The Cheap and Easy Rice Dinner I Make Once a Week
I always have pantry staples on hand for when I need to make quick and tasty weeknight dinners, like canned tuna (tuna patties!), dried pasta (cacio e pepe!), and canned chickpeas (chana masala!). These meals are often my favorite to make because they’re easy to prepare, budget-friendly, and comforting. You really don’t need a lot of ingredients to make a dish shine.
That’s why I like to keep a couple cans of Vienna sausages in my pantry. When I was growing up, my mom used to make pan-fried Vienna sausages with eggs and garlic fried rice for breakfast, and it’s still one of my favorite meals to this day. Puerto Rican Arroz con Salchichas (rice with Vienna sausages) is another dish that I’ve always loved to eat. It brings back so many memories, and it’s the type of meal you always connect with home (like the fried bologna sandwiches that my dad used to make).
Get the recipe: Puerto Rican Arroz con Salchichas
What Makes Puerto Rican Arroz con Salchichas So Good
Arroz con salchichas is a versatile and delicious one-pot dinner that comes together with a few pantry staples. It makes the most of pantry ingredients like jarred pimento peppers, tomato paste, sazón seasoning, and rice. Reina Gascon-Lopez makes her recipe with fresh sofrito, which stays stocked in her fridge and freezer, but you can use store-bought frozen sofrito in a pinch. Sofrito is the base for almost every savory Puerto Rican dish, and it’s what gives arroz con salchichas its amazing flavor.
If you don’t have Vienna sausages, you can swap in other tinned meat like corned beef or Spam (also delicious in fried rice!). I’ve also had it with hot dogs and smoked sausages, which I like to keep in my freezer for cozy rice dishes like this one.
Get the recipe: Puerto Rican Arroz con Salchichas
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