it was great! I substituted Chicken Andouille sausage, left out the ham hock and used a green Bell Pepper instead of a poblanos. The red beans were soaked for over 12 hours, yet even after the reduction in heat to low, they were still not soft. I ended up cooking them for a total of about 7 hours. BTW: I don’t recommend the Chicken Andouille. I’ll use beef smoked sausage next time
I loved the flavor of the recipe but knew it would be too spicy for me, so I used only a small amount of cayenne pepper, substituted bell pepper for poblano, and used no hot sauce. It had enough kick for my husband and me. It was very good with those changes.