Welcome to Fat Tuesday — aka Mardi Gras! If you aren't able make it to the French Quarter to celebrate with beads and beers, bring the occasion to your own home today with a few Cajun and Creole classics — as well as a few contemporary riffs on traditional New Orleans fare. Here are some of our favorites.
Happy almost Mardi Gras! Feast on New Orleans favorites far beyond Fat Tuesday by stocking your kitchen with these local food favorites. Online you can find a surprising number of New Orleans delicacies — from hot sauce and seasoning blends to beignets and café au laits — and they're ready to be shipped straight to your belly. Check out my 10 favorite New Orleans food essentials to fill the pantry.
Even if you don't hail from The Pelican State, there's no better excuse to party before the Lenten season than with Mardi Gras — after all, the purple, green, and gold only come out once a year! Live music and Krewe parades are but a few reasons why the debaucherous Carnival scene in New Orleans brings hundreds of thousands of visitors each early Spring, but undoubtedly, the biggest draw is the city's rich culinary history and unique perspective on food and drink. What do you know about the cuisine of New Orleans and Louisiana? To find out, keep clicking.
Is there any better excuse for debauchery than Mardi Gras?! Get in the purple, green, and gold spirit with provisions shaped by and inspired from the city's rich history and culture. Start off your day with a Ramos gin fizz, and end it on a sweet note with a decadent ice cream bombe topped with flambéed bananas Foster! Here are a few of our Nola favorites; for more, check out all of our Mardi Gras recipes.
 Treme Cocktail |
 Muffaletta |
 Ramos Gin Fizz |
 Bananas Foster Bombe |
 Vegetable Gumbo |
 King Cake |
People have strong opinions when it comes to dressing, starting with whether it should be called "dressing" or "stuffing." In the South, my family always called it "dressing" and baked it in a casserole dish, not a turkey, and we always had two options: sausage or oyster. What we did not have was cornbread.
As a lover of all things cornmeal — corn dogs, grits, tamales, you name it — I figured it was high time I made a cornbread dressing. To my palate, white bread stuffings are often bland, but this New Orleans-inspired dressing packs a punch with spicy andouille sausage, chopped celery and red peppers, and a dash of hot sauce. I didn't change a thing in this recipe, and it was luxuriously moist, spicy but not too spicy, and full of flavor. Get the recipe for your Thanksgiving.
Couldn't make it to Mardi Gras this year? If you're lamenting the fact that today's Fat Tuesday and the French Quarter's a plane ride away, then do what I like to do. Bring the purple, green, and gold to your kitchen instead with a comforting platter of saucy shrimp étouffée.
Although some variations of the seafood recipe take hours to cook, enjoy a snappier version, since tonight's a school night. While the tomatoes and aromatics simmer together, steam a bowl of grains in the rice cooker (dabbed with a bit of butter, of course) so everything's ready to hit the table at the same time. Settle in with an Abita, some extra hot sauce, and your party hat, and you'll be ready to dig in! Click through for the quick recipe.
After several consecutive weeks of too much celebrating, I'm trying to focus on eating healthful, clean meals. Tonight, I'm taking advantage of salmon left over from last night's dinner and pulling together a light, Cajun-inspired dinner that'll be ready in twenty minutes.
Blackened fish is so easy that even my kitchen-averse boyfriend is able to make it. The key to the dish's healthy flavor is not too much oil and lots of Cajun seasoning, a dynamic mix of seasonings such as salt, garlic, cayenne, chili powder, onion, and paprika. Fill up by pairing the sautéed broccoli with some roasted potatoes.
For a healthy yet satisfying supper tonight, read more.
If there's one incredible thing about food memory, it's that a singular, mind-blowing taste can bring on a flood of musings, cravings, and memories. Such was the case in Aspen, where we enjoyed a thoughtfully curated crawfish lunch, hosted by Louisiana chef John Besh. I left dreaming of when I could pay a visit to New Orleans to finally try the city's legendary Cajun and Creole cuisine.
While closely intertwined, Cajun and Creole cooking aren't exactly one and the same. The former developed out of Louisiana backcountry, while the latter originated from the New Orleans cosmopolitan city culture. Can you identify which dishes have a Creole history, and which ones a Cajun background? Let's get started to find out.
Take the Quiz
Monday nights are hectic already, so the last thing you need is a complicated dinner or a sink full of dirty dishes to add to the grind. Keep things effortless by making a simplified version of the New Orleans favorite, shrimp jambalaya. It's a meal that comes together in just one pot, and, with dynamic ingredients like leftover andouille sausage and succulent shrimp, this dish practically cooks itself. If you're looking to save a little bit more time (and money), defrost frozen bags of peeled and deveined shrimp the night before to make the dish in lightning speed. For a Monday night meal that's an explosion of flavors, read more.
I've always cooked with canned beans over higher-maintenance dried beans, but after seeing PartySugar make a beef chili that required no preliminary bean soaking, I decided it was high time I followed in her footsteps.
The perfect place to start? A simple, yet flavorful Cajun stew of andouille sausage, veggies, and Great Northern beans that requires no soaking whatsoever.
Just pop it into the slow cooker, wait four and a half hours, and serve! I'll enjoy it with some dirty rice and sautéed greens. Interested? Then keep reading.
