30-Minute Instant Pot Jambalaya: An Insanely Easy & Delicious Cajun One-Pot Meal 

Hello darling, I’m from the New Orleans area, born and raised generations deep and I have some tips for your jambalaya to make it more authentic. This will be a bit long so please bear with the me. New Orleans style jambalaya has tomato in it, Acadiana style (southwest Louisiana) jambalaya has no tomato. For the New Orleans style: 1.) First, fry the sausage in oil until it’s nicely browned. It must be browned as that makes flavor. You want the browned bits to build on the bottom of the pot that’s where the flavor is and you want that browning all over your sausage. We usually cut the sausage into rounds or half moons but if you prefer smaller pieces like diced, no one will say anything lol Then remove the sausage after browning. Next, fry the chicken in the sausage drippings until browned, then remove. This will leave larger browned bits and that’s what you want. What you want to be doing is building the grattons (pronounced grah-TAWN, it’s said with a nasal n and is a word in southeast Louisiana for the fond or browned bits on the bottom of the pot). Third, add the holy trinity (onion, celery, bell pepper) to the pot and fry the trinity in the meat drippings and browned bits, scraping the browned bits off of the bottom. Adding a spoon or two of water will help free up the browned bits from the bottom easier and faster than without it. I noticed your jambalaya looks too light. It needs to be more red. You need to add some tomato paste or a small can of tomato sauce in addition to your tomatoes you added. If you use paste, the common technique used is to fry the paste for a couple minutes on the bottom of the pot. So in the trinity once the trinity has been rendered add the paste and do that. This technique to fry the tomato paste is to carmelize the natural sugars in the paste and is called pincer (peen-say) i.e. “and then you pincer the tomato paste” it’s an added flavor step. If you use sauce, add it after the trinity has been rendered and let cook about a minute or two. So after you added the tomato products to the pot, add the sausage and chicken back into the pot and add your stock and all your seasonings. Follow the way you added the rice that was perfectly fine. A Louisiana-style hot sauce should be part of your seasonings, it makes it next level. One tablespoon of hot sauce is fine in that size pot (you can add more if you like more) because you should be adding black pepper and cayenne pepper too (or at least a Cajun/Creole seasoning which has those) and that will do the rest of the spicing for heat. Salt to taste. The liquid should be just slightly saltier than what you think is perfect for it to turn out perfectly salted when cooked because the rice sucks up the salt. Jambalaya should be highly seasoned but if you don’t like much spice then put less. My family we use 2 bay leaves but if you like one then use one. Leave the clove out, nobody down here uses that in jambalaya. We do use thyme which is the main herb we use in all our cooking. Then after you add your liquid and seasonings, set to cook. Add your shrimp at the end as you do, that was fine. At the end of cooking, add a hefty amount of fresh chopped green onions sprinkled all over the top of the dish and serve. Also, you can leave the shrimp out and just do chicken and sausage if your family doesn’t like shrimp because shrimp doesn’t have to be in it. In New Orleans and it’s surrounding areas, the three most common jambalayas are: 1.) shrimp and sausage 2.) chicken and sausage 3.) shrimp, chicken and sausage A great many of us alternate these three for variety. The sausage can be andouille or Louisiana-style smoked sausage from store bought brands like Richard’s (ree-shards), Savoie’s, or D&D’s. You can even just use a regular smoked sausage such as the one from Hillshire farms which would do. If you use andouille, a Louisiana brand is preferred. Same for the smoked sausage. If you can find either type of sausage from a meat market that is preferred to the store bought brands. I hope you try these tips for a more authentic version of a New Orleans jambalaya. Bon appétite!

Making this for the bros at work this week before summer fully sets in, the spicy heat is going to be perfect for the incoming summer and because I’m going to make it again this winter. Easy literal Legendary Dish

Thank you for sharing all of these recipes! We are a busy family with limited time and you have helped us be able to make great family meals in little time.

Thank you once again for a very delicious dinner.😊 I made it today!

Thank you for the recipe. I've just done it Puertorican-style and it came out great!. I did my "sofrito" a bit different (no onions, yes celery and cilantro, etc) I sauteed italian sausage and smoked ham and chicken breast first, then I added the sofrito to the meats and cooked for a bit longer. No shrimp today. Then I added the rice, vienna sausage, the broth and a different canned sauce that we PR's like. I cooked it as you showed us. Best "arroz con salchichas" (sausage rice) ever! Thanks.

❤ Amazing

Keep the recipes coming! ❤

Yummm. I didn’t know what to fix for supper today, now I know. Thank you

Revised: I made this tonight (exact recipe) and it was awesome! Thank you. Been meaning to make Jambalaya for some time now. Your video makes it look easy enough. Thank you.

Yummm making it tomorrow! Thanks Kristen!

This jambalaya recipe was truly delicious… I loved it… thank u Kristen

Looks delicious and easy , thanks for sharing. Take care. Sending big hugs Sherry

Looks great Kristen!..can’t wait to make it!!!

Brown rice could be made in advance minus some cooking time and then added for the rest of the time with everything else. I have done similar things before and it's fine. Just sayin'. I really want to try this out.

What’s for dinner 🥘 tonight!

Love these videos

I grew up in a part of the country where there are more Boudreaux than Smiths and I do dearly love jambalaya and gumbo. My problem is that I married a woman who cannot eat anything containing tomatoes and WILL NOT eat sausage of any kind. Sigh. I like her anyway. So I'm gonna make this with no sausage but with two pounds of shrimp and two pounds of boneless skinless chicken breast and will leave out the tomatoes. It won't be the same but I do believe it'll be okay.

I love your videos! Found you in December when I was gifted an instapot. I have made several of your recipes already and they have been all so so good!! Thank You. This recipe looks delicious. 2 cups of rice is way too much for my tiny family though. Can I halve the rice?

Looks good and just in time for Mardi Gras! 😋 TYFS

Awesome video

Sometimes my husband likes to add frozen crawfish tails.

🤤🥰

Jambalaya is meant to be cooked w/ability to melt flavors together. Quick cooking in a crock pot or instapot does not do that. I do one pot in my Dutch oven.

This is one dry Jambalaya. It has to be more soupy.