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.
I make this with the Beyond Italian “Sausage” and it is absolutely fantastic! I cannot say it enough. I quadruple the spice blend and keep it on hand and just dump it in until it tastes good, I would say I probably double the amount the recipe calls for but that’s just personal preference.
I use this blend as my go – to cajun spice blend now.
This meal is also awesome for car camping! very minimal prep needed as long as you prepare the spice blend ahead of time.
AWESOME RECIPE!
This is missing from the andouille recipe index, just a heads up. I was worried when I couldn’t find it at first haha.
Thank you! Adding it now. :)
This is absolutely fantastic! Followed the recipe exactly. The andouille sausage was freshly made and the spices are right on. Delicious!
I made this tonight for my family, but I made it vegetarian. The recipe is amazing and my family loved it, as is the case with all of your recipes. I doubled the ingredients, hoping for leftovers, but it doesn’t look like there will be any.
Changes I made:
plant based cajun sausage
tri color peppers (that’s what I had on hand)
I added 1/2 c each celery, onion, carrots
veggie broth
added a few cloves of garlic
I ended up with a colorful, flavor and veggie packed, one pan dinner… not one thing to be upset about.
Thank you for posting these amazing recipes, my kids are already asking what I am making tomorrow!!
Thank you for sharing your vegetarian version! I know that will be helpful to a lot of people. :)
Hey I made your recipe a couple of times but wanted to try it without the diced tomatoes and should of figured the water lost would need to be replaced and wound up with some rice not being cooked. Any suggestions of how much broth I could put to mitigate the water loss from the tomatoes?
It’s hard to estimate, unfortunately. I’d need to do some testing to get it just right, but I’d probably start my testing by adding an extra ½ to ¾ cup water.
Can this be made in a crick pot?
I don’t think this one is a good candidate for slow cooking, unfortunately.
Could you feeze it?
This one should freeze well. :)
Do you think this recipe would work without bell pepper? I’m allergic.
Yes, I think it would still be amazing. :)
A quick, easy, and hearty dinner enjoyed by the whole family! Thanks so much!
I’m a guy in college who doesn’t have time to cook, hates cooking, and is also broke. This was a straight banger. Can’t wait to eat the leftovers
Would it be possible to use brown rice instead of white rice? I’m super excited to make this recipe but don’t want to have to buy another bag of rice.
I don’t suggest simply swapping brown rice in for the white rice. Brown rice requires more liquid and the cooking time will be about 3x longer, so the recipe would take quite a bit of tweaking to make it work.
I can’t eat white rice due to diabetic reasons. Since it will require quite a bit of tweaking of the recipe to switch out to brown rice, how would the recipe work with cooking brown rice separately?
I think it’s just one of those things you’ll have to test out to see if you like it or not. The major difference with that method is that the rice will not be cooking together will all the other spices and sausage, so it won’t absorb those flavors like it does when you cook everything in one pot. :(
I absolutely love this recipe! I’m a young adult who lives alone, this has become a staple. It’s so quick and easy. I add onions and kidney beans to the recipe. What do you recommend for side dishes? I find I get three servings of the dish and still am a little hungry.
I’d probably do something simple and something green, like roasted broccoli, roasted Brussels sprouts, or lemon pepper zucchini. :)
Can you use minute rice?
That would definitely change the amount of time needed to cook the dish, and maybe the amount of liquid needed as well.
Wow, this was good! I followed the recipe to a “T” except added a half cup of chopped onions to the green peppers and a cup or two of leftover chopped rotisserie chicken. The spices, amount of rice, and chicken stock were all spot-on. Usually for these one-dish dinners the rice is either too cooked or not cooked enough but not this one. I will add it to my weekly rotation! Thanks!
Oooh, that kind of sounds like it becomes a Cajun-spiced chicken bog! It’s a famous chicken and rice dish from the South Carolina lowcountry.
I don’t eat pork so am wondering if any other kind of sausage will work? Turkey, beef or chicken? Any suggestions? Thanks!
Yes, you could use any of those, just make sure it’s a smoked sausage so you get all that delicious smoky flavor. :)
Simple to make, easy clean up, and toddler approved! Added to our menu rotation!!!