Crawfish Étouffée

Homemade Crawfish Étouffée is full of tender seafood, smothered in a spicy Cajun tomato-based sauce, and served over rice. It is Southern comfort food at its best!

This New Orleans classic can easily be made at home with this quick and easy recipe. I love to make a big batch and freeze it for when I crave spicy Cajun food! And if you love this recipe, you’ll surely love my creamy Cajun shrimp pasta and shrimp and grits recipe too!

Crawfish Étouffée satisfies all of my cravings.

The flavor is intense and the combination of the succulent crawfish tail meat paired with the creamy tomato-based sauce is heaven to my taste buds. My recipe has just the right amount of spice too.

Why I love this recipe

• Classic Louisiana dish – If you’re looking for a special recipe to celebrate Mardi Gras and need a Cajun classic to feed your family, a good etouffee will do the trick!
• Works with shrimp or langostino – If you live in South Louisiana, heaps of fresh crawfish tails are abundant. Elsewhere, they can be hard to find. Shrimp Étouffée or Étouffée of langoustine is very similar to this Cajun crawfish etouffee recipe and they only differ slightly in taste and texture.
• Cooks fast – This thick stew only takes minutes to make, so it’s a great option for busy weeknights.

Ingredients needed

Exact quantities can be found in the recipe card below, but here is a summary for your shopping list.

• unsalted butter
• yellow onion, green bell pepper, and celery (the Holy Trinity of vegetables)
• Cajun or creole seasoning
• all-purpose flour
• diced tomatoes
• chicken stock
• Worcestershire sauce
• hot sauce
• cooked crawfish or Langostino

How to make Crawfish Étouffée

1. Sauté vegetables: Melt butter in a large skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat until it begins to slightly brown around the edges. Sauté the onion, celery, and green peppers in the hot butter until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir only to prevent burning. Add the Cajun seasoning and stir to combine.
2. Make the roux: Sprinkle the flour onto the vegetable mixture, stir to coat, and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. This is considered a blonde roux since it doesn’t require a long period of time like the roux in gumbo.
3. Add sauce ingredients: Stir in the tomatoes; cook until tomato juice begins to brown on the bottom of the pan, about 3 minutes. Whisk chicken broth into the vegetable mixture, stirring with a flat-bottomed wooden spoon until smooth. At this time, add the bay leaf. Bring to a simmer and cook until slightly thickened and reduced to a gravy consistency, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce.
4. Warm seafood: Stir crawfish (or langostino) into etouffee sauce. Since the seafood is already cooked, cook it in the sauce over low heat just until it is heated through. Remove the pan from heat and taste. Season with salt, to taste.

Serve over white rice and garnish with green onions or fresh parsley.

Recipe variations

• Instead of chicken broth, try using seafood stock or crawfish stock made from crawfish shells for a richer flavor.
• In lieu of hot sauce, cayenne pepper will give a nice spicy kick.
• The acid from a squeeze of lemon balances nicely with the salt and the Cajun spice blend. Lemon juice isn’t part of the recipe but always tastes great with seafood.

Storage and reheating

Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Try to consume within 3-5 days. This recipe freezes well and should be thawed in the refrigerator before reheating.

Because of the seafood, etouffee must be heated gently; low and slow. Either simmer on the stove over very low heat or heat in the microwave on 50% power in one minute increments.

Étouffée FAQs

Étouffée vs gumbo vs jambalaya

Similarities: All three are considered to be main dishes in Cajun cuisine. They all use the holy trinity of vegetables: onion, celery, and bell pepper.
Differences: Jambalaya is a dish that consists of meat, vegetables, and rice. It’s all cooked together to form one cohesive dish. Gumbo is a mixture of meat and/or shellfish with vegetables in a thickened stock that’s served alongside rice. Gumbo, however, more closely resembles soup than gravy. Etouffée is one type of shellfish that is mixed with a sauce that closely resembles a gravy and that mixture smothers rice.

Creole vs. Cajun food

According to Louisiana Travel, Creole cuisine uses tomatoes and proper Cajun food does not.

Cajun and Creole are two distinct cultures, and while over the years they continue to blend, there is still a vast distinction in Louisiana, and both have their own unique stories. A vastly simplified way to describe the two cuisines is to deem Creole cuisine as “city food” while Cajun cuisine is often referred to as “country food.”

This recipe was originally published in February 2018 and has been updated with helpful information, ingredient and process photos, as well as recipe tips. Don’t worry – the recipe hasn’t changed!