Easy Mexican Rice

The school year has officially begun. Which means more campus food and meals on-the-go. Hopefully I will still find a sufficient amount of time to cook. Yesterday my roommate Nicole made a delicious meal that we've been eating for leftovers ever since. She got the recipe from our friend Amanda, who is also a fan of my blog. I'm hoping she'll give more great suggestions in the future.

1/2 onion, chopped
1 chili pepper, diced
1 tomato, diced
1 can of black beans
3 cups of white rice

(makes about 6 servings)

Sauté the onion in a pan over medium heat. When the onions are caramelized, stir in the chili pepper (take the seeds out if you don't want it to be super spicy; you can also use red pepper flakes if you don't have a chili pepper), tomato and black beans. Then add 2 cups of water and the white rice. Continue stirring and let simmer until the rice is fully cooked.


Today when Nicole prepared dinner for us (I love coming home to dinner already made for me! I told her she makes a good housewife.) she showed me how to make this meal even better. She said to add some pepper jack cheese, salsa, guacamole, and broken up tortilla chips. It was almost too delicious to be considered a real meal. But it's good for you; and cheap! Rice is ridiculously inexpensive. You can definitely just skip the toppings you don't have and still have a solid meal. I also think adding raisins would make it perfect, but Nicole has an aversion to raisins so I've yet to try it.