Brazilian Rice and Beans

Brazilian Beans and Rice

In the wonderful country of Brazil, rice and beans is a staple part of their diet. This easy recipe shows you how to make some traditional Brazilian rice and beans with just a few ingredients.

Brazilian Catering

My wife is Brazilian, and I have been very fortunate to have travelled to the beautiful country of Brazil many times. Both for business and for pleasure.

A few years ago I was Project Quality Manager on an FPSO project destined for Brazilian waters and hence was very busy auditing many companies in Brazil on their ability to deliver complex equipment for our project. This brought me to many different places and companies, mainly in the States of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo.

Nearly all of these companies had canteens where they fed their employees at lunchtime. In all of them, the catering was very similar, and rice and beans (feijão in Portuguese) was ALWAYS on the menu. It was always served together with a choice of meat (normally chicken or beef) and vegetables and salad.

In fact, most Brazilians will eat rice and beans almost every day of the week in some form or another.

Cooking the beans

The only thing that seemed to vary between the canteens was the colour of the beans which seemed to be black around Rio and brown in São Paulo state. I have used some black beans in this recipe, but you could just as easily use some brown beans if you prefer. We avoid soaking the beans by giving them a thorough rinsing before cooking them under pressure.

It is, of course, possible to cook dry beans without a pressure cooker, but then you would have to soak overnight beforehand and they would take a lot longer to cook.

You can also use tinned black beans to make this recipe, which have been pre-soaked, and do not require cooking in the pressure cooker. But they will never be quite as authentic or taste as good as the real thing, cooked from dry beans.  

Feijão or Feijoada?

As we have added some smoked lardons to this recipe, it is not really just feijão (beans), but really it is a feijão gordo (fat beans) recipe. If we went a step further and added more pieces of pork or Brazilian sausages, like linguica or calabresa, then it would become a feijoada, which in some states of Brazil is considered the national dish.

I have eaten some delicious feijoada on the top floor of the Rio Othon Palace on the Copacabana, and really, if you get the chance, you must try it. Absolutely delicious!

This recipe is really a simple beans recipe, but if you have never tried them, please give it a go. My wife loves making this as it reminds her of home. We will survive for several days on the quantities in this recipe (that were based on the size of the bag of beans). It is cheap and easy, what more could you want?

In Brazil, the beans will stay in the pot on the stove and the next day it will be re-boiled before serving. We like to keep them in the fridge though between meals just to be safe!

These beans taste even better the next day. The sauce does thicken up though overnight, so you will need to add some more water when you re-heat them.

You may wish to serve this meal with some farofa which is manioc flour (or cassava). Manioc is a root that is also a staple food in Brazil as much as we would eat potatoes. Another of my Brazilian favourites is in fact fried manioc, which I think is just so much better than our French fries. 

I hope you enjoy making this recipe. Please let me know how you get on in the comments section below!

How to make Brazilian Rice and Black Beans

Brazilian Rice and Beans

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This easy recipe will give you some delicious Brazilian black beans, perfect when served with some boiled white rice and a fried egg.

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes

Total Time 55 minutes

Ingredients

• 500g Black Beans (I used Black turtle beans in these photos)
• 7 large cloves garlic, sliced
• 360g smoked bacon lardons
• Salt to taste

Instructions

1. Wash the beans and separate any bad ones (this may not be necessary - it depends on the quality of the beans you are using).
2. Then put the beans in a pressure cooker with a layer of water to cover them and an extra 3/4 inch of water above the layer of beans. I use my Instant Pot for this. Cook for 40 minutes until the beans are cooked. (Instant pot setting is high pressure for 40 minutes).
3. In the meantime, fry the lardons until cooked, and set aside. Then fry the garlic in the bacon fat and set aside.
4. When the beans are cooked, add the garlic and bacon and stir well as you bring to the boil over medium heat. Boil for 5 minutes before serving. Season with salt to taste before serving (here the lardons were quite salty and no salt was needed.)

Notes

Serve the beans with some boiled white rice (we use basmati rice at home) and a fried egg. Optionally, garnish with farofa and some hot sauce like Tabasco.

Or you may want to serve up as a side dish with some chicken or steak (picanha).

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

8

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 297Total Fat: 16gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 10gCholesterol: 45mgSodium: 832mgCarbohydrates: 16gFiber: 6gSugar: 0gProtein: 21g

[This nutrition information was automatically calculated by Nutritionix, but may not be 100% accurate. This information relates only to the beans and does not include the rice or egg.]

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