This traditional Louisiana recipe was given to me by my mother years ago and is probably one of the easiest Cajun dishes to make. In an ideal world, you will be able to have fresh crawfish tails that are leftover from a crawfish boil. But, if not you can hopefully find a frozen package of crawfish tails at your local grocery store. Just remember to NEVER use Chinese crawfish as it is sacrilegious to any good Cajun! Only crawfish tails from Louisiana will suffice, and the packages you purchase will state clearly on the package if they’re a product of Louisiana or China.

If you are fortunate enough to have crawfish left over from a crawfish boil, you should reserve the crawfish shells and use them to make the stock that will be the key to an amazing étouffée.

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Crawfish Etouffee

5 from 1 vote

Recipe by Flip Flop Foodies Course: EntreesCuisine: CajunDifficulty: Easy

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

20

minutes

Cooking time

30

minutes

Ingredients

• 1 lb. 1 unsalted butter

• 1 cup 1 diced yellow onions

• 1 cup 1 diced green bell peppers

• 1 cup 1 diced celery

• 1 tbsp 1 minced garlic

• 1 tsp 1 cayenne pepper

• 2 lbs 2 Louisiana crawfish tail meat

• 1/4 cup 1/4 all-purpose flour

• 1 1/2 cups 1 1/2 crawfish stock or seafood stock

• kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

• dash of Louisiana hot sauce

• 1/4 cup 1/4 chopped flat-leaf parsley

• 1/4 cup 1/4 diced green onion tops

• 4 cups 4 cooked long-grain white rice

Directions

• In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter and add the onions, bell pepper, and celery. Sauté until tender and add the garlic. Lower the heat to simmer and stir to combine. Season the mixture with cayenne and add the crawfish tail meat stirring to combine.
• Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and stir to incorporate and begin cooking the flour. Add some of the stock and continuing stirring until it begins to thicken. Add more stock until you get a stew-like thickness. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and hot sauce. Serve over a mound of white rice garnished with chopped parsley and green onion tops.

Notes

• It is best to peel your own crawfish tails after a crawfish boil, but packaged tail meat is a huge time saver and works just fine. If you use the packaged, be sure to add a little water to the fat inside of the bag to get all the flavor out.
• Make a crawfish stock with leftover heads and shells; just rinse off any seasoning and boil them for 30 minutes and strain. A good shrimp stock can be made using dried shrimp (look for them in any Asian market) boiled in water and strained.
• If you’re unable to get crawfish where you live, you can use shrimp instead.