Recipe

North America → 🇭🇹 Haiti → Ouest (Port-au-Prince)
Diri Kolé ak Pwa
Haitian · easy · serves 5
prep 15 min · cook 50 min
~732 cal · 17g protein · 111g carbs · 26g fat (estimated, per serving)
🍽️
Red beans and rice flecked with thyme beside avocado slices
🇭🇹 Ouest (Port-au-Prince)
Diri kolé — "rice stuck together" with beans — anchors the Haitian Sunday table and every celebration between. The bean broth cooks the rice, so nothing is wasted and everything tastes of everything: Creole thrift turned into depth.
Sign in to save recipes to your book and leave reviews.
Make it yours
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
Ingredients
Serves 5 —
•
1 cup dried red kidney beans (or 2 cans)
•
2.5 cups long-grain rice
•
1 cup coconut milk
•
3 tbsp epis (blended peppers, garlic, herbs) or minced garlic + parsley
•
4 sprigs fresh thyme
•
3 whole cloves
•
1 Scotch bonnet, left whole
•
3 scallions, sliced
•
3 tbsp neutral oil
•
1 avocado, to serve
Instructions
1
Simmer the beans until tender (or drain canned); keep 3 cups of their liquid, topping up with water.
2
Fry the epis, scallions, and cloves in oil 2 minutes; add the beans and fry 3 more.
3
Pour in the bean liquid and coconut milk, add thyme, salt, and the whole Scotch bonnet floating on top.
4
Stir in the rice, cover, and cook low 25 minutes. Rescue the bonnet before it bursts.
5
Fluff and serve with sliced avocado — and sos pwa or pikliz if you’re going full Haitian table.
Haitian Sunday-table tradition.
Ratings & reviews
Sign in to rate this recipe once you’ve cooked it.
No reviews yet — be the first to cook it.
🌏 While it simmers — know your destination
📍
Ouest (Port-au-Prince). The capital region and keeper of Sunday diri kole.
🗺️
Haiti. The first Black republic and its proud Creole table.
🌍
North America. A collision of Indigenous, colonial, and immigrant tables.
The story behind this dish is up top — worth a read while the pot works.
👩‍🍳
Richard Moore & Kelsey Tucker
Recipes cooked, tested, and researched by the creators of Spin the Globe. How we build our recipes →
More from Haiti
Espageti Ayisyen
Haiti's famous breakfast spaghetti tossed with smoky herring, onions, peppers, and a hit of epis and ketchup — savory morning comfort.