Jason Hebert's Jambalaya

That’s right. Jason Hebert. See, long before there was a Jason Herbert of Colorado, there was a little coonass running around Breaux Bridge, Louisiana named Jason Hebert. And eventually, he’d perfect making jambalaya.

Let me explain.

Oh I was born Jason Herbert in the small town of Murray, Kentucky. But we were poor. I mean, poor poor. So when I was three, my mom, stepdad, little brother, and me (along with my aunt and uncle) relocated to the somehow even smaller (and poorer!) town of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Breaux Bridge sits in the heart of Cajun Country, formally known as Acadiana, where a bunch of French speaking people resettled after their expulsion from Canada, formally known as Diet Maine.

Acadian Expulsion, courtesty University of Maine.

Breaux Bridge is best known as home of the Crawfish Festival, an annual get together celebrating Cajun life and culture, centered around the mudbug. If you’ve never been, it is a sight to behold, and I mean that. Small town celebrations are some of my favorite things about America and the Crawfish Festival (held annually in late winter) is among the very best of them.

But Breaux Bridge was also the site of my first metamorphosis, from western Kentucky hillbilly named Jason Herbert to a little French-speaking Cajun kid named Jason Hebert. There’s not enough space to go into here, but essentially when the residents down there saw my last name, they assumed it was misspelled and “corrected” it on everything. All of my school books, government information—everything—is Jason Hebert.¹ And since I moved to Louisiana when I was three, there was no real memory of home, aside from some scattered memories of catfish and basketball. I started learning Cajun French in school and all of our friends were named Thibodeaux or Guidry or Broussard, so Jason Hebert I became.

This was our friends’ pet alligator. When the kids would get in the pool, they’d tape its mouth shut and we’d swim around with it. I grew up thinking this was normal.

Down on the bayou with my mom and my little brother. Mom was a teenager when we were born. She always said that she grew up with us.

Eventually we returned to the Bluegrass, where my French faded but my love for Louisiana remained (I’ll pick at Kentucky or Florida or Kansas or any number of places I’ve lived, but Louisiana remains off limits.) And as I got older I looked for ways to keep Breaux Bridge close to me, including in its food. So I developed the following jambalaya recipe. I’ve made it now so many times, at home, for work, parties hell, I was honored once to make it for some friends’ wedding. But I’ve never shared the recipe before now. But maybe you can make it for your friends and you can think about Louisiana too. Let’s get started.

The first thing you’ll need is a cooking playlist. I’m dead serious. A kitchen without music and wine is damn travesty. You can borrow mine. It has a few nods to growing up in Louisiana and Kentucky that you may like.

Ok, for the jambalaya- here’s a quick list of what you need and then a play by play. All of this comes together fast. So do the prep work before you ever start cooking anything.

Meat- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts and about 12-16oz andouille sausage. The latter is key. Don’t go for the that Hillshire Farms nonsense. You need to get the best andouille you can find. Andouille should be firm to the touch and have a bit of a kick on its own. Unfortunately, I live in Colorado and that means good groceries are next to impossible (seriously this state has the worst food palate I’ve ever seen). So, splurge. If you’re in a state with a Publix, I highly recommend Ragin’ Cajun brand andouille. For the chicken, I chop into small pieces. For the sausage, I slice and then quarter the slices as seen below.

Trinity- The traditional Cajun trinity is a mix of onions, bell peppers, and celery. I chop these into similar sizes and use a 2-1-1 mix of onion/bell pepper/celery. I also added one Serrano pepper, but you can omit this.

Spices- You’ll need 1 tablespoon of the following: kosher salt, cracked black pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, dried thyme, dry mustard, and a half tablespoon of mustard. You’ll also need three bay leaves. People think the heat comes the cayenne, but it’s actually from the black pepper and the mustard for some reason. If you want to back off the heat, lower the black pepper to a half tablespoon first, then the cayenne.

How to cook this stuff:

In a big nonstick skillet, melt some butter and then cook down your andouille sausage. Essentially what you want to do is render the fat and spices out of the sausage so it can be absorbed by the chicken. Once you have done that, remove the sausage and then brown the chicken in the remaining butter and fat. Once chicken is browned, add back in the sausage, trinity, and spices, and cook all that down. This will release the liquids inside the trinity (more on that in a bit).

Mix all this and cook it down for about 5-6 minutes. It is during this time that your house will smell better than any other place on the planet and you will enter Boss Level Chef Mode. Your marriage will rekindle. Your kids will do their homework. Someone will drop a house on your former sister-in-law.

After this has cooked down a bit, you want to add two cups of rice. Here’s the important part: don’t add chicken stock right away. You’ll want the rice to absorb some of the flavors in the pan. So give it about 3 minutes before you add about 2 1/2 cups of chicken stock.² You won’t need as much chicken stock as usual since there is already liquid in the pan. However if you do add more, that’s ok because you can always book it down later. Cajun food is forgiving AF.

Now, put a lid on the pan and reduce your heat to low/medium low (I go for a 2.5 on my stovetop). I set my timer for 22 minutes.

This is where you’ll need to caress your jambalaya a bit. I actually did add too much stock here, so it needed to cook down for another seven minutes beyond the first 22. That’s ok, that’s why you have wine and a cooking playlist. Eventually, it’ll be ready. It should not be dried out. Jambalaya should have a softness to it. But this is what it’ll look like in the pan when it’s done:

And for plating, here ya go:

And that’s about it. It makes great leftovers (just add a touch of chicken stock). This is literally the first time I’ve shared this so I hope you dig it.

And since you’re spending money on groceries anyway, if you want to help keep the content, uh, cooking, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. And I’ll keep more stuff coming your way. Regardless, thank you for being part of this community.

1. Take that, Jason Bourne.

2. A note on chicken stock- if you can, homemade chicken stock is always more flavorful than the stuff you buy at the store. Plus, it’s fun to make. I’ve actually found the best stock I make comes from leftover pork ribs when I smoke them. But you can do whatever you like. I wouldn’t use beef stock for this, but chicken, pork, or vegetable stock will work great.