Smoky Bean Brown Rice and Quinoa

Smoky Bean Brown Rice and Quinoa

I’m not really sure what to call this dish. I think it’s more of a rice side dish that would traditionally be eaten with meat, but we like to eat it as the main event with avocado and greens on the side. It was something I developed for one of my husband’s clients that make smoky salts. One of their salts is peri flavoured. It was quite hard to come up with a plant-based/ vegetarian peri dish but I can up with this and I am so glad I did because now we are having this on repeat! I’ve simplified the recipe to use smoked paprika, but you can easily make this more peri-tasting by adding a peri mix.

This meal is actually fairly quick and easy to make provided you have pre-cooked rice and quinoa. I would not even attempt to make this without having pre-cooked grains on hand. I like to batch cook all my whole grains and freeze them. If I know I will be using them that day then I simply leave them out to defrost them, if not I will quickly microwave them for a few minutes until they are ready to use. You do not need to add quinoa to this dish, but I like to do so to add a little extra variety and plant protein. You can also use wild rice or different types of rice and mix up the beans you use in the dish. I have made this with black-eyed beans and adzuki beans. Both were delicious. You can also use a bean mix or any beans you like. I like to swap around my beans depending on what phase I am in my menstrual cycle to get a little more variety. I would similarly swap out the type of grains that I use depending on where I am in my cycle. In the past, I basically only ate red kidney beans and never saw the need to add different beans into my diet because “all beans are similar in nutrition” I have since learned the importance of variety, and even though beans are all similar, they each have specific differences as well with different health benefits. Swapping out varieties based on where I am in my cycle is a fun way to ensure more variety in the diet. A variety of plants is a key to a diverse and healthy gut microbiome which is the key to immunity and overall health.

I like to get a little crunch on my rice so I cook it so that’s its a little like fried rice, but you can cook it to whatever consistency you like. As soon as the capsicum and onion are cooked, all other ingredients are already pre-cooked so they do not need to be in the frying pan for long.

The recipe is vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free and refined sugar-free.

 

Get the recipe in my new book: Eating for Hormone Balance: a Plant-based Guide”
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Talida

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