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.
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.
To gathering around the table with delicious food,
Jenna
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. =)
Vegetarian Rice & Bean Casserole
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
- 1/2 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 1/2 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.
