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.
This is such a delicious meal, especially in the chilly winter months. I make it once every couple of weeks for my partner and myself, and if I’m lucky, there are leftovers for me to take to work the next day (though it has been gobbled up in one night on more than one occasion!)
In case anyone is reading and wondering if there is way to make this lower-carb, I’d like to share that I’ve had success replacing the 1 cup rice with 3 cups of chopped cabbage or coleslaw mix and letting it simmer on low for about 10 minutes. I add the cabbage in when I would normally add the rice and cut the chicken broth back by a bit to keep the consistency from going too soupy. The cabbage soaks up the flavours of the spices, sausage and tomatoes beautifully and gives the same kind of volume as the rice.
What a great modification! Thanks for sharing that. :)
Hallelujah! <3 This has all the great cajun flavour of the creamy cajun chicken recipe, but with fewer ingredients and a seemingly simpler execution! It tastes like "More!" even though I subbed the red pepper for a frozen spaghetti mix and the smoked sausage for regular Italian.
Good weeknight quick meal, my husband loved it. I made it with prepared cajun seasoning blend and 1T had a pleasant building heat. Next time I might add just a bit mor and a dash more liquid since my skillet lid has a looser fit. I garnished mine after serving with flour-dusted (+ s & p) pan fried okra which added a nice crunch. This could easily be used as a template for other rice dishes.
Thank You!
This meal was great even though I did not have the andouille sausage.
Due to the pandemic an the time of year it is getting andouille sausage was very hard to find as it’s more of an item easier to find in the summer so I went with chicken sausage instead. It was still very good an very flavorful. Great idea.
I just wanted to thank you so much for making me feel passionately about food. So many other blogs can be intimidating with their cooking lingo and the costly items. I love your focus on frugalness and practicality. The recipes you list are reliable and make me excited to cook. You take the time to post both videos and pictures for me to refer to, taking the guessing out of all of it. Your website is easy to navigate and the grocery list feature makes that long process turn into a 5-minute affair. You are doing everting your can to make healthier, more frugal living, way more accessible. I LOVE cooking now. You make me forget that I’m being cheap. Girl, what you do is amazing and I hope you know that. I watch a lot of Dave Ramsey and I hope a lot of people who seek his financial advice are annoyed with the idea of cooking can find you, because cooking doesn’t have to suck. As a person who was scared to learn and was so frustrated with cooking, I can say that you really impacted how I see food now. Thank you!!
Thank you!! <3 <3 <3
You are so right. 👍👍👍👍
This was delicious and so easy! I felt like a total pro cooking this, and it looked amazing when it was done. I followed the recipe practically to the T, something I rarely do, and I was really impressed with how quick and easy it was to follow. My 3-year-old and husband both loved it as well!
I love this recipe!! Simple and delicious!
We had this for supper tonight. And no surprise, it was faaaantastic!
I’m getting SOOO TIRED of my own cooking. So I actually *gasp* followed the recipe! No changes (well, different kind of sausage. Unavoidable, that).
So this is my new therapy. Instead of checking out a recipe and then ‘winging it’, which ends up being me putting in the stuff I know I like, and which I’m getting tired of (QED), I put in NEW stuff that I don’t usually use. Hey presto, I just discovered something else I really like.
So thanks, Beth. It’s really nice of you to let us stand by your elbow while you cook, and then take all that loveliness home for ourselves.
Mwah!
-Carol
Loved this! And this Cajun girl says that this tastes just like the long cooking, labor intensive jambalaya! A little lighter colored so less of the deep flavors, but with all of the spice, smokiness and stickiness of jambalaya. I had some leftover roast chicken that I added just before simmering that was a very nice touch.
So far I have made this twice and it has been perfect each time! Definitely plan on making it again.
I love recipes like this because they can be modified and still be delicious.
I used 1 1/2 cups rice, 28oz can tomatoes, 2 cups water, and then adjusted the spices. I didn’t have Oregano and only fresh Thyme, and used a different hot chili powder. No problem. Wife and I ate it for lunch and dinner. Gone. Next time I will add 1/2-1 cup additional water to make it more saucy. Thank you!
Why did it take me so long to try this one?!
It’s amazing. I think I was hesitant to try it because I’ve never seen Andouille sausage around where I live, or really anything similar. I stopped by the deli yesterday and noticed Hungarian sausage, so I decided just to try. It It worked sooooo well. Delicious. They didn’t have quite enough at the deli as the recipe calls for, so I added in a can of white kidney beans (didn’t have red on hand, but that would have been the obvious choice). I was also worried the sausage wouldn’t be smokey enough (it was), so I added in a drop of liquid smoke. It didn’t hurt, but I think it would have been just as delicious without it.
My husband raved about this dish, and asked for it again as soon as possible. Basically all our favourite meals came from this website. Thanks so much for all your hard work, Beth! You deserve all the success that comes your way!
I had to use fresh garlic and onion in lieu of the powder, no idea if it mattered. Also added beans and doubled the rice because I misunderstood and cooked the first cup beforehand, but turned out delicious!
This tasted amazing and will definitely be added to our regular menu for dinner! My husband loved it as well. I think I actually like this better than jambalaya. The only changes I made- I added beans and no tomato since I didn’t have any. Still tasted delicious!
I love this recipe. I’ve made it a dozen times I’m sure, and every time I’m surprised by how easy and quick it is. My partner loves it too, and coworkers rave over the smell of it. One of my faves from this site!