Recipe For Cajun Chicken Gumbo

This down home Cajun chicken and sausage gumbo recipe is made with a rich and comforting dark roux, the Cajun holy trinity of vegetables, seared chicken, smoked andouille, and plenty of Cajun seasoning. This is one of my most favorite dishes in the whole world. I can never get enough gumbo.

I will never tire of saying this - I LOVE GUMBO! It's so true. Gumbo is by far one of my favorite foods in the entire world. I've enjoyed a LOT of different cuisines, and gumbo ranks right up there at the top. Especially a good Cajun version.

When we were in New Orleans, I ate gumbo every day. It was a little bit different at each place, which is one of gumbo's glories. You can make it as unique as you'd like. Make it YOURS!

Andouille Sausage Chicken Gumbo

In Louisiana, you have influences from southern cooking, French, African, Spanish, Irish, Italian, even American Indian. That is what makes Cajun and Creole cooking so fantastic.

Brown the Chicken and Andouille. First, heat up a large pot or Dutch oven to medium high heat and add your olive oil. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and brown it along with the andouille a couple minutes per side, stirring.

Make the Roux. Next add a half cup of peanut oil to the pot, then slowly stir in a half cup of flour. Mix them together with a wooden spoon, stirring constantly, for 20-30 minutes at medium heat to darken your roux to the color of a milk chocolate to dark chocolate brown color.

Chicken And Andouille Sausage Gumbo

Cook the Vegetables. Add the green bell peppers and jalapeno (if using), onion, celery and garlic. Stir and cook about 5 minutes.

Simmer.Add the chicken stock. Scrape up the brown bits from the bottom. Add bay leaf and bring to a a boil, stirring occasionally.

Reduce the heat to medium-low heat and simmer for at least 1 hour. 1.5-2 hours is fine to develop more flavor, though you may need to add in a bit more liquid.

New Orleans Chicken Andouille Sausage Gumbo

When you're ready to serve it, swirl in some fresh chopped parsley. Let it cook in about 5 minutes or so. Remove from heat and stir in filé powder as a thickener, if using.Serve into a bowl, over white rice if desired, and garnish with extra parsley.

Boom! Done! Now it's time to enjoy your hearty, comforting chicken and sausage gumbo. This is one of my very favorite recipes in the whole world. Patty's, too. Don't forget the hot sauce!

Leftover gumbo will keep in the refrigerator for 4-5 days in a sealed container. You can also freeze it for up to 2-3 months.

Authentic Chicken And Sausage Gumbo Recipe

There are many similar ingredients between gumbo and jambalaya, but jambalaya is more of a rice dish with lots of meats and seafood, where gumbo is more of a thick stew that starts with a roux. Both include a mix of satisfying spices. See my post on Gumbo vs. Jambalaya for a more detailed discussion.

I hope you enjoy it! People ask me for this recipe all the time, so here you go. It's finally on the web site. Let me know how it turns out for you!

The biggest reason I LOVE gumbo is because it is packed with more flavor than practically anything I can think of. Mostly everything breaks down into the liquid and there is an unbelievable flavor explosion when you taste it.

Fried Chicken And Andouille Gumbo

I like all types of meats added in and even vegetarian or seafood versions. But I’m a sucker for andouille so this is tops in my book.

If you enjoy this recipe, I hope you'll leave a comment with some STARS. Also, please share it on social media. Don't forget to tag us at #. I'll be sure to share! Thanks! -- Mike H.

This Cajun chicken and sausage gumbo recipe is made with a rich and comforting roux, loads of chicken, andouille sausage, and plenty of Cajun seasoning.

Easy Chicken And Okra Gumbo Recipe

Heat Factor: Mild, though it is HUGE on flavor with the Cajun seasonings. You can make your own spicy Cajun seasoning blends. See my recipe - Homemade Cajun Seasoning.

If you'd like a spicier version, add in cayenne powder (or a hotter chili powder) as well as spicy chili flakes. You can also add in spicier chili peppers along with the bell peppers for some additional zest factor.

Calories: 677 kcal Carbohydrates: 22 g Protein: 31 g Fat: 50 g Saturated Fat: 12 g Cholesterol: 128 mg Sodium: 920 mg Potassium: 794 mg Fiber: 2 g Sugar: 6 g Vitamin A: 2225 IU Vitamin C: 35.6 mg Calcium: 53 mg Iron: 3.2 mg

Momma Made Em' Chicken And Sausage Gumbo Recipe

Did You Enjoy This Recipe? I love hearing how you like it and how you made it your own. Leave a comment below and tag @ on social media.Daniel joined the Serious Eats culinary team in 2014 and writes recipes, equipment reviews, articles on cooking techniques. Prior to that he was a food editor at Food & Wine magazine, and the staff writer for Time Out New York's restaurant and bars section.

The smell that wafts up from a pot of bubbling gumbo is unlike anything else I've ever cooked or eaten. No matter how much gumbo I eat, no matter how thoroughly it satisfies my cravings for comfort food, no matter how plainly delicious it is, it somehow manages to taste just beyond what's familiar. In his 1978 book, Creole Gumbo and All That Jazz, the chef Howard Mitcham expressed a similar sentiment: Gumbo is a mystique. Like jazz and the blues...Oh, it’s just impossible to describe it. I can't think of another dish as singular and perplexing. This is the mystery at the center of the gumbo-verse.

Gumbo has such an elusive quality. Its basic building blocks aren't all that unusual. There's the roux, and the aromatic base of vegetables that are common to plenty of other Cajun and Creole dishes, likeétoufféeandjambalaya. There are the various meats, sausages, and seafoods that might make their way into the pot, depending on the recipe. Sure, the thickeners, okra and filé powder, aren't so common, but those alone don't fully explain it.

Cajun Chicken And Sausage Gumbo • A Dash Of Mel

Somehow, it's all of those elements combined. A lot of dishes get smacked with the more than the sum of its parts description, but with gumbo, I find it to be more literally true. Any one of gumbo's components would add an interesting flavor to another dish, but all of them together tie a culinary knot that isn't so easily untangled. That's part ofwhat makes gumbo such fun to eat and to cook—it beguiles as much as it pleases.

Perhaps I've oversimplified it. Gumbo isn't a single stew (or, as some might call it, a single soup) with a distinctive flavor. Gumbo is more like many stews, at times strikingly different ones, making it hard to always spot the common threads.

There are gumbos with every meat you can imagine, and some you probably can't, unless giant-rat gumbo is on your radar. There are gumbos with chicken and shrimp, with turkey, with crabs, with duck and beef and pork, all manner of sausage and frog and, yes, nutria (the rodent). These can be combined in freewheeling ways, or not combined.

Cajun Gumbo With Chicken And Andouille Sausage Recipe

, a Lenten version made with an acre's worth of sundry greens and not a scrap from the animal kingdom. Speaking of vegetables, some gumbos, Creole ones, have tomato; others, Cajun ones, do not. But I wouldn't be surprised if there are Cajun gumbos that sneak in a little tomato and Creole gumbos that don't use it. (I'm not sure I've seen such exceptions, but I've also never gone looking for them.)

What do all gumbos have in common? First, they're thickened and flavored with a roux—a paste of flour cooked in fat—that's grown toasted and dark. They also share an aromatic base, known in Cajun and Creole cooking as the holy trinity, of diced onions, green bell pepper, and celery. But an étouffée also contains a roux and the holy trinity, so those components alone aren't enough to signal that you're in clear gumbo territory. And, as we've seen, there's hardly a meat that doesn't have a place in some form of gumbo or other.

Therefore, the defining element is something else. Really, it's two things, each of which acts as an additional thickener on top of the roux. One is okra, the vegetable famous for its slimy consistency. The other is filé powder, made from ground dried sassafras leaves. Some cooks use one, some the other, some both. (See what I mean? Even when you get down to the essence of gumbo, it slithers between your fingers, refusing to be pinned down to any single explanation.)

Cajun Chicken And Sausage Gumbo

Gumbo is perhaps the most literal melting pot. Its influences are African (okra), French (roux), Choctaw Indian (filé powder), German (sausages), Spanish, Italian, and more. Like almost everything else about gumbo, even its name evades a clear origin story. Some think it came from the Choctaw word for filé powder,  

. I think it's cool that there could be two such equally credible etymologies, leaving nearly everything about gumbo perfectly obscured, almost as if it were fated to be this