Some weeks just wear me out. At the end of the day lately, I don’t want to think about cutting up more veggies and cooking an involved recipe for dinner.
Today’s Quick and Easy Weeknight Vegan Skillet Meal is the solution to being too busy to cook. It uses frozen cauliflower rice cooked with canned black beans and kale.
Please note that this post was sponsored by Green Giant but all opinions and the recipe are my own.
Not feeling like veggie rice today? Try my Spiced Instant Pot Lentils and Rice, Instant Pot Wild Rice Pilaf, or this Pilau rice.
The base of my recipe today is Green Giant Riced Cauliflower & Sweet Potato blend. I love that I can stash a few bags in my freezer and that there are no weird ingredients. It’s 100% cauliflower and sweet potato – the end. I also love their Riced Cauliflower & Broccoli too.
I made another quick dish with the cauliflower broccoli rice. I heated it up in a skillet, mixed in some jarred salsa verde and chopped cilantro. It’s a perfect side dish for beans or addition into burritos.
You can find them in the freezer section in most groceries, including Walmarts, so they are available all over the country. I think it’s great that there are more ways to easily add in more vegetables to your meals.
It only takes minutes to cook up cauliflower sweet potato rice, and that’s so much faster than cooking brown rice. Once you have a few bags stored in your freezer at home, you’ll be serving stews and dals over super-fast cauliflower rices too!
Quick and Easy Weeknight Vegan Skillet: Cauliflower Rice and Black Beans with Kale
Feeling too tired to cook dinner? This skillet comes together fast with frozen riced cauliflower and sweet potato, a can of black beans, and some spices from your pantry. I used kale in mine, but any green will work wonderfully.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil, or saute with broth to make no oil added
- 1/2 cup minced onion
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/8 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional (to suit your heat level)
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 15.5 oz/ 439 g can black beans, drained and rinsed ( or 1 1/2 cups homemade)
- 1 12 oz /340 g bag Green Giant Riced Cauliflower & Sweet Potato (about 3 cups)
- 2 cups chopped kale
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Heat the oil or broth in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Once hot, add the onions and saute until translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Add the garlic, cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, and cayenne to the skillet and turn the heat to medium. Saute until the spices become fragrant, about 2 minutes.
- Stir in the water, beans, and Green Giant Riced Cauliflower & Sweet Potato and cook until the sweet potato begins to tender. Then add the kale and cook until it's steamed.
- Before serving add salt and pepper to taste.
- You can serve this as-is in a bowl, or fancy it up with salsa, chopped veggies, and avocado. You can serve leftovers in lettuce leaves, use in burritos or on salads!
Nutrition Information
Amount Per Serving Calories 172Saturated Fat 1gSodium 423mgCarbohydrates 31gFiber 6gSugar 6gProtein 5g
Elizabeth Fiorentino Williams says
Thanks! This looks like it might be my dinner tonight, all I need is the Cauliflower rice.
?When do I add in the black beans? Is it when I add the rice?
Kathy Hester says
Add with the rice and I’ve updated the recipe.
Dianne's Vegan Kitchen says
I love how easy this is!
Cadry says
Wow, this is so convenient that there are bagged versions of cauliflower rice. I usually make it from scratch, but like you said, some weeks require something even easier. Sounds delicious, Kathy!
Carrie says
I made this tonight and it is absolutely delicious! Hubby and I topped with salsa and avocado as you suggested, which really made it. I also served it with tortilla chips. Brown rice is good but what a nice, fresh change with veggie rice. Will be making this often! Thank you!
JoAnn M Lakes says
Just what I need! Quick!!! and flavorful!!!!
Candy Lou says
Made this for lunch today. Didn’t have kale, used spinach instead. Came out excellent!
Terry says
This was so easy and absolutely delicious. I served with avocado and tomato on top of a bed of chopped lettuce.
Katia says
I have NEVER seen these products or even Heard of them!! What does “RICED” vegetables mean?? Why do they call them Riced vegetables if there is no Rice in the
Product? Honestly, i’m confused, lol!
Kathy Hester says
They are in the freezer section in most groceries and Super Targets. Calling the bits of veggies riced comes from 2 things. In the old days people had something called a potato ricer and now we use these minced veggies in place of rice.
Wynona says
One definition of the word “rice” is “force (cooked potatoes or other vegetables) through a sieve or ricer.” Ricing a potato is a good way to make mashed potatoes, so you probably wouldn’t use a ricer to make sweet potato rice … I saw a recipe that said to use a food processor and chop us the sweet potato into shreds, and as it cooks it breaks up into smaller pieces that are similar to the texture of rice.
CJ says
It sounds great, but i’d be interested in knowing how to do this recipe with dried beans in the Instant Pot. One of the things I love about my IP is that’s it’s gotten me away from canned beans!
Kathy Hester says
Since this recipe was made to be super quick it uses canned beans. You can use precooked beans that you made in your IP. 1 1/2 cups equals about 1 can.
Anna says
The print function does not work from your website. I do not have this problem with other websites, just yours. Any suggestions?
Kathy Hester says
There are print buttons on each of the recipes that open it up in a new window formatted to print. For example on this page that button opens up this page: https://healthyslowcooking.com/vegan-skillet-cauliflower-rice/?print=18808
Angele says
I seriously JUST bought a head of cauliflower today thinking that I would try cauliflower rice for the first time! This recipe appeared in my emails 1 hours later! Yay! Can’t wait to try it!
Colleen says
This is delicious. Thanks!
Lisa Smithzee says
This was quick, easy, delicious and healthy. I don’t use oil so I used water to sautee the onion. I had to substitute chipotle for cayenne, spinach for kale, and plain ticed cauliflower because it’s what I had on hand. I ate it in a wrap. Will definitely make it again.
Bill says
I’ve been enjoying this recipe a couple times a year since you published it. Annoyingly, the Green Giant package size has shrunk from 12oz to 10oz. So I’ve been reducing the spices slightly.
Kathy Hester says
I’ve noticed all the packages shrinking. Not helpful at all…