I love Cajun food. I might be a little biased, but the idea of being able to feed a lot of people on a little money is incredibly appealing. This is the greatest difference between Cajun and Creole cooking. Don’t get me wrong, both cuisines are delicious they are just different.
Cajun food is modest, easy to make, inexpensive, and can generally feed a lot of people with few ingredients while Creole cooking is rich, decadent, expensive to make, and will feed few people with a lot of ingredients. At least this was my experience growing up in South West Louisiana. If we wanted the real fancy food we would travel over to New Orleans.
Cajun rice dressing or “dirty rice” as it’s more commonly called in my neck of the woods is one of those dishes that was at every family gathering without exception. It’s easy and inexpensive to make, will feed lots of people and lets face it. It’s utterly delicious!! The recipe I am sharing with you below is my grandmother’s recipe that was passed down to me 20 years ago.
This dish serves as a main course or a side meal. It’s great by itself or can be transformed into other meals with a few adjustments. For instance, this rice dressing makes for a great filling to stuffed bell peppers. If you leave out the rice and add cornbread this makes for a fantastic cornbread dressing. I personally liked to stuff this dressing into a pistolette and deep fry it (of course). You can also stuff pork chops with this dressing, YUM!!
To make this you only need a few ingredients. Beef, pork, garlic, mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, and celery. That’s it!! You can substitute either of the meats with ground turkey if you want too.
One last thing, I personally like to use parboiled rice for this dish as I like the way it holds up as a freezer meal but you can use what ever rice you have on hand.
Enjoy the Video and the recipe. If you make it be sure to let me know and if you have some creative ways to use this awesome dish be sure to send them my way…
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Cajun Rice Dressing
Ingredients
- 1.5 pounds Ground Beef
- 1.5 pounds Ground Pork
- 1 large bell pepper
- 1 lb button mushroom sliced
- 4 celery stalks diced
- 2 medium onions diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1.75 cups chicken stock
- 3 tsp salt
- 1.5 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp cayenne
- 1/4 tsp dried thyme
- 8 cups Cooked parboiled Rice approximately. You might need a little more or less depending on how you like your rice dressing
Instructions
- Sautee vegetables in butter until softened. Season with salt, pepper, and red pepper.
- Add ground pork and cook till pork is browned
- Add the ground beef and cook till browned.
- Once the meat has been browned add the chicken stock and reduce the heat to medium and cook for about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Cook down mixture until there is little juice.
- Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking
To make the Rice Dressing
- Begin with already cooked rice and start by adding the meat/vegetable mixture a little at a time till you are satisfied with the ratio of meat to rice. I generally like a 50/50 ratio
- To freeze place in freezer friendly containers and store in the freezer
- To reheat, thaw rice dressing and heat in the oven at 350F for 15-20 minutes
Nutrition
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