Rice Cooker Sausage Jambalaya Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to a good jambalaya? ›

Use the Right Ingredients: Authentic jambalaya typically includes ingredients like andouille sausage, chicken, shrimp, bell peppers, onions, celery, and tomatoes. Use these traditional ingredients for the best flavor. Season Liberally: Cajun and Creole seasoning blends are essential for flavoring jambalaya.

Whether you just toss it in an electric cooker with a 2:1 water ratio, or gussy it up in on a stove top, jambalaya is just rice. Cooked with meat, sausage and seasonings. That's all it is and you can make it. Here's how.

Dump meat in rice cooker and add box of zatarain's jambalaya plus two cups of water and half cup of tomato sauce (as recommended on the box). Stir everything and set it to cook. It is nice and quite spicy. Zatarain's jambalaya in rice cooker: one can of chicken, one small sausage (all i had) diced.

One of the biggest complaints when making jambalaya is that the rice ends up mushy. And there's two main culprits of this – choosing the wrong type of rice and over-stirring. For this recipe, you want long-grain white rice, like basmati or jasmine. Don't use short-grain rice.

Ingredients in Jambalaya

The richness of the stock, the slow build of Creole spices, and the way the meat is cooked — in this case, caramelizing the sausage, which coaxes out more flavor and adds that appealing browned finish — also contribute to the deep, complex layers of this dish. Creole seasoning.

The "holy trinity" in Cajun cuisine and Louisiana Creole cuisine is the base for several dishes in the regional cuisines of Louisiana and consists of onions, bell peppers and celery. The preparation of Cajun/Creole dishes such as crawfish étouffée, gumbo, and jambalaya all start from this base.

Here's the final challenge of jambalaya: If you don't stir it at all, you're likely to end up with a layer of blackened, burnt crud on the bottom of the pot by the time it's done. Stir it too much, and the rice will break and dissolve into a starchy mush.

A cajun jambalaya, I'm reliably informed, should be somewhat dry, even slightly browned on the bottom, which rules out the soupier, wetter texture of those creole versions using tomatoes (Oliver advises cooks to aim for a “porridgey” consistency).

The pot will now contain the browned sausage, browned meat, caramelized vegetables, bouillon cubes, garlic, and the right amount of water. Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat. Once it comes to a boil, either reduce to low heat and cover the pot or turn off the heat and cover the pot.

Add water – same amount as per Jambalaya package instructions. Add Jambalaya Rice Mix and stir. Cover with lid, make sure cooker is set to “Cook” then cook for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, rice cooker should be steaming and water should be bubbling with little water left on top.

Why is the rice in my jambalaya hard? ›

If the heat is too high, the water evaporates before the rice has a chance to fully cook. If you don't add enough water, the rice ends up dry and crunchy.

Problem: Complicated to make, jambalaya is usually overcooked and underseasoned. The dish is an unappealing mixture of rubbery shrimp, dry chicken, and gummy rice bound in a thin, watery tomato base. Goal: We wanted fluffy rice with perfectly cooked and seasoned chicken, shrimp, and sausage.

Unlike many famous New Orleans dishes, which are served over white rice, the beauty of jambalaya is that the rice goes into the pot with the meat and spices. Add the rice and andouille at the same time, stirring to toast the grains in the fat, about 15 minutes, before any liquid goes in.

Once the meat has created a good browning at bottom of the pot, add about 1 cup of water. Don't worry, we will cook this water out. You want to add enough water to be able to scrape the griade off the bottom, but not too much so that it doesn't take too long to cook back out again.

You shouldn't rinse rice if you are making risotto, paella, or rice and beans. In these instances, the free starch present on the rice contributes to the creamy texture of these dishes. The same goes for dishes like gumbo or jambalaya.

One of the primary differences in Cajun jambalaya as opposed to the Creole variant is the absence of tomatoes. Instead, it relies on a dark roux (which is a cooked mixture of flour and fat) to achieve a deep, smoky flavor. Country meats like andouille sausage, tasso ham, or game meats take center stage.

Popular Cajun seasonings like Tony Chachere's and Slap Ya Mama get heat from red pepper, with black pepper, salt, and garlic powder in the mix to enhance the flavor of food. Creole seasoning rounds out spicy red pepper with herbs like thyme, oregano, basil, and bay leaf.

Everything is brought to the boil before being covered and left to simmer until all the stock has been absorbed by the rice. The dish is left with a red hue because of the tomatoes, and this is why Creole jambalaya is sometimes called 'red jambalaya'.

A Cajun jambalaya is brown with meat caramelized from the bottom of the cast-iron skillet, rice colored from the sauces it absorbs. Creole jambalaya is red with a tomato base.