Black beans and rice are a
staple at my house. I fell in love with them in Brazil and it’s been a comfort food ever since. If you’re trying to eat healthy and/or affordable, beans are a great thing to be adding to your diet. Another thing I love are sweet and salty combos. I’ve experimented a lot with fruit and Latin food. If apple salsa sounds strange, just think of Peach BBQ Sauce or Mango Pico, or Mango Salsa. I even made red grape salsa last summer that was amaaazing. It may sound funny, but trust me when I tell you that all of the flavors of this dish together are great. It’s just a simple, fresh, healthy, filling meal.
The salsa comes together quickly; just a tart Granny Smith apple, some diced red onion, chopped cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice. I added a sprinkle of salt and pepper too.
Saute some diced green pepper and red onion until soft
And then add beans, garlic, and seasonings. Pretty much the Sara special: garlic, chili powder, coriander, and cumin. You should saute the beans with the garlic and seasonings for a few minutes before adding some chicken broth. Unless you’re doing crazy things like trying to take pictures while cooking while trying to shake a toddler off your leg. Then you might just dump everything in there at once.
Now, the original recipe calls for 2 whole cans of broth and I think that’s way too much; it would be like soup. One was just fine, so I cut the seasonings back to compensate. So feel free to add more of the seasonings at the end if you feel like it needs it.
Simmer that mixture for 10-20 minutes. While it’s cooking, use the back of a spoon to smash a bunch of the beans; this will help thicken up the sauce.
When you’re ready to eat up, just spoon some of the beans over brown or white rice and top with some grilled chicken (or a rotisserie chicken to make things even easier) and the apple salsa.
I love brown rice, but if you don’t eat it regularly, you might not like it. And lots of kids won’t touch it with a ten foot pole. So here’s a couple of tips. One is to try instant brown rice. It doesn’t have quite as many health benefits as regular brown rice but it’s super quick to make and it’s a lot softer and less…brown-rice-ish. My kids can’t tell the difference between instant brown and white, or at least they’ve never once complained or noted it wasn’t like normal. I think of it as training-rice 🙂 Another thing to try is mixing half white with half brown. You have to cook them separately, but then you can mix them together and that’s a good way to get your family used to brown rice as well.
Anyway, back to the recipe. I loved the apple salsa combined with the beans and chicken all together. There are so many flavors and textures and they go wonderfully together. And if you have kids at home and you’re thinking they’ll never go for this, you can try what I did and just throw a little of everything in a tortilla with some melted cheese. Seriously, kids will eat almost anything in a tortilla. My boys all asked for seconds, and they ate the seconds without tortillas!
Print Black Beans & Rice with Chicken and Apple Salsa
- Yield: 6
Ingredients
- 1 cup chopped peeled Granny Smith apple
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, divided
- 1/3 cup finely chopped red onion, divided
- 2 limes
- 1/3 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
- 1–2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 garlic cloves, finely minced
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 3/4 teaspoons coriander
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1 13.5 ounce can chicken broth
- 2 15-ounce cans black beans, drained and rinsed
- kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 medium rotisserie chicken, or 4 cups cooked brown or white rice
- 4 grilled chicken breasts
- 4–6 lime wedges
Instructions
Combine apple, cilantro, 2 tablespoons onion, and the juice from half a lime. Sprinkle with a little kosher salt and black pepper. Set aside.
Combine remaining onion, bell pepper, and oil in a large skillet. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until completely softened, 6-7 minutes. Add garlic and next 3 ingredients; stir constantly for 2 minutes. Stir in broth and beans; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; simmer briskly, mashing some of hte beans with the back of a spoon and stirring often, until sauce is thickened, 8-10 minutes (or longer if needed). Season with salt and pepper to taste and a big squeeze of lime juice. Divide rice and beans among plates. Top with some chicken and apple salsa. Garnish with additional cilantro and lime wedges.
Notes
Feel free to play around with the quantities in this recipe, like I did. You can add more onion to the salsa, or increase seasonings in the beans. Taste as you go and make it your own!
Adapted from Bon Appetit, January 2012
Questions & Reviews
Visiting from http://goodrealfood.blogspot.com
This looks delicious!
Do you think I could use Gala apples for the salsa I have an overabundance of them
or would that alter the taste
Not sure Nanci, you’ll have to try it! I like the tartness of the granny smith, but I bet any apple would be fine.
Made this for dinner last night just like the recipe said, and my family loved it. I was skeptical of the apple salsa, but we all loved it. Yummy! Thanks for another delicious dinner recipe.
Really wonderful! Made it last night and all six of my kids gobbled it up. I bought Texmati brown rice (they have it at out Costco here in Austin. Not sure about the rest of the country.) I’ve never had that kind of brown rice before and it was heavenly (and I say that as someone who is not fond of brown rice).
I’m renting a beachfront house in Port Aransas this weekend with several of my girlfriends and we’re all in charge of making one meal. This is going to be mine. They’ll love it. Especially good since one of my friends eats Gluten Free.
This is SO yummy! My kids wanted the leftovers for lunch the next day, and have also asked a few times when we can have it again. I made mine with out any meat, because i decided five minutes befor making it to have it, however it was still very filling. Thank you for all your wonderfull food!
Made this last night and LOVED it. Question: do you have a suggestion for other things to use the apple salsa with? It was SO good that I need way more excuses to use it.
So of course … this is good, but the apple salsa really makes it great, wow! I’m always amazed at what you girls can come up with the most basic ingredients.
And made the Cowboy Quesadillas with the leftovers and it worked out perfectly. I love how once I gathered all the OBB basic pantry items, I can make just about anything with a couple simple additions. You girls are the best 🙂
Another great one from OBB! I loved this. I really thought the apple salsa was perfect for it. Hubby said he would have preferred regular salsa but he has a thing against red onions. Keep up the good work.
I made this tonight for dinner. We loved it!
I just have to say, that my husband and i LOVED this recipe. He just couldn’t say enough good things about it, and kept eating more. So, thanks so much for the recipe. It was great!! (Actually, all your recipes are great, this is just the most recent one I made. Thanks!!)
I cooked a whole chicken Saturday night and this is what we had. We loved it. I loved the cilantro and apples together for the salsa. It was so delicious, thank you for all your awesome cooking ideas.
Made this for dinner tonight, and it was very good. We like more heat in our dishes, so we are planning to add a serrano pepper and more of the spices to the beans. Absolutely loved the apple salsa – I think I will make some more as a snack!
yep, trying this this week. I’ll use rotisserie chicken. oh and i LOVE your Pin button. so easy. Thank you!! i pinned it.
Love beans and rice. This combination is so good with the salsa. The roasted chicken from the store makes this easy to put together after a long day of work.
I made this tonight minus the rice…it was so good! Best meal I’ve had in a long time. I’m eating the salsa by itself…I more than tripled it after I tasted it.
Thank you for such a good recipe!
This was wonderful! The apple salsa was heaven! Thanks so much for the recipe!
The whole fam loved this meal! I will definitely be making this again…thanks!!
Yum! This is definitely one to try. My kids are SUPER picky but a couple of things I have been able to get them to eat are brown rice and whole wheat tortillas. They actually prefer the ww tortillas now and don’t know the difference with the rice. I started off by mixing the white and brown rice, adding more brown each time until that was all they were having! I am sometimes shocked that they actually eat it, because they are so picky. But the health benefits are worth it! Can’t wait to try this!
This was so yummy! My fam loved it too! My only problem was that my beans were a bit dry. I don’t buy canned chicken broth, so I used about 2 cups of broth. I definitely will use more next time. Sara, about how much salt did you use for the beans? I am bad at guessing on the salt and I always end up putting in too much salt.
I really don’t know- you just have to go by taste. The best thing to do is just add a little and then taste as you go so you don’t get too much!
Made this and Loved it! Lime juice and apples. Who knew? Best decision ever! We added tomato and avocado with our apples. That way I could call it a salsa and my husband wouldn’t roll his eyes at me. 🙂 served it with steamed fish with a touch of lime olive oil. Yum! Thank you thank you!
I made this for dinner last night and it was excellent. My fiancé loved! Thanks for a great recipe
Made this for dinner last night. Only ‘half’ a batch (just two of us old folks). Thought I’d be the only one to be brave enough for the apple salsa. We both loved it ~ Trying to eat healthier in 2012 so beans and rice are in our weekly rotation during the winter….a great change from your ‘standard’ beans and rice recipes. This one is a keeper ~ Don’t be shy ~ Try it, it was wonderful! Try jubilee rice (mixture of brown, red, black etc) actually when I was teaching my family to like brown rice I started with 1 C white 1/2 C brown and worked up from there. I don’t cook ‘plain’ white rice any longer. We actually enjoy the texture of brown.
This looks really yummy. I’m definitely going to try it. Your picture makes it look so pretty and delcious, there is no way I couldn’t try it.
Tried this last night; I felt it needed some tweaking or I did something wrong. The apple salsa was REALLY sour! I turned the rice into pineapple & cilantro rice which helped balance but I felt it needed something else…
WE really love all of those ingredients at our house, so I’m sure it will be a big hit with our family!
yum!!! Can’t wait to try this !!
I made this for dinner last night and we LOVED it! I was a little nervous about the apple salsa, but I loved the texture, freshness, and little bit of sweet that it added. We will definitely be having this again!
I made this last night and it was fabulous! I am not a big cilantro fan but I did follow this recipe exactly (unusual for me) and the salsa was amazing. I’d say the lime is the main key ingredient. Thanks for this! I’m looking forward to left overs for lunch today 🙂
We made this last night exactly by the recipe. Very, very good. It will be a regular for us. Also found brown basmati rice and it was delicious with the black beans. Thank you.
guess what? u don’t have to cook brown and white separately. we cook them in the rice steamer/pot and just add extra liquid to accommodate the brown rice comes out really good! my kids aren’t big on the brown rice, but do good with the halved mix. thanks for the bean recipe 🙂