Bonjour Mes amis! Next week is Mardis Gras which translates to “Fat Tuesday”, so in honor of the holiday we bring you Easy Authentic Homemade Jambalaya! I will take any excuse I can get to celebrate and eat delicious food, and let’s be honest I don’t really need any excuse. We wanted to make sure we got this recipe out to you before the weekend so that you could have time to hit the grocery store and stock up on all these great ingredients. You definitely don’t want to miss this one!
A savory spicy warm you up one pot, one bowl meal.
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 large onion diced
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 pound smoked andouille sausage sliced in 1/8 inch thick rounds
- 1 pound boneless chicken raw or leftover baked chicken can be used
- 1 large green pepper diced
- 2 cups celery diced small
- 1 cup diced tomatoes fresh or canned
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup rice
- 1/2-1 pound shrimp peeled, deveined and rinsed I used large uncooked shrimp
- 3 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp ground white pepper
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tsp ground oregano
- 1/2 tsp ground thyme
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 tsp salt
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In small dish, add all spices and mix gently to avoid breaking bay leaves. Set aside. This will make several tsps of spice mix. If you do not use all of the spice mix, it can be saved in a plastic storage bag for another batch of Jambalaya.
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If you don't have or do not want to purchase all of the spices for the spice mix, you can use a premixed Cajun Spice mix found in most large grocery stores.
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In dutch oven melt butter and add olive oil over med high heat. Add onion stirring frequently until lightly browned. The browning and the "stuff" that gets stuck on the pan adds so much to the flavor.
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Add sausage, chicken and garlic. Continue stirring and cook until sausage and chicken are also browned.
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Add green pepper and celery. Sprinkle 2 tsps seasoning mix with at least 2 of the bay leaves,(or add 2 tsp. cajun seasoning if using instead). Stir well and continue stirring and cooking until celery and green pepper are starting to soften.
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Add chicken broth. Stir well and scrape any of the bits of browned "stuff" off of sides and bottom of pan. Add tomatoes, and rice. Stir well.
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Taste for desired spiciness level and add more of the spice mix if desired. I added an addition 1 1/2 tsp of spice mix. My family likes spicy food 🙂
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Cover and cook on low stirring often to prevent sticking to bottom of dutch oven until liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes.
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Add shrimp when just about all the liquid is absorbed and cook for the last 5 min. Serve with cornbread or a good crusty bread.
This recipe can easily be doubled to make enough for a small crowd 🙂 Enjoy!!
In order to prepare our most authentic Jambalaya for the holiday we did some research and learned some interesting food facts and fun history. One article we read fondly remembered Jambalaya night as the night when they combined all of the leftovers for the week into a savory dish for the family. Basically a super exciting leftover night. This idea comes from all of the potential ingredients that are welcome in jambalaya. We learned the difference between Jambalaya and Gumbo. We also learned the difference between Creole Jambalaya and Cajun, which is basically that Cajun DOES NOT use tomatoes in the recipe. To determine the difference between Jambalaya and Gumbo it can be very detailed, including cooking style and meat choices, but one easy way to differentiate is that jambalaya is cooked with rice and gumbo is poured over a small amount of rice, a little bit more like a soup.
This recipe makes a whole bunch so get ready to share, after all it is a holiday! I can’t wait to make this more often. It was way easy and so satisfying, totally tasty with just the right amount of spicy New Orleans kick!
We hope you have a great week/weekend. Remember to take it easy on Tuesday or at least don’t try too hard. Give yourself a break you’ve earned it and if nothing else, you may be at work, but at least you get to look forward to a bomb lunch because you ingeniously brought your leftover jambalaya.
Remember to like, share, comment, and subscribe. Good friends share good food so get out there and get sharing. This one is too good to keep to yourself!
-Happy Eating, POG.
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