One Pot Southern Hoppin John | Slimming Eats Recipes (2024)

A traditional Southern dish usually served on New Year's day, this One Pot Hoppin John is delicious, and a real comfort bowl of food.

Okay, I know it's not New Year's day or anywhere near that time of year, but with some cured pork to use up and a tin of black eye peas in my pantry. Hoppin John just seemed like the perfect dish.

Black-eyed peas and this dish HoppinJohn is popular in the Southern States of the USA served on New Year's day, where Black-eye peas are believed to bring good luck for the coming year. Whether you believe in the superstition or not, it's a definite dish to try. I am by no means an expert on the tradition of this dish and you will find various different explanations to what Hoppin John actually means.

You will also find a huge amount of different recipes for this dish, but the typical ingredients, of course, are those black-eyed peas and rice. Some recipes cooking the rice separately, some using different types of rice, some use a ham hock or bacon, but me I like to keep things simple and a one-pot dish with limited washing up afterwards is always a popular choice for me.

For the meat part to this dish, I used a joint of cured pork, which I diced up, but you really can use any kind of curedmeat, like ham, bacon, or even gammon. I'm not sure how popular black-eyed peas are in other parts of the word, and traditionally Hoppin John uses those, but if you can't get them, feel free to replace with another white bean of your choosing. You can use a dried bean and soak overnight if you prefer, but again keeping things simple, I had a can in the pantry and so that was what I used.

A Southern Style dish just would not be complete without a little bit of heat, and so for this recipe, I added my own blend of Cajun Spice, which was perfect.

The last addition was some sweet potato. Traditionally you won't find this in Hoppin John, but I often will add my own twist to things, especially if I have something that needs to be used up, and I love sweet potato, so it seemed like a perfect addition and it was. It balances out the heat with a little natural sweetness. Perfect!!

You will notice I use olive oil in this recipe, yes I know you could make this healthy by using spray oil, but sometimes recipes just need the oil and you won't get the same browning on the pork using cooking oil spray. This recipe serves 4 people, so although I use a tablespoon of oil, when divided into portions. Worth it in my opinion.

If you love one-pot dishes, check out some of these other recipes:

• One Pot Campfire Stew
• One Pot Creamy Yellow Zucchini Pasta
• One Pot New Orleans Cajun Pasta
• One Pot Creamy Cheesy Leek Pasta
• One Pot Cheeseburger Pasta
• One Pot Marmite Macaroni and Cheese
• One Pot Beef Fajita Pasta
• One Pot Shrimp Pasta

or head on over to my FULL RECIPE INDEX for over 700+ delicious Slimming Eats Recipes

HOW CAN I ADD VEGETABLES TO THIS COMFORTING BOWL OF HOPPIN JOHN?

There are already peppers, onion and celery in this dish, you could also swap the sweet potato for cubes of butternut squash or serve with a side of vegetables of your choice to increase the vegetables and keep you well satiated.

WHAT KITCHEN ITEMS DO I NEED TO MAKE HOPPIN JOHN?

• Non Stick Frying Pan
• Kitchen Scales
• Measuring Jug
• Measuring Spoons
• Wooden Spoon
• Santoku Knife (perfect knife for chopping veg)
• Chopping Board
• Plate

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WATCH BELOW FOR HOW TO MAKE HOPPIN JOHN:

Recipe Card

One Pot Southern Hoppin John

Yield: 4 servings

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

This recipe is gluten free, dairy free, Slimming Eats and Weight Watchers friendly

*suitable for freezing

Ingredients

• 400g of cured pork, diced (can use diced ham or gammon)
• 1 tbs of olive oil
• cajun spice (mix ingredients listed below)
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 250g of sweet potato, diced
• 1 stalk of celery, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 can (440g) of black-eyed peas (or other white beans)
• 1 cup of long grain rice
• 2.5 cups (600ml) of chicken stock
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• salt and black pepper
• For the cajun spice:
• 1 tablespoon of sweet paprika (not smoked)
• 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon of onion powder
• ½ teaspoon of oregano
• ½ teaspoon of thyme
• ½ teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• pinch of salt and black pepper

Instructions

1. Heat the half the olive oil in a deep frying pan over a medium-high heat.
2. Once hot, add the pork and cajun spice
3. Fry until browned and coated with the spices (approx 5-8 mins)
4. Remove and set aside.
5. Add the remaining olive oil, onion, green pepper, celery, sweet potato and garlic and fry for a couple of minutes to soften.
6. Add the rice, black-eyed peas, the cooked pork and stock and bring to a boil.
7. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for approx 15-20 mins until stock is almost absorbed (don't let it go too dry)
8. Stir and season as needed with salt and black pepper, serve and sprinkle with chopped spring onion.
9. Enjoy!!

Notes

Please see below for full nutritional info and additional details about recipe:

• Calories - scroll down to nutritional info box
• WW Points and other Slimming or Weight Loss programs - due to plans regularly changing and updating, we recommend calculating with the official tools you get as a member to those plans to ensure accuracy of values.

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Nutrition Information

Yield 4Serving Size 1 serving
Amount Per ServingCalories 395Total Fat 9.1gSaturated Fat 2.2gCarbohydrates 44.1gFiber 6.6gSugar 7.4gProtein 31.5g

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