[FOOD | RECIPE] Ranchero Fiesta Rice Dish
I really have no idea what to call this recipe. A part of me wants to call it Mexican-Inspired, but I don’t think that is quite right. I don’t think Southwest-Inspired isn’t right either. So, instead, I went with what what one of the bag of veggies I used says on it:
This makes up the good bulk of the veggies inside of the meal. If you do NOT have this mix, don’t sweat it. Look for a similar mixture or switch it out for another kind of mixture of vegetables. If your mixture doesn’t have beans, add beans (you will want them for a protein punch).
Without further ado, here is the recipe:
Ingredients
- Brown Rice (or rice of your choice)
- Frozen Ranchero Fiesta Blend Veggies (or similar)
- Frozen Corn
- Frozen Mixed Peppers
- Frozen Chopped Onions
- 1 Can of Black Beans
- Avocado (Optional)
- 8oz Tomato Sauce, NO SPICES
- Cayenne Pepper (Optional)
- Chipotle Powder (Optional)
- Cumin
- Tumeric (Optional)
- Salt
- Onion Powder
- Garlic Powder
Instructions
- Cook rice according to directions
- While the rice is cooking, place about 1/4th cup of water in a medium/large pan with about 1/3rd of a bag of frozen Ranchero Fiesta (or similar vegetable mix), corn, mixed peppers, chopped onions, and 1 can of black beans. Put on medium-low heat and cover for a few minutes, stirring and watching as they soften. If the water runs out, put an additional 1/4th cup or how much you think you need before they are done softening.
- Once the veggies have been softened, throw in some avocado! Stir and let it sit for a few minutes
- Add about half of the tomato sauce into the vegetable mixture. Stir.
- Once the rice is completed, add in tomato sauce and spice (onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, salt, and, optionally, cayenne pepper, chipotle powder, and tumeric). Stir.
- Mix veggies and rice together.
- Serve either alone or with your favourite toppings.
Unless you have quick-cooking rice or a rice cooker, I would recommend you START YOUR RICE FIRST! The rice I have takes about 35 to 40 minutes to cook. The veggies take significantly less time, so I let the rice start cooking until about 25 minutes left, when I start putting the veggies together.
In the meantime, you could prep fresh veggies (if you are using those instead), wash and rinse your beans, and/or make your toppings. Yes, you heard me, toppings. If you wanted crushed tortilla chips, you can make those. If you wanted some vegan sour cream or a vegan taco topping, you can do those as well. Or you can do that after putting in all the vegetables together in a pan:
If you ARE looking for a vegan sour cream topping or a vegan taco topping, try these McDougall newsletter recipes.
The one you see above is the Taco topping, which is literally just a package of 12 oz silken tofu (that stuff is stupidly hard to find though, depending where you are; it can be found in the Asian section of the grocery store) and a pack of vegan-friendly taco spice mix (Bearitos or Old El Paso). If you need to see an actual recipe, you can find it in the notes of the Tex-Mex Potatoes here.
Vegan sour cream is a bit more complex than that, but still super easy. Yeah, sure you can buy the Tofutti sour cream as well, but I found the homemade one was a lot more sour cream-like. It is a package of 12 oz silken tofu, sugar (go for vegan sugar, like Florida Crystals; a lot of sugar is processed with Bone Char), salt, and lemon juice. You can get the recipe here, about four recipes down. I personally didn’t measure out my ingredients when I did it, but you can, if you’d like.
Once the veggies are softened, you can throw in the avocado:
Of course. throwing in avocado is entirely optional. Avocados are definitely too expensive for me to want to buy, unless I know I will use them often.
Don’t forget to add half a can of tomato sauce into this veggie mixture:
If your rice is done by now, throw in the remaining tomato sauce, plus a bunch of spices (you can see a lot of cumin here). Stir it afterward.
Then add your veggies and stir that.
THEN YOU ARE DONE! I personally added both the taco topping and the vegan sour cream to my plate.
I only had one small bowl of the meal; the remainder I stored in the fridge and ate it over the next couple of days.
This meal was DELICIOUS! I actually based it on a meal I had from the night before, which I will more or less detail in another post (an “I’ve eaten this before” summary thing with additional suggestions of recipes). Instead of the tomato sauce, I used chipotle & adobo paste (made using my blender). It was DELICIOUS, but super hot.
Let me know if you gave this dish a try!