This Vegetarian Rice & Bean Casserole is an easy and healthy solution for getting dinner on the table. It can be made ahead and frozen so it's extremely quick to throw together.
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This past Monday, Coach started back to work officially as a teacher. He's been coaching since the first Monday in August, but this week...this week starts the 12 hour+ work days.
I'm sure you heard my "UGH!" all the way there at your computer.
Football season is hard work and long days on our whole family. {For more about my life as a coach's wife, read my latest Married to Football post.} I work at the University several days a week, now take Jackson to preschool daily {30 minutes from our house}, manage our household, run this bliggety blog, and try to stay healthy in the process. We also like to attend football practice in the afternoon {25 minutes away from our house}, and this week, we are adding a weekly church activity for Jackson.
Hello full schedule!!!
I feel like I should just be handed my keys to a mini van and a pair of mom jeans because I've officially hit the carpooling mom stage. {TOTALLY just kidding about those mom jeans. If you ever see me in them, someone make an emergency call to Stitch Fix STAT! However, I would truly welcome a mini van.}
When it comes to dinner time, it can be a challenge to get a home cooked meal on the table. I'm sure you can relate. I do our weekly meal plans and try to shop ahead but even then, it can still be hard to eat a healthy meal AT HOME.
{Readers' Note: It is for this very challenge that #MakeHealthyEasy exists.}
Fortunately, I have just the secret weapon you and I need: my Vegetarian Rice & Bean Casserole.
We try to have at least one veg {aka vegetarian} meal a week. I would like to say that we participate in #MeatlessMonday weekly, but it could be #MeatleassTuesday or #MeatlessWednesday, depending on the schedule. For regular MHE readers, you may already have realized that Coach likes a hearty din-din so a veg meal needs to be, well, awesome.
For a long time I made rice and bean bowls, and that worked. But lately, I've been experimenting with throwing all the ingredients together in a casserole dish and baking it. It's been a hit in a lot of ways.
First, I can make it ahead of time so it only has to bake to bake before dinner time. The whole recipe can be mixed together, thrown in a gallon ziploc bag and thrown in the freezer. Then just dump it in your casserole dish and bake {add on 5 minutes to bake time if starting from frozen}.
I love using short grain brown rice for this recipe when I have the time. {Remember whole grains add valuable nutrients to our diets like filling fiber and B vitamins.} It's a softer rice that's just a touch a sticky, therefore resembling the texture of white rice. It also tastes very yummy. It takes 50 minutes to cook so I'll make this whenever I'm just at home {6 am, 8 pm} and just freeze it for later use, like this recipe.
Second, it tastes delish! Period.
Lastly, it's an all-in-one meal {the heavens open and angels sing when this happens}. You can easily add more veggies or different veggies here too-- use whatever you have on hand and customize it to your preference.
I serve this dish in a bowl and top with our favorite toppings like avocado, salsa and reduced fat sour cream or Greek yogurt. You can see how this a healthy, comfort meal for any time of year, right?!
I hope this easy meal makes it to your dinner table soon, with you and your loved ones sitting around it of course. In my mind, the dinner table is a precious place, so try to protect it at least a couple of nights a week.
Thanks so much for stopping by for this recipe. I hope you will stick around for more recipes, real life strategies for better health, and yeah, some football. =) Please sign up to receive my blog updates and keep in touch with what kind of recipes you would like to see here.
P.S. I just want you to know, that I pretty much despise the word "casserole". It makes me think gross things. I prefer to call this a Rice and Bean BAKE, but for SEO (search-ability) purposes, I will succumb to the word casserole. I needed to get that off my chest. =)
Recipe
Vegetarian Rice & Bean Casserole Recipe
Equipment
- Casserole Dish
Ingredients
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 green pepper chopped
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tablespoon olive or canola oil
- 2 cups cooked brown rice instant, long grain or short grain
- 1 can pinto beans drained
- 1 can black beans drained
- 1 can whole kernel corn* drained
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 cup vegetable stock
- ½ teaspoon ground pepper
- 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 cup Pepper Jack or sharp cheddar cheese recommend Cabot
- 1 green onion diced (optional)
Instructions
- Heat a skillet over medium heat. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 2 ½ quart baking dish with cooking oil.
- Add tablespoon of oil to skillet. Saute onion, pepper and garlic until softened, about 4-5 minutes.Then remove from heat.
- In a large mixing bowl, add cooked peppers/onion/garlic, rice, beans, corn, tomato paste, vegetable stock, salt and pepper, oregano, and cumin. Gently mix together. Fold in cheddar cheese.
- Evenly spread mixture in baking dish. Bake in oven for 25 minutes (30 minutes if cooking from frozen).
- Remove from oven. Sprinkle with green onions. Scoop out portions and serve with favorite toppings.
Notes
Nutrition
