Okra Pilau, or Okra Pilaf, is a low country favorite. White rice is cooked with bacon, onion, and sliced okra for a fresh and flavorful southern side dish.
Simple Side Dish
Even those who are not a fan of okra will love this simple side dish. The okra is cooked down enough for most of its sliminess to dissipate. It’s the simplest of rice dishes, but the flavor is really there.
People think about fried chicken, pulled pork, and mac and cheese when they think about fried foods. But for me, southern cooking is all about the vegetable side dishes. And they are usually very simple. Sliced fresh tomatoes or cucumbers, lima beans cooked with a ham hock. Green beans cooked low and slow until melt in your mouth tender.
Sometimes Okra Pilau has tomatoes added, but I prefer to leave the tomatoes out and when I want an okra and tomatoes dish, I cook this recipe.
Rice dishes are an important part of southern food history, especially in the low country where rice used to be an important crop. Chicken Bog and Savannah Red Rice are other popular southern dishes based on rice.
Type Of Rice
You can use regular long-grain rice for this Okra Pilau, but Carolina Gold Rice is even better. It has a nuttier, earthier flavor. You can buy Carolina Plantation Rice, which is grown in South Carolina, on Amazon.
Recipe Tip
Choose shorter, rather than longer pods of okra. The large okra pods are more fibrous, while the shorter, younger pods are more tender.
More Ways To Cook Okra
- Southern Fried Okra
- Stewed Okra and Tomatoes
- Okra Hush Puppies
- Corn Okra Creole
- Okra Parmigiana
- Okra Hoecakes
Okra Pilau
Ingredients
- 5 slices bacon,, chopped
- 1/2 medium yellow or sweet onion,, diced
- 1/2 green bell pepper,, diced
- 3 cups sliced okra
- pinch of cayenne pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 cup uncooked long grain rice
- 2 cups chicken broth
Instructions
- Fry bacon in a medium pot until crispy. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and set aside.Drain off all but 2 tablespoons of bacon grease.
- Add onion and bell pepper to the bacon grease in the pot and cook over medium-high heat for 3 minutes.
- Add okra and cook 2 more minutes.
- Add remaining ingredients. Stir and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and cook 20 minutes.
- Fluff rice and stir in bacon.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Fabulous
We don’t eat pork and was trying to find something that would make it taste like grandmamas. Going home with turkey bacon and try it now 9/9/23.
Did you cook rice in the same pot? How much water? We prefer spicy turkey sausage with okra.
Very delicious, especially if you like okra. I will definitely be making this many times! I used frozen chopped okra instead, I think it worked great.
Not quite sure what I was expecting. The taste was underwhelming. I kicked up the cayenne pepper a notch and added some smoke flavored powder. That made it better.
Delicious side dish!
Yep…I made it! The recipe was precise, easy to follow and the dish was Ah-Maz-Ing!!! My husband was soooo happy! Will definitely make again and I will be visiting “Spicy Southern Kitchen” site to check out new and exciting recipes! So glad I found this site!
Robin G.
Chicago,Il
I hate to be “that person,” but is it possible to sub butter for the bacon fat?
Yes 🙂