Authentic Dirty Rice

The version we grew up on in northeast Louisiana. Chicken livers for the color, the trinity for the base, and parboiled long grain that stays in separate grains instead of turning to paste.

Prep: 20 min · Cook: 45 min · Serves: 6 · Rice: Parboiled

Why This Version Works

Dirty rice gets its color from browned meat and chicken livers, not from a seasoning packet. That is the whole trick, and it is the part most boxed versions skip.

We have made this dish on our family farm in Mer Rouge for as long as any of us can remember. It started the way most Louisiana rice cooking starts, which is with whatever was in the kitchen and a pot of rice that had to get used.

The name throws people off. Nothing about it is dirty. The flecks of brown running through the grains are minced chicken livers and hard-browned pork, and that is where nearly all of the flavor lives. Skip the livers and you have a perfectly nice seasoned rice, but you do not have dirty rice.

The other half of the dish is the rice itself, and this is the part we think about more than most people would. We grow, dry, mill, and package our own rice, so we know exactly what each variety does in a pot. For a dish where you are folding a pound of meat through cooked grains, you want a rice that holds its shape. We reach for our Extra Long Grain Enriched Parboiled White Rice every time.

• Chicken livers do the work. They are what makes it dirty, and a half pound is plenty for six people.

• Brown the meat harder than feels comfortable. The stuck-on bits in the bottom of the pot are the flavor base.

• Parboiled long grain stays separate. It is steamed in the husk before milling, so the grains do not break down when you stir.

• Rest it off the heat for ten minutes before you fluff. Rushing this step is the most common way to end up with a gummy pot.

Ingredients

• 2 cups 4Sisters Parboiled White Rice

• 3 cups chicken stock

• 1/2 lb chicken livers, rinsed and patted dry

• 1 lb ground pork

• 2 tbsp bacon drippings or neutral oil

• 1 medium yellow onion, diced small

• 2 ribs celery, diced small

• 1 green bell pepper, diced small

• 4 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 tsp Cajun seasoning

• 1 tsp smoked paprika

• 1/2 tsp cayenne, optional

• 2 bay leaves

• 4 green onions, sliced thin

• 1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped

• Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

Get Everything Ready

Mince the livers

Rinse the chicken livers, pat them dry, and trim off any tough connective bits. Chop them by hand until they are close to a coarse paste, or pulse them four or five times in a food processor. Small is what you want here. Big pieces read as liver, and fine pieces read as dirty rice.

Cut the trinity

Dice the onion, celery, and bell pepper about the same size as a grain of cooked rice. In Louisiana we call those three the trinity, and they go into almost everything we make. Mince the garlic separately, because it goes in later and burns faster than the rest.

Measure your rice and stock now and set them by the stove. Once the meat starts browning, this recipe moves quickly.

Nothing about it is dirty. The flecks running through the grains are minced livers and hard-browned pork.

Cooking

Brown the pork

Heat the bacon drippings in a Dutch oven over medium-high. Add the ground pork, season it with salt and pepper, and press it flat. Let it sit without stirring for a good three or four minutes so it takes on real color, then break it up and keep going until it is deeply browned, about 8 minutes total.

Add the livers

Stir in the minced livers and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, breaking them up as they go. They will darken fast and start coating everything in the pot. That is the color you are after.

Soften the trinity

Add the onion, celery, and bell pepper along with a pinch of salt. Cook 6 to 8 minutes until everything has gone soft and the vegetables have pulled the browned bits up off the bottom of the pot. Add the garlic, Cajun seasoning, smoked paprika, and cayenne, and stir for one more minute until you can smell the spices.

Add rice and simmer

Stir in the rice and let it toast for about a minute so every grain gets coated. Pour in the stock, drop in the bay leaves, and bring it up to a boil. Cover, turn the heat down to low, and simmer for 25 minutes without lifting the lid.

Pull the pot off the heat and let it stand, still covered, for 10 minutes. Fish out the bay leaves, fluff with a fork, and fold in the green onions and parsley.

You are looking for grains that separate when you drag a fork through them, with the meat distributed evenly instead of sitting in clumps at the bottom. If the pot looks a little dry at the 25 minute mark, that is fine. The rest period is where the last of the moisture works its way in.

One thing worth knowing about the rice: parboiled rice is soaked and steamed while it is still in the husk, before it ever reaches the mill. That process sets the starch inside each grain, which is why it stays separate in a dish like this and why you do not need to rinse it first. We run ours through our own mill in Mer Rouge, so the bag you buy went through that exact process on our farm.

Tip from the farm

If chicken livers are a hard sell at your table, mince them very fine and cut the amount to a quarter pound. You keep the color and the depth without anyone picking pieces out. Leaving them out entirely is fine too, but call it Cajun rice at that point, because that is honestly what it is.

How We Serve It

We serve dirty rice as the center of the plate on a weeknight and as a side dish when there is company. It goes with smothered chicken, pork chops, or a piece of fried fish, and it wants hot sauce at the table rather than more cayenne in the pot.

Around here it also does double duty as rice dressing at Thanksgiving, which is the same dish under a different name and usually with the livers doubled. Louisiana grows the majority of its rice in the parishes around ours, and the LSU AgCenter rice program is a good place to read about why this part of the state ended up as rice country in the first place.

Leftovers keep four days in the refrigerator and reheat better than most rice dishes. Add a splash of stock, cover, and warm it slowly. If you want to see the rest of what we cook with our own rice, our recipe collection is the place to start.

Questions We Get

Extra long grain white rice, and parboiled if you can get it. Dirty rice asks a lot of the grain, because you stir a pound of cooked meat through it at the end. Parboiled long grain is steamed inside the husk before milling, which sets the starch and keeps the grains separate under all that handling. Medium grain and short grain varieties release more starch and turn the pot creamy, which is lovely in risotto and wrong here.

Minced chicken livers and hard-browned ground meat. As they cook down they coat every grain in the pot and turn the rice a speckled brown, which is where the name comes from. There is no ingredient called dirty seasoning, and no amount of paprika will get you the same result.

Yes, and it is better for it. Make the whole dish a day ahead, cool it, and refrigerate. The seasoning settles into the rice overnight. Reheat covered with a few tablespoons of stock in a 325 degree oven for about 25 minutes, then fold in fresh green onions and parsley right before it goes to the table so the herbs still taste bright.