COPPERWhat is the national dish of Belize?
The national dish of Belize is rice and beans: long-grain rice cooked in coconut milk and the dark cooking liquor of red kidney beans, so the grains come out brown. It is usually eaten with stew chicken, fried plantain and potato salad, above all on Sundays. No law makes it official, but it is the dish every source names, and Belize celebrates a National Rice and Beans Day.
What is Belizean rice and beans?
In Belize, rice and beans are cooked together. The beans are stewed first, and the rice then cooks in their liquor with coconut milk, which is what turns the grains brown. Coconut is the ingredient that sets the Belizean version apart from other rice and bean dishes of Latin America.
The base is small red kidney beans, long-grain rice, coconut milk, onion, garlic, thyme, salt and black pepper. Some cooks add salt beef, pig tail or bacon. On the plate it is usually a side dish, served next to a meat stew rather than mixed with it.
There is no law or decree behind its status. Rice and beans is the national dish by consensus, and the first Sunday in September is celebrated as National Rice and Beans Day.
What is in rice and beans?
The list is short, and the coconut milk does most of the work. Our verified recipe uses:
- 250 g of dried red kidney beans, soaked overnight
- 400 g of long-grain rice
- 400 ml of coconut milk
- 1 onion, 3 garlic cloves and 4 sprigs of thyme
- 2 teaspoons of salt and half a teaspoon of black pepper
- water: 1.5 litres for the beans, plus a top-up for the rice
How rice and beans is made
Our Belizean rice and beans recipe starts the night before: 250 g of dried red kidney beans soak in cold water. They then simmer for 1 hour 30 to 2 hours in 1.5 litres of fresh water with onion, garlic and thyme, until tender but whole. The dark cooking liquor is kept, because it colours the dish.
400 ml of coconut milk goes into the beans and their liquor for 10 minutes. Then 400 g of rinsed rice is added, with the liquid about 2 cm above it. The pot boils, is covered tightly and cooks on the lowest heat for 20 to 25 minutes without the lid being lifted, then rests 10 minutes before being forked through gently.
What is served with rice and beans?
Rice and beans is the base of a full plate rather than a meal on its own. A Kriol dinner pairs it with some kind of meat and a salad. The usual partners are:
- stew chicken, the classic Sunday partner
- fried plantain
- potato salad or coleslaw
- fish, conch or lobster
Where rice and beans comes from
The recipe comes from Belize's Kriol (Creole) population: British settlers known as Baymen, who arrived with enslaved Africans from Jamaica to cut logwood in the late 1700s and 1800s. Beans themselves go back much further, to the ancient Maya who grew them.
Today Belize brings together Kriol, Mestizo, Maya and Garifuna kitchens, and rice and beans has spread well beyond its Kriol roots: it is a standard midday meal across the country, alone or as the base of a full dinner with meat and salad.
That Jamaican link explains why the dish is so close to Jamaican rice and peas, which also uses kidney beans and coconut milk. Further south, Costa Rica and Nicaragua made their own version, gallo pinto, a national dish too.
Other dishes to know from Belize
Escabeche in Belize is not pickled fish but an onion soup. Chicken is simmered with garlic, peppercorns and allspice, crisped under the grill, then returned to a broth sharpened with white vinegar, blanched onions and whole serrano peppers. It is eaten with warm corn tortillas.
Cochinita pibil comes from the Yucatán, the peninsula Belize shares with Mexico. Pork shoulder is marinated in achiote and sour orange for 12 hours, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked for 3.5 to 4 hours at 160 °C, then shredded into its red juices.
Other everyday foods come from each community. The Kriols' cultural dish is bile up (boil up): boiled eggs, fish or pig tail with cassava, green plantain, yam and sweet potato in tomato sauce. Mestizo snacks such as garnaches, fried corn tortillas with beans and cheese, and panades, fried corn patties filled with beans or fish, are now eaten everywhere. The Garifuna make ereba, a cassava bread, and hudut, fish in coconut broth with mashed plantain.
Every recipe is on our page about the food of Belize, and the neighbouring kitchens are in our guide to Central American food.
The recipes
- Rice and beans🇧🇿 Belize · 14 hours and 30 minutes
Escabeche🇧🇿 Belize · 2 hours
Cochinita pibil🇧🇿 Belize · 16 hours and 30 minutes
Questions people ask
Is rice and beans officially the national dish of Belize?
There is no law making it official, but it is the dish named as Belize's national dish by Wikipedia and by Belizean sources.
When is National Rice and Beans Day in Belize?
It is celebrated on the first Sunday in September.
Why do Belizeans eat rice and beans on Sunday?
It is the traditional Sunday meal, served with stew chicken. As one Belizean cook told Familia Kitchen: "If you don't eat rice and beans on Sunday, you don't have a good Sunday."
Is Belizean rice and beans the same as Jamaican rice and peas?
They are close relatives: both use kidney beans and coconut milk, and the Belizean dish comes from settlers who arrived from Jamaica.
What beans are used in Belizean rice and beans?
Small dried red kidney beans, soaked overnight and stewed before the rice goes in.
Keep reading
- Traditional food of Belize: 12 dishes to know
- What is the national dish of Costa Rica?
- What is the national dish of El Salvador?
- What is the national dish of Guatemala?
- What is the national dish of Honduras?
- What is the national dish of Mexico?