Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya

I'll admit, this was an adventure for me because I had not tried this recipe until today, so I really had no idea how it was going to turn out in the end. Taste and quality wise, I was aiming for somewhere between the boxed jambalaya meals and the home cooked dutch oven variety. I knew it wouldn't be quite as good as the latter, but I was pretty sure it would be better than the former. I did mess up a little bit along the way and I wanted to point that out to everyone so that you all don't make the same mistakes, but feel like I met my goal in the end.

"Great, he can't even get this right, why should I try it?" Well, mine came out just fine, it was just a little over seasoned and a little over cooked. Both of those mistakes could have been corrected had I taken my time to do everything correctly. Which is something I wanted to point out as well. If you are trying to cook this super quick, you might want to quit while you're ahead and go buy the boxed variety and throw it in the microwave, because this probably took me about an hour to prepare and cook. The upside, however, is that I could make about 10 servings of this in one batch if I wanted to (though this recipe is only for 4). So please, take your time, follow the instructions if you want to get the most from this recipe

One last note. I was able to make such a large batch because I went out and purchased a 14 cup tupperware dish. It cost around $6.00 and I feel it was WELL worth it. I can now make huge batches of everything I cook, meaning I don't need to cook as often. It also gives me a lot more options because now I don't have to worry about anything spilling over the side when I stick it in the microwave. So while this isn't necessary, and the recipe below only filled about half of the container, I wouldn't recommend trying the recipe if you don't have at least a 10 cup tupperware dish or something similar in size.

Ingredients:
- One link of hot pork sausage cut up into 1/2 inch chunks (5.5oz) [$1.52]
- One chicken breast sliced up into 1/2 inch chunks. (5.5oz) [$1.25]
- Three cups of white rice [$0.93]
- One can of reduced sodium chicken broth (14oz can) [$1.22]
- 1 tsp of pepper
- 2 tsp of garlic
- 2 tsp of onion powder
- 1 tsp of tony chacheres (or season all)
- 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper
- 2 tbsp of worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tbsp of your favorite hot sauce
- 14 cup tupperware dish

Optional/Substitute Ingredients
- One link of any sausage, andouile, duck, etc
- Shrimp in place of chicken
- brown rice in place of white rice
- vegetable or beef broth instead of chicken

Ingredients
(Ignore the chili powder, I didn't use it)

This recipe will make about 4 servings or so. Total price excluding seasoning and tupperware dish comes out to only $1.23 per serving! If you throw in a vegetable side dish of some kind you could probably stretch it out to 5-6 servings.

Step 1: Start out by pouring your three cups of rice into the tupperware dish and run it under some water for a little while to get some of the starch out. Make sure to empty all of the water out of the dish when you're done. Obviously the rice will still be damp, that is fine, we just don't want a ton of water because it will mess up the next step.

*Note*
Now, It's a rule when cooking jambalaya that you want 2 cups of liquid for every cup of rice that you put into the pot (or tupperware in this case). So we need six total cups of liquid to add to our rice. I keep saying liquid because we are going to use chicken broth as well as water. This just gives it a better taste. Normally we would cook the chicken and sausage in the same pot that the rice and water go into, but this isn't the case for us so we are making up for it with the chicken broth.

Step 2: Pour the whole can of chicken broth into your dish. This comes out to be around 2.5 cups of liquid I believe. Then add 3.5 cups of water.

Step 3: Now is the most important part of the recipe!! This is where I messed up today, so please follow these steps. Begin seasoning with your tony chacheres and worcestershire sauce. Next pour in your garlic powder and onion powder. NOW, take a spoon and taste the liquid. The uncooked rice won't hurt you (this is another reason why you washed the rice earlier). Does the liquid taste like something you would want to eat? If so, stop seasoning here!!! Remember that you want the liquid to be a little salty because the rice will absorb some of it during cooking. If you think it needs some more pepper (which I definitely require in my jambalaya) then start slowly pouring the cayenne, black pepper, and hot sauce into the liquid. Make sure to put a little bit of each at a time! You can always add more but you can't take any out

My rice after seasoning

As you can see from this picture, I didn't follow my own directions. I put all the seasoning in at once without trying it as I was going. This resulted in crazy-spicy jambalaya that was tasty, but a little much even for me. I also didn't pour the liquid into the rice first, which I should have done as well.

Step 4: Cut your chicken and sausage into 1/2 inch chunks and throw them on your George Foreman grill for about 10-12 minutes. Make sure to check them every few minutes to make sure they aren't burning.

Cut up Chicken and Sausage

Step 5: Throw the chicken and sausage into your rice/water mixture and put it into the microwave for about 20 minutes. After about 10 minutes I would take it out briefly to stir it up. The seasoning tends to stay at the top otherwise. I know you wouldn't normally do this when cooking Jambalaya, but this isn't a normal way to cook it, so don't worry about it.

Step 6: After 20 minutes, let cool for a second and then take a bite of the rice. If it is still hard (uncooked), stick it in for another minute or two. The perfect consistency is for the rice to come out soft and slightly wet. Once the rice starts cooling off it will absorb a little more of the liquid. So if cook it for 25 minutes until the jambalaya is very dry straight out of the microwave, it will end up even drier in about five minutes, and you don't want that!

After coming out of the microwave

Step 7: Pull out a plate, serve, and enjoy!

Like I said, I made a few mistakes along the way and that is the main reason why this post is so long. I love this recipe and I want everyone to enjoy it, so I'm trying to describe in as much detail as possible so yours will turn out even better than mine does.