What Is Boudin?

Series Summary

Sausages are among the oldest of prepared foods. This outcome of efficient butchery is thought to have originated in 3000 B.C. by the Sumerians. Since the sausage's creation, civilizations all over the globe have come to love this tasty staple. One of the most intriguing characteristics of sausages is their diversity of flavor. Each culture has uniquely combined seasoning, vegetables, and herbs to give the sausage a mark of distinction. This ability of the sausage to manifest a variety of flavors has digested itself into the hearts of people worldwide.

In this free Cajun cooking class on video, learn how to make crawfish boudin sausage. Our expert chef and caterer, Karl James, will walk you through the process step-by-step, including what ingredients and equipment you will need. Although this is a complicated recipe that takes some practice to perfect, Karl makes it easy as he shows you how to chop and cook vegetables, season and prepare the crayfish meat, how to cook rice, how to assemble your meat grinder and sausage stuffer, how to soak the casings and fit them, how to make the sausage links, and more. So make this Sunday a New Orleans kind of afternoon. Invite a friend over, have a beer or three, and take your time making this tasty, one-of-a-kind Cajun recipe. It’s sure to be a hot and spicy—if not memorable—experience.

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Karl James, owner of Creolesoul Catering located in Round Rock, TX and on behalf of Expert Village I'm here to show you a crawfish boudin. Boudin, what is it? Boudin is basically a creole sausage which is normally stuffed with a pork and rice dressing. One thing about boudin is that you can do it with the pork and rice which is the traditional or you can basically use any kind of things. You can use shrimp, use alligator, rabbit. Here we're going to use crawfish known as mud bugs in Louisiana or in some places crayfish. But crawfish boudin and basically we're going to prepare this, it's going to be precooked, we're going to saute our crawfish as well mix it up with some rice, our holy trinity, some parsley, green onions. Add a little pepper to it for heat, put our seasonings in and stuff it into our hog casing and they're we'll have it, our crawfish boudin let's get started."