Rice-Cooker Stew Recipe
You don't need a whole kitchen to cook. Here's a complete meal you can make with just a rice cooker, perfect for cooking in a hotel room, dorm room, or where ever you have electricity but no other cooking facilities.
By changing the types of beans and flavoring of the tomatoes, you can use the same recipe to make a wide variety of meals. Try kidney beans with chili-style tomatoes, chick peas with basil, garlic, and oregano, black beans with garlic and onions, and pinto beans with jalapenos.
Active time: 12 minutes. Total time: about 40 minutes, depending on your rice cooker. Makes 4 servings, 1 cup each.
Ingredients
1/2 cup rice
1 cup water
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper or zucchini, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 can (15 ounces) diced tomatoes, with seasoning if you like
1 can (15 ounces) rinsed beans
salt to taste
grated or cubed cheese (optional)
Method
- Put rice, water, chopped onion, chopped green pepper or zucchini, minced garlic, and tomatoes with the juice in rice cooker. Turn cooker on and let it complete its cooking cycle.
- Meanwhile, rinse the beans and cut up cheese into 1/4 inch cubes if needed. When the cooking cycle is done, add beans to rice mixture and stir. Turn cooker back on to warm the beans for about 2 minutes. Taste and add salt as needed.
- Serve topped with grated or cubed cheese if desired. Refrigerate any extra or throw it away if you don't have access to a refrigerator.
Tips and notes
- I've used an Aroma 7-cup rice cooker and steamer for years and appreciate its light weight and durability.
- To rinse beans, drain off any liquid you can. Add water and drain, repeating until rinse water comes out clear. Pour the loose beans into the tomato can, use a fork or spoon to loosen any remaining beans, and rinse the loosened beans. If you don't rinse beans well, the dish will have a metallic taste and may have more BPA from the can lining. Pregnant women and very young children should be especially careful about BPA exposure.
- You can add the beans at the start, but I like to wait. Canned beans are completely cooked to start with, so cooking them longer can make them mushy.
- If you do have extra to store, it's best to refrigerate it in the rice-cooker liner or a food-storage container. But when traveling, I often store the extras in the cans themselves and put plastic bags over the tops for a day. Don't store the stew in opened cans for more than a day.
- To make this recipe without a rice cooker, just cook the rice in the water on the stove. While the rice cooks, cook the onion and garlic in a little oil and then add in the rest of the ingredients to simmer for about 10 minutes. When the rice is done, mix it all together or serve the bean mixture over the rice.
