One of the beautiful things about a pantry challenge (from 2 weeks ago!) is that you unearth treasures from the depths of your freezer. And one of those treasures for me was a 20 oz. package of chorizo links. (Score!)

I knew right away that I could pull off another ‘pantry challenge meal’ with the chorizo, along with some rice and other goodies in the pantry. Plus a lone green pepper that was camped out in the produce bin of the fridge.

I’m a huge fan of skillet dinners. Wrote a cookbook that contains quite.a.few. amazing recipes for skillet dinners too. (I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again…of all my cookbooks, this is the one that I keep running back to…for those quick and easy dinners with practically no prep time. But shhh…don’t tell the other 2 books. I feel terribly guilty, as if I were to love one of my children more…that’s just not fair. So, shhhhh.)

{giggle}

A couple of notes about this recipe and how I’ve written it below. I used brown rice, which means it had to be on the stove top for about 45-50 minutes. Lots of steam escapes from a skillet during that long cooking time, so I had a measuring cup nearby with hot water and I ended up adding in about 3/4 cups of water over that 50 minute period…a little bit every 10-15 minutes. I’d add water and stir well, so that the rice on the bottom didn’t burn. If you are using white rice, you won’t need to add extra water and will only need to stir once during the 20 minutes to takes for the white rice to fluffify.

{fluffify means cook, in this case.}

{i just like making up new words.}

This is a fantasticly simple {i did it again, more made up words.} dump, stir and cook recipe. And while I wish you could ‘dump and run,’ you do need to stick closeby-ish {and again, I’m on a roll!} so you can keep an eye on the water level and the don’t want the bottom to burn potential.

If you look closely, you’ll see in the recipe that I didn’t use the entire package for this meal. While the skillet dinner was cooking away, I decided to use the rest of the chorizo to make breakfast burritos for my husband. I had 8 tortillas, 8 eggs and 8 oz. of chorizo. It was octo-perfection, so I went for it.

I was letting the burritos cool before I wrapped them up for the freezer. I had to step upstairs for a few minutes, most likely to referee a squabble among the boys. And came back downstairs to this…

Culprit: CODY, the dog!!! The 4 in the back were untouched. The 4 in the front all ended up in the dog’s belly. Never a dull moment at our house and in my kitchen!

Final note…if you don’t like chorizo, you make this with 3/4-1 lb. ground beef or sausage. Now, the recipe…

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5 from 1 vote

Chorizo Rice Skillet Dinner

A stellar, budget friendly dinner!

Prep Time10 minutes minutes

Cook Time20 minutes minutes

Servings - 4 servings

Ingredients 

1x2x3x

• 2 Tbsp oil
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed or minced
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups rice
• 10 oz can diced tomatoes with green chilies (or 15 oz. can diced tomatoes if you don't want spicy!), undrained
• 1 green pepper, seeded and diced
• 15 oz can corn, well drained
• 12 oz chorizo sausage, casing removed and diced
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

• Heatthe oil in the skillet and saute the garlic and onion for 2-3 minutes, then add the (brown or white) rice and saute in the oil, onions and garlic for 3-4 more minutes.
• Pour in 4 cups of water and stir the rice into the water if necessary. (It will sizzle and steam up, call the kids over to watch!)
• Bring the water to bubbling, then add the undrained tomatoes, green pepper and drained corn. Mix in the diced chorizo. Cover tightly and reduce heat to medium. Cook for 20 minutes if using white rice, or 50 minutes if using brown rice. As noted above, if using brown rice, stir every 10 minutes and add water as needed.
• Remove from heat to keep rice from overcooking and fluff with a fork before serving.
• Note: season with salt and pepper after cooking, as chorizo is salty by nature.
• Serve Chorizo Rice Skillet Dinner, as is!