With this chicken and sausage Zatarain’s gumbo recipe, people will not need to stand over their stoves for hours to enjoy this traditional New Orleans dish. It takes less than normal time, yet is still able to bring the classic gumbo flavor that everyone raves about. Only requiring few ingredients, this recipe can make many people sated and happy.
Ingredients:
- 1 package of gumbo base, can use gumbo base mixed with rice as well
- 3½ pounds or one whole chicken
- 1 pound Andouille sausage thinly sliced. Andouille sausage is sweet smoked pork sausage from France. If it is not available can be replaced with salami, chorizo, or diced ham to get nearly similar flavor
- ½ cup green bell pepper, finely chopped
- ½ cup celery stalk, finely chopped
- ½ cup onion, finely chopped
- 13 cups water, 10 cups for the first step while the remaining cups of water will be used near the end
- Salt to taste
- Hot pepper flakes or sauce, if desired
Cooking Instructions:
- Put chicken, Andouille sausage, gumbo base, and finely chopped vegetables in a large heavy bottom pot or Dutch oven.
- Pour ten cups of water into the pot then heat up over high temperature until it reaches boiling point.
- Reduce the heat to low and put a lid on.
- Let gumbo simmer for around one hour. Stir occasionally to prevent rice from sticking to the bottom of pot. Use a large spoon to skim fat that usually forms on top the gumbo to make the end result less greasy.
- Take out chicken then place it on a cutting board, let it cool slightly so it will not be scorching hot when touched. Separate chicken meat from its bone then shred it with fork. Make sure that there will still be large chunks of meat.
- Return chicken to the pot and stir it into gumbo mix. Add the remaining water and simmer until it heated through.
- Taste the gumbo then season with salt or hot pepper flakes.
- This Zatarain’s gumbo recipe with chicken and sausage will yield around eighteen one-cup bowls of gumbo.
Gumbo is a traditional stew originated in Louisiana. It is a roux based stew and traditionally contains okra, which also serves as its thickener. Normally, it takes more than two hours of constant stirring to get that classic browned-roux taste. However, this Zatarain’s gumbo recipe omits roux browning step by using good quality packaged gumbo base. To strengthen its flavor, people can definitely add some traditional seasoning like creole seasoning. It is a mix of paprika, garlic, onion, cayenne pepper, dried oregano, thyme, salt, and pepper.
There are definitely ways to upgrade this gumbo. This recipe uses chicken and sausage which is a classic gumbo recipe. But people can definitely add some seafood like oysters, crab, and shrimp. It is definitely a recipe that is designed to feed many people at once. Even if you are not serving many people, this recipe can be refrigerated and reheated over and over again. This Zatarain’s gumbo recipe is absolutely no fuss!
