Cajun Recipes
29 recipes found
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Crispy Southern Fried Shrimp
Recipe developer Craig Ruff employed a number of techniques to make the juiciest, crispiest Southern fried shrimp, but this one tip seals the deal—and it requires zero effort.
Pimento-Stuffed Eggs
You may know these as “deviled” eggs, but since they are often served at church functions, they’re sometimes referred to instead as “stuffed.” Here, they’re filled with a combination of their cooked yolks and some favorite ingredients in Louisiana cookery — from pimento peppers to paprika to cayenne — which add a pinch of heat to these savory bites. The relish adds just enough sweetness to balance out the pungent flavor from the Dijon mustard. Be sure to remove the shells from the eggs as soon as they are cool enough to handle so the peeling will be easier. The stuffed eggs can be prepared up to three days in advance, but they are best the day they’re made.
Cajun-Style Shrimp Alfredo
Fettuccine Alfredo is an Italian classic. Its luscious sauce is traditionally created using only two primary ingredients: butter and Parmesan. When stirring a large quantity of cheese into pasta, the key to achieving a fully emulsified sauce — a creamy consistency — is making sure to save and utilize some of the pasta cooking water. This recipe gives the dish a Cajun spin by adding spiced shrimp, celery, bell pepper, onion, garlic and jalapeño, finishing it with a sharp hit of Creole mustard. If you can’t find Creole mustard, a mix of Dijon and whole-grain mustards works well.
Cajun Seasoning
Back in 2011, in his New York Times Magazine column, Cooking With Dexter, Pete Wells asked his son about his favorite foods. “It was a tie,” Wells recounted Dexter saying, “between sushi and the fried chicken at Brooklyn Bowl.” The chicken was a specialty of Eric and Bruce Bromberg’s SoHo restaurant Blue Ribbon, and this Cajun seasoning central to it. Adapted from “Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook,” by Bruce Bromberg, Eric Bromberg and Melissa Clark, this recipe is ready in no time, using ingredients straight from a well-stocked spice rack, but it changes whatever it’s sprinkled on.
Blue Ribbon Cajun Seasoning
Back in 2011, in his New York Times Magazine column, Cooking With Dexter, Pete Wells asked his son about his favorite foods. “It was a tie,” Wells recounted Dexter saying, “between sushi and the fried chicken at Brooklyn Bowl.” The chicken was a specialty of Eric and Bruce Bromberg’s SoHo restaurant Blue Ribbon, and this Cajun seasoning central to it. Adapted from “Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook,” by Bruce Bromberg, Eric Bromberg and Melissa Clark, this recipe is ready in no time, using ingredients straight from a well-stocked spice rack, but it changes whatever it’s sprinkled on.
Stuffed Quail Gumbo
John Folse, a chef and educator in Louisiana, taught Craig Claiborne how to make this gumbo in the late 1980s. Instead of being served separately, as tradition dictates, the gumbo garnishes — rice, oysters and sausages — are used to stuff small, whole, boned roast quail; the slices of andouille floating in the gumbo are blanched to rid them of excess fat.
Cajun-Style Stuffed Rabbit Legs
John Folse, a chef and educator in Louisiana, shared this recipe for legs of rabbit boned and stuffed with crabmeat and served with a light red-wine sauce.
Shrimp Remoulade
This is Craig Claiborne's 1985 recreation of the shrimp remoulade served at Arnaud's, the legendary restaurant in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Fiery with horseradish and Creole mustard -- Zatarain's was the brand Claiborne recommended -- the sauce also contains finely chopped heart of celery, green onion and a splash of good oil. Paprika adds a further touch of spice and a fine red color. Claiborne recommended allowing the dish to cure overnight in the refrigerator. This remains good advice. Arnaud's shrimp remoulade, he wrote at the time, "is a pleasure that endures." (The New York Times)
Donald Link's Eggplant Casserole
Donald Link is a New Orleans restaurateur with a passion for the Cajun food of his youth and a restaurant, Cochon, devoted to its delicious execution. His eggplant casserole is warmed with the spicy North African sausage known as merguez. But it works extremely well with lamb sausage, too, or with fresh chorizo.
Dirty Rice
Dirty rice gets its color from caramelized sirloin and the roux — flour browned (but not burned) in oil. The New Orleans-based chef Isaac Toups offers a 15-minute roux shortcut in his book “Chasing the Gator,” but you may find your roux browns more quickly in the smoking hot oil. Be sure to stir, stir, stir once you add the flour. You cannot walk away from the pot while making this roux. Prep the “trinity” — bell peppers, onion and celery — in advance as you won't have time to do it while the roux cooks. When the roux turns the color of milk chocolate, toss in the chopped vegetables to stop the roux from cooking any further. Instead of adding rice and the serving components, you could do as Mr. Toups suggests and use the meat gravy as a base for a lasagna ragu. Just throw in some fresh tomatoes and cook it down “until it’s nice and tight” and make it your lasagna filling.
Vegan Mushroom Étouffée
This clever vegan re-creation of a Southern Louisiana étouffée comes from Jenné Claiborne, who included it in her 2018 cookbook "Sweet Potato Soul." Succulent oyster mushrooms stand in for the shrimp or crawfish used in a traditional étouffée. The seaweed called dulse brings a smoky, savory note and a mix of Creole and Old Bay seasoning provides the familiar flavors. Ms. Claiborne suggests spooning this over brown rice instead of the traditional white.
Succotash With Sausage and Shrimp
Succotash embodies the proverb “If it grows together, it goes together.” This dish is a celebration of summer: fresh corn, ripe tomatoes and shelled butter beans (also known as lima beans.) Succotash has earned its place of pride in regions across the U.S. — the Midwest, the Eastern Seaboard, and perhaps most notably, the South. This succotash is Cajun-style and a worthy entree, thanks to spicy andouille sausage and seasoned shrimp. But feel free to leave them out for a satisfying meatless option. The andouille sausage adds kick, so if you use regular sausage or eliminate it altogether, you can add some heat with ground cayenne and hot sauce.
Crawfish Étouffée
This recipe for étouffée, which is the French word for “smothered,” comes from Karlos Knott of Bayou Teche Brewing in Arnaudville, La. This is “pretty close to a traditional Cajun crawfish étouffée,” said Mr. Knott. “If you substitute a green bell pepper for the chile and omit the dried thyme, you would be cooking one exactly like my grandmother used to make. Some people like to stir in the juice from half of a lemon into the pan just prior to serving.” Look for precooked Louisiana crawfish tails in 1-pound packages in your fishmonger’s freezer section. Though according to Mr. Knott, who gets his crawfish from the family pond behind his brewery, the best tasting version is made with leftovers from a crawfish boil — that way you have lots of leftover crawfish fat.
Hot Mayonnaise
Boiled Shrimp
Enola Prudhomme's Cajun Fig Cake
Hot Cajun-Style Crab Boil
A trip to Avery Island, La., the home of Tabasco sauce, inspired this Jacques Pépin recipe from 1994. A few years earlier, Paul McIlhenny, the fourth generation of his family to produce the hot sauce, served Mr. Pépin and his wife a bountiful crab boil. ” People helped themselves,” Mr. Pépin wrote, adding, “We washed the banquet down with plenty of cold beer.” Here, he substitutes blue crab for crawfish, and kielbasa for the hot Cajun sausage. But whatever you use, keep Mr. Pépin’s recommendation and have a beer alongside.
Chez Marcelle's Stuffed Soft-Shell Crabs
Cajun Popcorn (Batter-Fried Crawfish)
Cajun popcorn is an irresistible appetizer made with deep-fried crawfish. Paul Prudhomme, the chef and owner of K-Paul’s Restaurant in New Orleans, shared this recipe in 1983 with Craig Claiborne. It was featured in a menu for an economic summit held in Williamsburg, Va. Mr. Claiborne created three days of meal programming that he hoped would display the geographic and gastronomic diversity of the United States. If crawfish is not readily available where you live, look for frozen crawfish tails online.
Paul Prudhomme's Bronzed Chicken Breasts
Crawfish Boil
Sausage Bread
Ann and Eugene Patout's Crawfish Bisque