Creole Chicken, Red Beans and Rice Soup

I wanted to make red beans and rice, but didn't have everything needed for it, so Bo told me to look up recipe for red beans and rice soup and this is what I found, with a little bit of my own twist...

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 chicken breast
4 Kiolbassa Jalapeno Beef Sausage links (I added this and got it from Costco, LOVE!)
Creole seasoning
1 yellow onion chopped
1 Tbsp celery seed (or you can do 1 C chopped celery, I just didn't have any on hand)
1 cup diced carrots
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
Pinch crushed red pepper
1 pound dried red beans, rinsed, picked over, soaked overnight and drained
4 C Chicken broth
1 tsp cornstarch
2 C white rice, cooked
1/2 C chopped green onions (green part only, I didn't have onions so I didn't do this part)

Directions:

Boil the red beans the night before for 45 minutes (last time I prepared the beans they were still hard after just soaking them and boiling them the next day, so I took extra time to make sure these turned out right. You may know a better way of preparing the beans, this is just what worked for me) After boiling them, put in a bowl full of water to sit over night. The next day I boiled again for about 10 minutes to make sure they weren't hard.

Cook the rice in a rice cooker or however you usually cook rice. 2 C rice, 2 C water.

In a large sauce pot, heat the olive oil. Season the chicken with creole seasoning. When the oil is hot, add the chicken and sear both sides for 4 to 5 minutes. Add the onions, celery, and carrots. Season with Creole seasoning. Saute the veggies for 4 minutes. Add the garlic, worcestershire sauce, bay leaves, pinch of crushed red pepper, red beans, and sausage. (This sausage mentioned above is fully cooked so it really only needs to be warmed. Adding it here was perfect.) Saute for 1 minute. Add the broth and bring the liquid to a boil.  remove some of the broth and mix it with the cornstarch. Once mixed well, add back into the soup to thicken. Reduce the heat to a simmer, uncovered.

Serve with the rice. Enjoy! We really loved it. :)

Find the original recipe HERE.