Mexican Rice One Skillet Dinner

 Sometimes at the ranch or hunting camp I need to fix a quick hardy dish that I can make in one cast iron skillet and still provide a stick to the ribs meal to keep everybody on the trail.  This dish is easy and cooks in about 30 minutes.  You can change the meat or beans you put in and it still comes out fine.  One of the reasons we like this dish is you can change it to use what you have on hand.  Here is the list of ingredients, more or less.

½ to 1 pound of ground meat or diced chicken.  We have used ground beef, ground venison, ground lamb, breakfast sausage and ground turkey and diced chicken.  It all comes out fine so take your pick.

1 sweet onion diced

¼ cup of olive or vegetable oil.  If you use chicken add another teaspoon of olive oil as it has very little fat

2 cups of uncooked rice

2 inch slice of Velveeta or easy melt cheese.  Do not use Wal-Mart Brand it will not come out right.

1 standard can of Rotel

1 standard can of diced tomatoes

1 standard can of beans.  We use pinto, black or red.

1 teaspoon of Cumin

1 tablespoon Chili powder
 

1 teaspoon kosher salt

3 or 4 dashes of hot sauce, I prefer Louisiana Red pick your favorite. Optional

Corn or flour tortillas.  Tortilla chips are good also.  In a pinch I have used Fritos corn chips.

 How to:

Pour olive oil in skillet and add diced onion and meat.  Cook until the onion is soft and the meat close to being done.  Add rice and continue to cook all until the meat is done.  At this point, add cheese and spices and continue to cook until the cheese is melted.  Add Rotel, diced tomatoes and beans along with all liquid in the cans.  Stir well and bring to a simmer.  When it starts to simmer place lid on skillet, put on low heat and let cook for 20-25 minutes until rice is tender and dish is done.  Serve with sour cream, jalapenos, guacamole, tortillas or use for burrito filling.  Enjoy, Wild Ed

PS:
If you need to you can pre-cook the rice so that all you have to do is cook the meat and onions, melt the cheese and add everything else.  Heat it all up and serve.  This makes the dish much quicker to prepare and works good in a camp.  If the rice is precooked, I drain the beans and pour off most of the oil from cooking the meat and onions so there is not too much liquid.  You can experiment and come up with your favorite version and ingredients.