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Home » Zucchini Corn Black Bean Rice

Zucchini Corn Black Bean Rice

Published: Jul 7, 2016 · Modified: Jan 17, 2018 · 4 Comments

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Easy and simple Zucchini Corn Black Bean Rice bowl, seasoned with fragrant thyme and parsley, enriched with super healthy coconut oil. A very nutritious and healthy meal that you can serve as a side dish or as a vegetarian main course.

Easy and simple zucchini corn and black bean rice, seasoned with fragrant thyme and parsley, enriched with super healthy coconut oil. A very nutritious and healthy meal that you can serve as a side dish or as a vegetarian main course. CLICK to read more, or PIN for later!

When I think of cooked rice, I have a picture of some delicious, colorful Asian meal in my head. But for many years, I’ve been interpreted cooked rice completely wrong. Cooked rice was always a “diet” food in my house, food for recovering from illness. A boring dish, a plain and simple side dish. It also reminds me of my sorrowful attempts of dieting, when I ate only a plain cooked rice with boiled eggs for a whole day, or for weeks. Soooo wrong! And so blah!

When I changed my lifestyle, when I started to cook more and explore different recipes, I changed my mind about this great ingredient. I found out that combined with various vegetables and spices, rice can really make an incredible meal.

Rice is food, not particularly nutritionally rich, but that doesn’t mean that it is not healthy and should be avoided. In fact, rice is an essential part of a healthy balanced diet. Rice is a grain, a carbohydrate full of starch and therefore has gained a reputation for “bad” food. However, starch is needed in our body as a source of energy but also as food for good bacteria in our guts. Rice is very low in fat, sodium and sugar, so you can, in fact, enjoy in your delicious bowl of rice without thinking about putting on extra pounds. There are several types of rice. For cooking, I mostly use parboiled rice. Because of the special processing, parboiled rice is a better source of fiber, calcium, potassium and vitamin B-6 than regular white rice while it has all cooking characteristics like white rice.

Easy and simple zucchini corn and black bean rice, seasoned with fragrant thyme and parsley, enriched with super healthy coconut oil. A very nutritious and healthy meal that you can serve as a side dish or as a vegetarian main course. CLICK to read more, or PIN for later!

Whenever I prepare rice, I always try to enrich it with some vegetables and aromatic spices. That way I upgrade the whole meal to be more nutritious and off course interesting and delicious. Today I share with you one of such quick recipes. Zucchini corn black bean rice is everything but boring and plain simple. It’s very nutritious and healthy. Addition of fresh spices – thyme and parsley, makes this dish also soo tasty :)

For making this dish, I used parboiled rice which I washed first with cold water. Instead of salt, I used a vegetable cube. Also, I added a bit of coconut oil in cooking water. Coconut oil enriched rice with healthy fats but also gave a distinctive fragrance to a whole dish. Black beans and corn enriched rice with plant based proteins and fibers, so it becomes a very nutritious and filling. Sweet fresh grated zucchini is wonderfully paired with sweet corn and beans, while fresh thyme gave a whole dish a pleasant scent. Thus prepared rice is also a handy “trick” to include more fresh vegetables in your everyday diet. For example, my husband wouldn’t eat a fresh zucchini, not in a million years. But in a rice meal prepared like this, he eats it without resentment.

Easy and simple zucchini corn and black bean rice, seasoned with fragrant thyme and parsley, enriched with super healthy coconut oil. A very nutritious and healthy meal that you can serve as a side dish or as a vegetarian main course. CLICK to read more, or PIN for later!

Easy and simple zucchini corn and black bean rice, seasoned with fragrant thyme and parsley, enriched with super healthy coconut oil. A very nutritious and healthy meal that you can serve as a side dish or as a vegetarian main course. CLICK to read more, or PIN for later!

Zucchini corn black bean rice can be easily made in just 20 minutes. So it’s not just delicious, but simple meal. Serve zucchini corn black bean rice as a side dish with meat, or just with some fresh seasonal salad and there you have a great vegetarian dinner. But, what I love the most about rice meals like this are leftovers.

In the morning, you can make a power breakfast – serve zucchini corn black bean rice with the omelet for a great start of the day. Or pack zucchini corn black bean rice in a lunchbox and bring to the office for healthy wholesome lunch. Isn’t that just great or what? :D

Easy and simple zucchini corn and black bean rice, seasoned with fragrant thyme and parsley, enriched with super healthy coconut oil. A very nutritious and healthy meal that you can serve as a side dish or as a vegetarian main course. CLICK to read more, or PIN for later!

 

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Zucchini Corn Black Bean Rice

Easy and simple Zucchini Black Bean Rice Bowl seasoned with fresh thyme and enriched with coconut oil is a very nutritious and healthy meal. Perfect side dish.

Course Side Dish
Cuisine International
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings 4
Author Natalie

Ingredients

  • 1 cup parboiled rice
  • 2 cups vegetable stock homemade or store-bought
  • 1 tablespoon coconut oil
  • 1 cup black beans drained and rinsed
  • 1/2 cup sweet corn drained
  • 1 medium zucchini shredded
  • 1 tablespoon fresh parsley chopped
  • 1 teaspoon thyme fresh or dried
  • lemon juice optional

Instructions

  1. In a large saucepan add 2 cups of vegetable stock. Bring to boil. Add coconut oil and rice. Cook rice according to package instructions.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in black beans, corn, zucchini, thyme, and parsley.
  3. Fluff rice with a fork.
  4. Serve immediately.
  5. Sprinkle with fresh lemon juice (optional).

Adapted from Damn Delicious.

 

These are my recommendation for this recipe:

 

Xoxo, Natalie

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Easy and simple Zucchini Black Bean Rice Bowl seasoned with fresh thyme and enriched with coconut oil is a very nutritious and healthy meal. Perfect side dish. #vegan #easy #kidfrinedly #familymeal #sidedish #rice #ricebowl #healthydinner #healthy #healthylife #healthyrecipes #healthyeating | NATALIESHEALTH.com

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Filed Under: Dinners, Recipes Tagged With: black bean, coconut oil, cooked rice, corn, rice, vegetarian

About Natalie

Natalie is healthy lifestyle advocate passionate about healthy food and helping others to live healthier and happier lives. As a health & wellness coach, Natalie hopes to inspire people to get in the kitchen and cook with wholesome ingredients. Her recipes and articles have been featured in many media – like Greatist, Pure Wow, Shape, Men’s Fitness, Mashed, The Huffington Post and ELLE Magazine.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. mira says

    July 8, 2016 at 9:19 PM

    Looks awesome! Perfect for a side dish! I can never stick to a diet! Pinning!

    Reply
    • Natalie says

      July 9, 2016 at 6:10 AM

      Thank you, Mira :)

  2. Demeter | Beaming Baker says

    July 7, 2016 at 6:33 PM

    ” sorrowful attempts of dieting” <– This. So much this. Lol. I know exactly what you mean, Natalie. I've soooo been there–trying my best to stick to a heavily regimented, very sad diet, and feeling gloomy in general about food and life. Haha. But then you realize that all you needed was to have some fun. Those same ingredients really start coming to life. I'm so happy to see that you're no longer on that gloomy diet AND you've whipped up this delicious rice dish. I love that you added in a bit of coconut oil and some fresh herbs. I can almost taste it. :) Thanks for sharing about your food experiences. It was delight to read, my friend. :)

    Reply
    • Natalie says

      July 8, 2016 at 12:56 PM

      Yes, you have right! You need to have fun with food :D and just EAT REAL FOOD. I swapped unhealthy for healthy – I ditched unhealthy fats, processed foods, sugars… and I lost 110 pounds :D And I didn’t starve in that process. Haha :D The food I eat now is much tastier. It’s delicious… Who needs junk food now, right?!
      Thank you, Demeter, for stopping by <3 Have a nice weekend my friend ;)

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I'm Natalie, a health & wellness coach with passion for wholesome food and helping others to live healthier lives. On my blog, you'll find many HEALTHY RECIPES using real ingredients + healthy living and weight loss tips to help you be healthiest happiest you. More about me…

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