One Pan Charleston Red Rice
This colorful, buttery rice dish features tomato, bacon, and veggies, soaking up popular Southern spices and flavors!
One Pan Charleston Red Rice is an easy-to-make, brilliantly flavored dish of long grain rice cooked in a mix of tomatoes, onions, peppers, bacon, and herbs. A Low-country South Carolina favorite, this spiced rice bears similarities to Nigerian Jollof rice, and is equally at home as a side dish or as a full meal by itself.
Our recipe below is a simple One Pan Charleston Red Rice, cooked on the stovetop to cut down on dishes and keep the process simple. While I’m far from an expert on stovetop rice cooking, I found it easy to cook up and almost indestructible (thanks to my good friend butter, and a great non-stick pan). The best thing during prep was the beautiful aroma that wafted through the house while I was cooking, it smelled of comfort and spice!
As with many southern-style dishes, having all of the Charleston Red Rice ingredients laid out and ready to put in the pan makes a huge difference to the end result – and by cooking in one pan, you’re only using a few more dishes this way! Each flavor element, and each ingredient, has a time and a place to be added, so reaching over and grabbing it from the bench at the correct stage, instead of stressing to try and find it in the pantry or fridge, makes for a straightforward process. If you spend the 5-10 minutes getting started to get everything together, it will prevent panic and flavor bombing later on, which means subtler, more distinct tastes you can easily identify in the final version.
While I’m a huge fan of hot southern spices, I prefer to leave the hottest flavors out of Charleston red rice. First, the rest of my family doesn’t share my love for heat, and second, I find that if you start with the heat in there, you’re stamping out some of the other earthier flavors, such as garlic and onion. I’ve found through repeating this recipe a few times, that adding a good hot sauce or a sprinkling of cayenne pepper as a condiment can give you heat without detrimentally impacting the other ingredients.
Charleston red rice has plenty of heft and its mix of flavors makes it perfect for enjoying by itself as a main meal. If you want to amp it up a bit, you might add slices of Spanish chorizo, or any type of spicy sausage. The rendered fat from the meat works delightfully in contrast to the butter, tomatoes, and spices spread throughout the rice. The end is a comfort food classic, full of flavor and it tastes even better as leftovers!
One Pan Charleston Red Rice
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 rashers middle bacon, finely chopped
- 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
- 2 medium stalks celery, finely chopped
- 1/2 red bell pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup uncooked long-grain rice, rinsed
- 1 x 6 oz can tomato paste
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons raw sugar
- 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning
- 2 cups chicken broth
- Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste
- Garnish: 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Preparation
- Heat oil in a large skillet or frying pan at medium-high temperature. Add the chopped bacon and cook for 5 minutes, or until beginning to crisp. Remove the bacon and set aside on a paper towel.
- Reserve the bacon grease and remaining oil in the pan. Add the onion, peppers, and celery and cook for 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook for another minute.
- Add the butter to the vegetables and melt it in the pan for 1-2 minutes. Pour in the rinsed rice and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until the rice has begun to brown.
- Add the remaining ingredients (including the bacon), and mix thoroughly. Bring the red rice to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for 15-20 minutes, and do not stir!
- Remove the Charleston red rice from the heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Fluff the rice with a fork and serve immediately with a sprinkling of salt and pepper; garnish with fresh parsley.
Recipe adapted from The Seasoned Mom