Seafood Jambalaya

Jambalaya is a Cajun rice dish that is the perfect one-pot meal. It’s not so much a soup as an explosion of rice, vegetables, spices, seafood, and spicy sausage. I love to serve this to a crowd—it’s simple to get the base ready to go, add the rest of the ingredients, and let the slow cooker work its magic. Serve the jambalaya directly from the slow cooker with an assortment of hot sauces on the side.

Ingredients

• 1 pound andouille sausage or polish kielbasa, cut into ½-inch rounds
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 medium green bell peppers, finely chopped
• 4 stalks celery, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• One 14- to 15-ounce can chopped tomatoes, with their juice
• 10 cups chicken broth
• 1½ cups raw converted rice
• 2 pounds cleaned mixed shellfish such as shrimp, oysters, clams, crab, and crawfish
• 6 green onions, finely chopped for garnishing
• Assorted hot sauces for serving

Instructions

cook the sausage in a large skillet over high heat until it renders some fat and begins to color.

transfer the sausage to the insert of a 5- to 7-quart slow cooker. Add the onion, bell peppers, celery, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, oregano, basil, and black and cayenne peppers to the same skillet and sauté until the onion is beginning to turn golden, 5 to 7 minutes.

add the tomatoes and cook until some of the liquid evaporates, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer the contents of the skillet to the slow-cooker insert and stir in the broth and rice. Cover and cook on high for 2 hours or on low for 4 hours.

remove the cover and add the shellfish and cook on high for 20 minutes, until the rice is tender and the shellfish is cooked. Remove the bay leaf.

garnish with green onions and serve directly from the slow cooker with an assortment of hot sauces.

serves 8–10