Dirty Rice

My recipe follows a similar path without the organ meats, but if that is what you like, please enjoy!  I have used leftover rice in mine and it turned out delicious.  You can cook rice directly in the pan with the proper ratio of rice and water after cooking the meat and vegetables.  

I hope you give this dirty rice a try and I hope you love it as much as we do!

Happy Eating!

Dirty rice has a murky history.  The one thing that is for certain is that it was born of the African American population of the deep south such as the Louisiana Bayou, the Mississippi Delta as well as the Carolina low country.   Those people who hail from Africa who used what they had, ate what they were given and most times had to be very resourceful with their food supply.   They mixed rice with aromatics such as celery, onions and bell peppers with small pieces of meat, which in most cases would have been "offal" or organ meats such as chicken gizzards, hearts and livers.  Sometimes sausage was used.  As time moved on and people yearned for the food of their ancestors, what they had grown up with, they added ground beef or chicken to the mix to make this a truly delicious meal.

​Today I want to share an dinner that was inspired by a local chicken chain.  Bojangles chicken and biscuits is very prevalent in the south and is starting to spread across the Midwest and further to other parts of the country.  When we first moved to North Carolina this was one of the first new places we tried.  How can you go wrong with cajun fried chicken with all the fixins?  One of those fixins is called dirty rice.  Named so for it's appearance.  It is filled with aromatics and meat and seasoned just right.  This is my version of dirty rice.  I am sure there are as many recipes for this dish as there are cooks who make it.  Let me introduce you to mine.

We love the dirty rice from Bojangles and this was bolstered by a recent dinner with our dear friends Heather and Matt from The Kneady Homesteader channel who came to North Carolina from Michigan to visit us for a weekend.  It was a wonderful time and was over much too soon.  During that weekend, we treated them to their first taste of Bojangles fried chicken with all the fixins.  Seasoned fries, mashed potatoes and gravy divine Cajun style green beans and of course biscuits.  The star though was that dirty rice. 

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                                                                                       Noreen's Kitchen
                                     Dirty Rice Inspired by Bojangles

                                                       Ingredients

1 pound ground beef
1 pound bulk breakfast sausage
½ cup green bell pepper, chopped fine
½ cup red bell pepper, chopped fine
1 medium sweet onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup celery, chopped fine
½ cup fresh parsley, chopped fine
3 green onions chopped both white and green
6 cups cooked rice
1 cup chicken stock
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon ground celery seed
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

                                           Step by Step Instructions

Brown ground beef and sausage in a large, heavy bottomed skillet until brown and all the liquid has cooked away. 

Remove all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the pan.

Add onion, garlic, bell pepper, parsley and celery.  Sautee’ until tender.

Add in all seasoning and stir well to combine.

Add rice to the pan and stir well to incorporate.

Add chicken stock and stir well.

Allow rice to simmer for five minutes. 

Remove from heat and sprinkle with green onions if desired.

Serve with a side salad for a complete meal.



                                                       ENJOY!

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Hi!  I'm Noreen, wife, mother of two amazing, almost grown, daughters, content creator, cook, baker and sister in Christ. Welcome to my Kitchen!   I hope you stick around, enjoy the recipes and share them with those you love!

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