VeganMoFo Day 8 - Lima Bean Surprise

Here's one I hadn't made in a while. I forget which book it first appeared in, but it's also in this September 2009 newsletter.

Lima Bean Surprise

This is one of my favorite fast, and delicious, meals that can be put together, cooked and served in only 15 minutes. John has been talking about this meal in many of his lectures lately and so I have gotten many requests for the recipe.  I have added some fresh tomatoes to the recipe because they are so abundant in our garden this year.

Preparation Time:  5 minutes (cooked rice needed)
Cooking Time:  10 minutes
Servings:  3-4

¼ cup vegetable broth
½ tablespoon soy sauce
2 ½ cups frozen lima beans (16 ounce bag)
2 ½ cups shredded cabbage
1-2 teaspoons seasoning mixture (see hints below)
½  - 1 teaspoon Sambal Oelek
1 ½ cups frozen corn, thawed slightly
2 ½ to 3 cups cooked brown rice
1 large chopped tomato

Place broth, soy sauce, lima beans and shredded cabbage in a large non-stick sauté pan and cook stirring frequently for about 2 minutes.  Add the seasoning mixture of your choice and Sambal Oelek.  Continue to cook for another 3 minutes. Add corn and cook, stirring occasionally for another 2 minutes.  Add rice and continue to cook and stir until rice is heated through and all vegetables are tender. Stir in tomatoes.  Serve at once.

Hints:  Bags of shredded cabbage are available in many supermarkets, or shred your own cabbage in a food processor. To thaw the corn slightly, place in a colander and rinse with cool water. If you don’t have leftover cooked rice in your refrigerator, use a package of frozen brown rice and heat it in the microwave. There are many delicious seasoning mixtures on the market.  Try Mrs. Dash, or a lemon dill mixture.  I often use Lemony Dill Zest by Vegetarian Express. We like to top this with Sriracha Hot Sauce and it is wonderful rolled up in a soft corn tortilla.

The only change I made to this was using a bag of cole slaw mix instead of plain cabbage. For the seasoning I used Mrs. Dash Table mixture. And I did use both the fresh tomato and sambal oelek. There's so little of this hot chili paste used that it doesn't bother me. I'm kind of getting used to it now, but don't tell my husband or he'll insist I use lots of hot sauce all the time.


As the veggies cooked I made up my rice in my Zoji rice cooker, then combined everything into the cooker's pan to keep warm until my husband finished his movie and was ready to eat.

I really should make this one up more often and use some of the dried lima beans I have. I found a nice one called Christmas beans that I'm dying to use. This may be a good recipe to try them on.