What is Jambalaya?

Series Summary

Looking for a quick and easy recipe for a delicious Cajun meal? Jambalaya is a traditional Creole rice dish which originated in rural Louisiana, and it's much less complicated than making a gumbo or shrimp étouffée. The most common recipes call for cooking the meat, usually sausage and chicken, in the same pot as the vegetables, generally onion, green bell peppers, celery, and sometimes tomatoes, and then adding seafood and rice. Because the rice is not made separately it absorbs the spices and flavors of the broth as it cooks.

In this free video series, learn how to make this tasty dish. Our expert, Karl James, shows you how to make it all! Learn how to chop tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, celery, garlic, chicken, and sausage. Also, Karl shows you how to add the perfect seasoning to Jambalaya. He also illustrates how much rice to add to the dish and how to serve Jambalaya. So, if you are looking for a fantastic canjun dish for your family, take some time and learn how to make Jambalaya today!

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Karl James owner of Creolesoul Catering located in Round Rock, TX and I'm Taylor Glover and on behalf of Expert Village we are here to show you a chicken and sausage jambalaya. Today we are going to do a chicken and sausage jambalaya. Now, when I was growing up what jambalaya was being grown up eating my mom's food, she is creole. Jambalaya was anything that was leftover in the refrigerator at the end of the week whether it would be chicken, steak, sausage. No matter what it was, she put everything in the pot together, added some rice to it, a lot of peppers, some trinity and bang there you had it, jambalaya. Then after a few years I started noticing at a lot of the creole and casian restaurants jambalaya was appearing in the menus and you would see chicken and sausage jambalaya or chicken jambalaya or sausage jambalaya or seafood. Basically I would just laugh to myself because all of it was leftovers. So what we are going to do here is do it restaurant style and use a little chicken and sausage, andouille sausage and come up with our chicken and sausage jambalaya. So let's get started."