Easy One-Pot Jambalaya Recipe | Classic Louisiana Cajun Rice Dish

All right, folks, listen, I do know why you're here. If I saw a thumbnail that looked that good, I'd be wherever that's at also. So listen, today I'm going to show you how to make jambalaya, and guess what? We're putting some blackened catfish on top. So you're really getting a twofer. You guys take a look at this right here. You see that right now? Ooh-wee, let's get it. All right, folks, look, let's go over some of these ingredients, right? So if you guys look down this way, we got several things down here, but don't let this, you know, get you upset and think that this is like just over the top. It's not. We're making a jambalaya. This right here is really going to be the key, just that andouille sauce. And don't forget the full ingredient list is on my website, smokingandgrillingwithab.com, and that's W-I-T-A-B-DOT-COM. All right, so we got to do a little bit of prep work. You know, I'll talk to everybody. I didn't ask this question many a time. So what happens when we do celery, we do onion, and you guys tell me what else is in there? Is that bell pepper? What is that called? We got to start talking about it now, folks, because you know what? We're getting ready to run into this fall. I know the rest of these cooking channels, y'all thinking like, oh, if AB getting ready, I'm finna get ready too. Now, this is what we finna do. We finna dice this down. I got two celery. Let's go ahead and get it all done together. So I just take a rib of celery, just like you see, with my sharp knife, bring this around like that. We're going to cut it all together at one time. You guys know the drill. I see it in almost every video. Notice what I'm finna do because I want the flavor, folks. Look at how small I'm doing these. When you do them small, when you cook them, they disintegrate. That's a nice size right there. But then for those of you guys like to have that texture, which I do too, now look. You see, they get a little bit bigger. All right, so now we're going to do the green onions, right? Look, this is the part I'm going to call the onion part. I don't really know the technical name for it, but up until here, we're going to put this in the pot, right? So I'm going to come here and I'm just going to cut these down like this, just so we can get some of this flavor in there also. I see something trying to escape. We just put this over here. I'm going to make a little small pile, but it's all going in there at the same time anyway. And then this part right here, the green tops, let me just cut this just to get it started. Now I'm going to use this for like a little bit of garnish, right? So we'll just cut this down, get yourself a little bowl. You got to love the prep work too. For those of you guys that know, I drive a race car, but I love the whole part about it. It's not just driving a car, it's working on the car. It's driving to the track, all of that. Same thing with cooking. You see all of this that I'm doing? I enjoy all of it, folks. Next, we're going to go ahead and work with this andouille. This is not the regular andouille that I use. This is not the chicken andouille. I have some, but it's frozen. So look, we're just going to go ahead and cut this down. You guys do it how you want to do it. Jambalaya, and I'm trying to think like this. Some of you guys are going to make them like this, but not me. I mean, I'm going to have a few like that, obviously, since I started. Let me just go ahead and just finish this up. You know what I mean? That's fine. But I still like to get it in every bite. Now, I don't know about you guys, but the kind of friends I have, when they go ahead and hit the pot, I've seen people taking the andouille out. This is why I don't make them in medallions no more. So this is what I do to counteract the few cats that I know that get down and do that. I just take them like this. We cut them, right? And believe it or not, I've always done medallions. It's like, I don't remember my grandmama ever cutting them down like this. But if I make them like this, this stops them. Because then whoever that cat is, and I'm speaking to a certain person, he know, because when he watch this video, he going to be laughing. But I just want to let him know, hey, homie, I ain't laughing. It ain't funny. Everybody else got to eat too. See, I put them in like this, and now he can't eat it. Anyway, a lot of flavor, and it gives you andouille everywhere. Now, look how I do this. You see how I hollow that out? Just cut it around. I cut top, bottom, just so it'll sit up, as if we're going to do stuffed bell peppers, right? So I take this. Now, you guys can cut this down any kind of way you want to from here on. I just like to do it like this. I kind of want to curl up, so I like to work with two halves. Here, when you got a sharp blade, look how that does. If you need to cut them ribs out. Another thing too, don't do as you see me doing. You know, let's learn to do the things the right way. You saw that I was just cutting this towards me. That's wrong, folks. I'm supposed to always cut away. So now, I'm going to take these, and I think we're going to just cut these down like this. Remember, that whole size and flavor thing comes into place right now. You want to invite people over. You want to tell everybody, hey, I made this jambalaya. If you do anything like I used to do, for those who didn't know that I could cook, I have everybody eating, and then they ask me where I got it from. I wait until everybody's done, then I tell them I made it. A certain size and the other half would be another size, so I do small and large. All right, so now, only thing left to do is to trim this chicken. All of this boneless, skinless would have been like, ah, that probably would have been cool. We got a little skin. I can go ahead and debone this myself. I mean, if you use boneless, skinless chicken thighs, right, you paying for that labor for them to go ahead and do all of the work, but I'm going to just show you. It's just so easy. It just takes a couple of minutes. One thing I like about being in the kitchen, like when somebody's around, you get to talking, and then there's no problem. Here we go. Let's go ahead and do this part again. I'm going to go ahead and take this like this, and I'm running my knife right along the side of the bone, so we do it like that, and then I hold it up like this, and I try to get underneath it. Keep your fingers out of the way, because I have a very sharp knife. If you guys like these new knives, look, I'm working on something for you guys. Middleton made knives, these right here are fire, folks, and you can't say nothing about this bone handle. Ooh, the balance and all of that. No worry, folks, if those of you guys want to give gifts, better yet, get a gift for yourself. This is the way I get down now, right? So now we take this, and we just trace down the bone. Let me get it so you guys can see. You want to keep as much meat as you can, right? So we just cut it down, just like that. Just bring it over here, cut it down there. Then when I get it here, I kind of like just do a little work. You kind of like just move it around. Look how I tear it right around there. Then all I got to do is just take it here. Now, you guys are finding your way to do it. For me, I'm being extra careful, and I'm watching that tendon down there too, because if I can leave that tendon on that bone, great. So now when we cut our pieces, now we got something to work with. I'll leave a little skin in there. It's up to you guys. I'm going to leave it like this so you can figure out what you want to do, right? Let me clear this up, and let me go through the rest of these. Then we're going to cube these up. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and take my top off of my Dutch oven, right? We'll go ahead and put that down. I'm going to get a fire under here. Let's go ahead and get a medium flame right here. Medium, folks, not medium high, not medium low. We're just going to leave it like that. We're going to build up, you know, some heat. Once we do, first thing we're going to do is we're going to start browning and releasing our andouille sausage flavor into our Dutch oven. Now, check this out. I went ahead and added a little extra virgin olive oil, and that's infused olive oil. So look, I'm going to go ahead and drop this in. Let's get this to working. Okay, so you can see that we got a little goodness on here, right? You can see where it starts to turn, you know, that black right there. Look at that. That's all of the flavor. And then I want to move this back. Look at the oils that it has released in the bottom. Look at that. That's all goodness, folks. And then this right here, whatever you see that look like it's trying to stick, don't trip. That's the fond, folks. So we're going to go ahead and remove all of this. And I'm going to say this, don't put this, get a bowl or something like that. I'm going to get to my paper plate. I don't care what oils that I got in here. No worries. Whatever settles on my plate, I'm going to put it back in here anyway. But I'm going to leave all of that down at the bottom, right? That's going to be key because now we got to start working on our veggies. All right, now I took that out there. Let me make sure I still got my fire. Yep. I got a medium flame right here. I should have done this earlier. You know what I mean? And then obviously, if you're looking at my chicken, you see what I did. I went ahead and just peeled the skin off. You know what I mean, for making this video, I don't need all of that fat in there. I don't want you guys to be like, hey B, that's way too much fat. We're going to go ahead and get this chicken cut down like this, right? So I just went ahead and peeled the skin off. It wasn't nothing to show. It's self-explanatory how to get the chicken, you know, the skin off. So I don't need to put no flavor or nothing like this on there because if you look inside that pot, you see that right there, we got all of the seasoning that we're going to need as of now. All right, so everything that was left here, you can see it. Hopefully, if I stand right here, you can see the little white puffs of smoke that it's giving, right? Now it's time to go ahead and add, you know, our cubed. Look at that right there. Oh, this is our cubed chicken, but what I'm thinking about now is just telling you guys, you can make this with chicken breast also, but I'll always opt to use, you know, dark meat. It's the dark meat that gives us the, you know, that juicy texture and things of that nature. All right, so go ahead and look at this. Look at how much of that it has released in here. Now, earlier I might've said I was going to do my veggies, but obviously that's not no veggie. That there is bonafide chicken thigh, right? So I'm going to just make a little room here. Now we're going to take this out. I'm not going to do anything with the fire underneath. You know why? Because we're going to go ahead and start doing our veggies. I just like doing a veggie. You guys know that's just like my ancestors were just talking to me. You know how I like to get down. Let me go ahead and get my onions. I'll start with them first. Then I'll go ahead and work this around just for about 30 seconds, right? You can see my onions started turning a different color already. And the acidity that's inside of my onions is going to pick up all of that on the bottom, right? Along with the rest of the veggies, right? So now we just go ahead and drop it all in. Now, once you start, you know, these start to sweat down, they're starting to become, I don't want to use the word translucent, but what they're doing is they're starting to soften up, right? I want them to continue to cook a little bit more, but now will be a time to go ahead and, you know, use our garlic press. You know what I mean? This is the part that put the smile on my face, folks. You know what I mean? Because it just makes me think about how many times my granny had me mincing garlic when I could have been using a garlic press, guys. All right. So now we just go ahead and hit this. And when I do it like this, notice that I let the garlic fall on top of what's already in the pot, right? This way, as I'm talking and I'm explaining to everybody, I don't have to worry about my garlic burning. So I can keep and continue to hold my conversation. Now I just mix. Now after, I'm going to say about like one minute, getting your, you know, your minced garlic to become flake, fragrant. You know what I mean? We got a little bit of fine there. I'm not even touching the bottom of it. It's all soft. It'll come up, right? Now I'm going to come with my rice. We'll add that in there just like that. And then notice I'm not going to add nothing else in there because I want it just to absorb some of that flavor too. Don't worry. All that comes up though, folks. Oh yeah. Look at this right here. Now I'm going to raise my temperature up down here on the bottom. I've been on super low. I'm going back to medium. Just like that. And you see how that rice changes colors? And I haven't even done nothing to it yet. We just dropped it in there so it can absorb all of the flavor that we've been putting inside of the pot. Now I'm getting ready to come with my fire roasted tomatoes and everything. And this would be more of a Creole type version because we're using that tomato. You just keep working this around like this. You want everything to marry. That's the purpose of letting everything to, you know, cook together and giving it a minute or two. Let's form a seal down on the bottom, let it steam, pick up some of that on the bottom too. We just leave it like that just for about two minutes. All right. Another couple of minutes. Now we're going to add our stock. Look at that right there. Now I'm going to raise this up to high, right? Because we want to get it to boil, right? We'll set it up for a simmer in just one second. But once I see it, you boil, then we'll move on. But don't forget, we should have two things left over and that's our herbs, right? We want to add that to it. So now we just add this here and that. Once you put this in there, I can feel the bottom of it super smooth. Check it out, folks. You remember this right here? This is where we get our, you know, I like mine to be super meaty. You know what I mean? So you see this right here and then everything else that dripped down on this, you know what I mean? Whether you guys use a bowl or whatever and you want to put it all in there. Now I'm going to go ahead and grab my spatula and start working this around. You can see there, look at the rice. It's already starting to like, you know, swell up and absorb some of that goodness and it's going to thicken up. You got to remember folks, I'm going to tell you guys a little bit about it. When you see jambalaya and it's a little bit more on the wet side, that's probably like Cajun and it probably won't be red if it's made to be more authentic. You know what I mean? But if you do it on the Creole side, you can see we using tomatoes and then it's going to be a little bit more dry. Now I'm going to go ahead and put my top on here. I just want to get everything nice and oh man, I'm ready to eat it right now. I wish you guys could smell it, folks. So look, I'm going to go ahead and put my top on here and then we're going to let it simmer for about 20, 25 minutes. All right, folks, look, I done doing everything I can do. That's why you guys are because I made this look so good, right? Hey, I'm not going to over talk this. I have got to get in here and get some of this catfish right here on top, but I'm going to go ahead and move this to the side because don't forget I got a video on just how I came up with that, right? Now we're going to go in here and we're going to get, let me get some of this jambalaya. We got to get, you see all of this, all of this goodness. Oh, and I got some chicken right here. Chicken thinking it's going to get away, but it's not. Cheers y'all. Get a flavor there. I got to do it. Hold on. I got to really hurry up because this right here is fire. This bowl, I got this in right now. You only need one, you know, to go along with it. Sometimes you got to see when I do, you know, jambalaya, I'll put shrimp in there also, but since we got the blackened fish on the top and that's catfish that is, you know what I mean? No, we didn't do that. This right here is the combination of both. That is super fire. Don't forget, there's a link in this video. Just click it at the top. It'll show you how we make blackened catfish, how we can do any fish that we want and turn it blackened. Now, with that being said, let me know down in the comment section below, what do you think that I left out that would have just made this even more over the top than what it is? I want you to hit the like, smash that subscribe button, and just tell everybody out here. There's a channel right here to simplify these recipes and take the mystery out of cooking. With that being said, folks, I'm going to go ahead and walk away so you guys can zoom in here and look at this one last time, and I'm out. Peace.