When you take a bite of this Gullah Red Rice, you’ll feel like you’re experiencing layers upon layers of history. This dish is complex, infusing smokey and herbaceous spices with a medley of aromatic veggies, rice, and rich cuts of bacon and sausage, creating a one-pot meal that takes you to the coastlines of the South.

The Gullah Geechee community is one established by the oppressed. The community, formed of enslaved West Africans, settled on the isolated and separated barriers around Georgia and South Carolina’s Sea Islands. While they would also set up communities on the coastlines of Florida, the cuisine of the Gullah Geechee communities relied on the main crops of Georgia and South Carolina — rice. There in these communities a unique culinary pocket formed, fusing the inherited traditions of West African cooking with the ingredients of the New World, like tomatoes and bell peppers. Here, the New World tomato worked using West African rice cooking techniques to form a dish that was unique to the Gullah Geechee.  

The rice starts with rendering bacon, followed by cooking down the aromatics that are similar to the NoLa trinity of celery, bell peppers, and onions. 

Next, tomato paste and tomato sauce make their way into the pot alongside the rice, bacon, and sausage. The mixture gets transferred to a baking dish. Chicken stock is added, and then the whole thing bakes both covered and uncovered until the rice is fully cooked. 

Gullah Red Rice is inviting both an aromatic and visual sense.

The vibrant red color and the enticing scents of onion, sausage, and bacon make for a dish that’s far from simple in flavor.

The dried herbs and spices take on a more complex, nuanced note thanks to the addition of fresh vegetables that have been sautéed. Bacon and sausage in the Gullah Red Rice give it a satisfying meaty heartiness that turns rice from a side dish into a main dish.