Hello, new favorite! I think of this Cajun Sausage and Rice Skillet kind of like “jambalaya light”. It has similar flavors and ingredients as jambalaya, but it’s a slightly scaled back, simplified version, perfect for quick weeknight dinner. And the best part? The leftovers are SO GOOD. So feel free to add this tasty skillet to your meal prep rotation!
What Kind of Sausage Do I Use?
To make this skillet meal taste the best, try to find Andouille sausage, which is a smoked pork sausage commonly used in Louisiana cooking. If you can’t find any in your area (I’m not sure how readily available this is outside the southern U.S.), you can use any smoked sausage in its place. If you want to go so far as to special order some to get the full experience, check out the selection from Cajungrocer.com.
Is Cajun Sausage and Rice Spicy?
It can be, depending on the ingredients you use. I used a “medium” heat Andouille sausage, which had a good amount of spicy heat, as well as a little cayenne pepper in my Cajun seasoning blend. If you want to make this dish mild, make sure to get a non-spicy smoked sausage, and you can skip the cayenne pepper in the spices listed in the recipe.
Can I Use Store Bought Cajun Seasoning?
The recipe below includes a half batch of my homemade Cajun seasoning, minus the salt because the other ingredients in the skillet contained enough salt that I didn’t need to add more. The total amount of spices used is about 1 tablespoon. If you’d like to use a store bought Cajun seasoning blend, first check to see how much salt it contains. Many store bought Cajun seasoning blends contain a lot of salt and are used more like a seasoning salt, or table seasoning, and probably will not work well for this recipe. If the blend you have is mostly just herbs and spices, I would use about 1 Tbsp for this recipe.
Can I Use Brown Rice?
Brown rice requires more liquid and a much longer cook time than white rice, so you will need to take these into account if you attempt to substitute brown rice for the white rice in this recipe. While I haven’t tested a brown rice version, I would probably add at least another cup of chicken broth and increase the simmer time to closer to 40 minutes.
You might also love my One Pot Lemon Garlic Shrimp and Rice!
Cajun Sausage and Rice Skillet
Servings 4 1.5 cups eachIngredients
- 14 oz. Andouille sausage* ($3.99)
- 1 Tbsp cooking oil ($0.04)
- 1 bell pepper ($0.89)
- 1 tsp smoked paprika ($0.10)
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano ($0.05)
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme ($0.05)
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder ($0.02)
- 1/4 tsp onion powder ($0.02)
- 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper ($0.02)
- 1/8 tsp freshly cracked black pepper ($0.01)
- 1 15oz. can fire roasted diced tomatoes ($1.00)
- 1 cup long grain white rice ($0.62)
- 1.5 cups chicken broth ($0.20)
- 2 green onions, sliced ($0.20)
Instructions
- Slice the sausage into ¼-½ inch thick slices. Add the sausage and cooking oil to a deep skillet or Dutch oven and sauté over medium heat until the sausage is well browned. Don't worry if the sausage begins to brown on the bottom of the skillet. That's extra flavor that will cook into the rice later.
- While the sausage is cooking, dice the bell pepper. Once the sausage is browned, add the bell pepper to the skillet and continue to sauté for about one more minute.
- Add the spices (smoked paprika, oregano, thyme, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, and black pepper) to the skillet with the sausage and bell pepper and continue to sauté for one minute more to toast the spices.
- Add the fire roasted diced tomatoes (with juices), rice, and chicken broth to the skillet. Stir to combine and dissolve any browned bits off the bottom of the skillet.
- Place a lid on the skillet, turn the heat up to medium-high, and allow the broth to come to a full boil. Once it reaches a boil, turn the heat down to low and let the skillet simmer for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove the skillet from the heat and let it rest, with the lid on, for an additional 5 minutes.
- After the skillet has rested, remove the lid, and fold the sausage and rice to redistribute the rice and sausage throughout. Top with sliced green onions and serve!
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Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make Cajun Sausage and Rice Skillet – Step by Step Photos
This is the Andouille sausage that I used. Andouille may not be readily available in all areas, so if you can’t find any, just try to get a smoked pork sausage of some sort instead. You really want that smoky flavor!
Slice the Andouille into medallions and add to a skillet with a tablespoon of cooking oil. Sauté over medium heat until the sausage is well browned. Don’t worry if the bottom of the skillet turns brown. That’s just extra flavor that will soak into the rice later!
While the sausage is browning, dice one bell pepper. Add it to the skillet and continue to sauté for about a minute. Then add the Cajun seasoning: 1 tsp smoked paprika, ½ tsp dried oregano, ½ tsp dried thyme, ¼ tsp garlic powder, ¼ tsp onion powder, ⅛ tsp cayenne pepper, and ⅛ tsp freshly cracked black pepper. Continue to sauté the spices for another minute.
Next, add one 15oz. can fire roasted diced tomatoes (with juices), 1 cup long grain white rice, and 1.5 cups chicken broth to the skillet. Stir to combine and dissolve those browned bits off the bottom of the skillet.
Once everything is combined, place a lid on the skillet, turn the heat up to medium-high, and allow the broth to come up to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, turn the heat down to low and let the skillet simmer for 20 minutes. (Pictured: before simmering)
After simmering for 20 minutes, remove it from the heat and let it rest for an additional five minutes (with the lid on). After resting, it will look like the photo above.
Fold everything together to redistribute the sausage, rice, and bell peppers. OMG it looks so good at this point I just want to dive in!
Top the skillet with sliced green onions and serve! It’s rich, spicy, smoky, and all-around DELICIOUS.
easy, uncomplicated, and good. i had a crown of broccoli lying around and i added that about midway through the sausage browning, before the bell pepper goes in. an easy way to add just a little more vegetable into the meal! i bet adding some diced onion before the sausage would be amazing as well. the sausage is the most expensive part, but once you have the rest of the basics on hand, it is incredibly easy to fill in! this can be an affordable routine staple!
I made it exactly as described except I added 1/2 a large onion with the bell pepper. It was delicious, my son who loves his grandma’s jambalaya, was very happy with the meal. Thank you for having the spices right!
In my experience it takes longer than 20 minutes for the rice to become tender and closer to 4 cups instead of 1.5. Just keep cooking and adding liquid as it thickens up until the rice is tender
There has been multiple Cooks who have made this as posted for 4 servings and it was the perfect amt of rice. Just saying!
I seared and shredded up 2 chicken strips and added it to the mix with the rice and broth. Probably could’ve added 3. Definitely a must! I also chopped up a yellow onion and put it in at the same time as the bell pepper. Thanks for the recipe!
love the recipe, I didn’t have smoked sausage so I subbed with sun-dried tomato sausage. I didn’t have the fire roasted tomatoes so used a can of diced tomatoes to which I added Spanish paprika to give it a them a nice flavour. it is delicious.
I am wondering if I can freeze this recipe in portions for myself.
I have all the ingredients on hand with the exception of fire-roasted diced tomatoes. BUT, I have something very close: a 15 oz. can of fire-roasted CRUSHED tomatoes. Will that substitution work, or will it ruin the recipe? TIA!
Tasty. I added the spices before the green peppers to brown with the sausage and oil. After the green peppers were soft I then added the rice to fry with the spices, sausage and peppers. After a minute once the rice was colored by the spices I then added the rest of the stock and tomato.
This recipe has become a go-to in our home and it’s absolutely delicious. We loved it as-is, but I have made some modifications we really dig lately. We sub Portuguese linguiça sausage for the andouille because we always have it on hand. And I add a can of kidney beans and some diced chicken breast or thighs to it as well. I season the chicken with the spice in the recipe. I call it my cheater Jambalaya and it’s so delicious, hearty, and EASY!
I used boil in the bag brown rice and I boiled it for like 5 minutes. Then added that and let it soak up the broth and it turned out great!
This was really delicious! We used d’artagnan Andouille sausage and added a red pepper and an onion along with the chopped green pepper. We didn’t have fire-roasted tomatoes but regular diced tomatoes were just fine. Adding this dish to our regular rotation of faves!
This recipe is delicious! Thank you for sharing.
Very good, I have a slightly bigger skillet than the author so I used 1.5 tsb oil, you might add a bit more spice than the author as well, but as written I’ve make it 4 times and love it.
Just wanted to let people know if you use jasmine rice, only use 1 1/4 c broth and it still comes out perfect!
Love it. My wife is allergic to tomato so I sub in a red pepper sauce instead (from this same website. Love your recipes!).
This looks amazing! My husband doesn’t like diced tomatoes (go figure!). Is there something I could sub, or how much liquid would I need to add just to make up for the tomato can juice? I can’t wait to try it either way!
You could try adding about 1/2 more broth. You could just omit the tomatoes or add in some red bell pepper in addition to the green, or even some okra or corn if you like that.
Hello! Quick question do you think adding sliced potatoes is a good idea for this dish? Or just a bad idea?
Hmmmm. Good question. My concerns would be A: slicing the potatoes thin enough that they cook at the same time with everything but not too thin that they fall apart. and B: Making sure there’s enough liquid because they’ll definitely absorb some of the moisture there. I think you could play with it an make it work though!