Dirty Rice - Freezer Cooking Recipe

I love dirty rice. It's a true comfort food. Warm and spicy, perfect on these cold winter days. When you have the time, there is nothing better than a simmering pot on the stove filling your house with the delicious aroma.

 Make a double or triple batch and freeze it for when time is short. You can freeze this once its completely finished for a heat & eat meal or stop just before adding the rice. Then you when you are ready to eat just add the rice and a cup of water to the prepared base and simmer until the rice is done.

This is the kind of recipe that works great for batch cooking.  The peppers, onion and celery give this dish a rich flavor but it takes some time to chop all those vegetables. You can chop the vegetables for three batches in just about the same amount of time as for one batch. The simmering takes some times too. So you might as well simmer 3 batches all at once. In the end you have dinner for tonight and 2 in the freezer for later.

Ingredients (4 servings):
1 pound ground beef
1 cup uncooked brown rice
1 large onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 stalks of celery with leaves, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, mined
1 TBSP worcestershire sauce
1 cup homemade chicken stock or beef stock
2 TSP bacon fat or vegetable oil
salt and pepper
cayenne pepper powder (to taste)

Heat the bacon fat in a cast iron dutch over or other large pot.  Season the ground beef with salt and pepper and fry in the fat for about 5 minutes until it is mostly cooked.  As you are frying, break the beef up into small pieces.

Add the vegetables and stir to combine.  Cook on medium for about 10 minutes until the vegetables are softened.

Stir in the chicken stock and worcestershire sauce.  You can stop at this point, cool, and freeze the base.  To continue the recipe add 1 cup uncooked rice and 1 cup water and simmer at medium heat for 20 -30 minutes until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed.

Garnish with fresh parsley and Louisiana style hot sauce.

**To continue this recipe from the freezer, add the uncooked rice and water to the thawed base and simmer until the rice is tender and everything is warmed through.  If needed you can use the base directly from the freezer but it may take a bit longer to cook.


This recipe was submitted to the MaMade Blog Hop