I’m still on my quest to make every recipe in Paula Deen‘s Southern Cooking Bible, and this time I chose Savannah Red Rice on page 113, mainly because it seemed super easy. I have limited experience with tomato-rice dishes and even less experience with andouille sausage, so I didn’t really know what to expect. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much, so when this dish turned out to be so hearty and delicious, I was very pleasantly surprised! This one recipe was actually worth the purchase of the cookbook because I know that I will be making it all the time!

One really attractive thing about this recipe is that it calls for only 10 ingredients, and you’ll probably find you already have many of them on hand: butter, andouille sausage, green pepper, crushed tomatoes, yellow onion, white rice, chicken broth, hot sauce, salt, and pepper.

Last week, I had significant problems with the pecan and cream cheese-filled figs because I didn’t know about this little thing called fig pits, but I experienced no such blind spots with this recipe. It was straightforward and accurate.

And here’s the picture!

Variations of this Paula Deen recipe are available widely online. Here’s the one that’s in the book:

Ingredients:

3 tbsp. butter 1 cup chopped yellow onion 1 cup chopped green bell pepper 1 cup chopped andouille sausage 1 cup long-grain white rice 1 15oz. can crushed tomatoes 1 cup chicken broth 1 tsp. hot sauce salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 13×9 baking dish.

2. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions, bell pepper, and sausage, and cook until the vegetables soften, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. Cook until the sauce begins to thicken, about 10 minutes.

3. Scrape the mixture into the prepared baking dish and cover with foil. Bake until the rice is tender and the sauce is bubbling, 40 – 45 minutes. Serve hot.

Tips: I modified the amount of hot sauce to 2 tbsp, and I definitely stand by this modification. The dish ended up being so flavorful!

You can purchase Paula Deen’s Southern Cooking Bible on Amazon.