This Easy Gumbo Recipe has the flavor of a gumbo that you’ve spent hours preparing. Ready in about 45 minutes, this is a straight forward, simple weeknight dinner recipe you’ll want to keep on your meal plan rotation. Bold with flavor this shrimp and sausage gumbo recipe will become one of your favorites.
This recipe was first published October, 2012 and updated October, 2020.
The weekend is over and lazy lingering meals will be replaced with quick work-week dinners. Cue this easy gumbo recipe.
The reason I like this gumbo recipe is because a true-blue gumbo is a process that can span over of a couple of days.
Someday when I’m feeling ambitious, I’ll take the time to do that. But in the meantime I wanted to challenge myself to come up with an easy gumbo recipe version that reminds me of the wonderful flavors we enjoyed on our trip to New Orleans.
Depending on how fast your can slice and dice, I’d say this is a 45 minute start to finish meal.
Okra, shrimp, red and green bell peppers swim in a broth colored with roux and flavored with onions, bay leaves, garlic and Cajun spice.
And with a side of steamed white rice, you’ll be digging out your Louie Armstrong CD’s.
Let’s take a look at this easy shrimp sausage gumbo.
The Key To This Recipe Is The Roux
A roux is made with two ingredients, flour and oil. The flour and oil are cooked together until the mix becomes a dark color. It provides the deep rich flavor to gumbo and thickens the broth. The darker the roux the richer the flavor.
What Goes Into This Recipe
Mise en place. Always gather ingredients before starting any recipe. It will save you time and organize your mind.
- Green Bell Peppers, Red Bell Peppers, Onions and Celery are key ingredients to any gumbo soup recipe. They create a “sofrito” style beginning for this soup.
- Okra: Gumbo wouldn’t be gumbo without sliced okra.
- Chicken broth, oil and flour to make that traditional gumbo roux.
- Andouille Sausage. Please seek out a quality well flavored andouille sausage. It’s a French smoked sausage with a wonderfully spicy flavor.
- Shrimp: Shelled, deveined and tails removed.
- Red Chile Pepper: Cayenne would be traditional, or red pepper flakes would work well here.
- Cajun or Creole Seasoning.
Ingredient Swaps
- Don’t have shrimp on hand? Swap out shrimp for bite-sized chunks of chicken. Just add those uncooked chicken pieces to the gumbo at the same time as you add the sausage.
- You can swap out Andouille Sausage for any smoked sausage. Kielbasa is a good choice here.
Step by Step Instructions, It’s Easy
- Sautee chopped vegetables in a fry pan until tender and set aside. In a large sauce pan, prepare the roux by combining flour and oil. cooking and stirring until roux becomes a beautiful dark red-ish brown. This will take about 30 minutes.
- Stir in cooked vegetables, red chile pepper, and Cajun seasoning.
Pro Tip Knife Skills: Always keep the hand that’s gripping the knife clean and dry. A wet hand could cause slips resulting in nicks or worse a nasty slice on your hand.
- Add chicken broth, sausage, okra and bay leaf.
- Bring to a good simmer and let cook 15 minutes.
- In the meantime, cook the rice.
- Drop in the shrimp and let them cook for two-three minutes.
- Remove bay leaves and serve over rice.
Common Questions About This Easy Gumbo Recipe
Once you start cooking the roux, stir it often. The flour and oil mixture will turn to a red brown color and will take on a nut-like odor.
It all has to due with the roux and the role of the rice. Gumbo builds its flavor upon the roux, and the roux will thicken it to a stew like texture. Gumbo is served with rice on the side, while with jambalaya, the rice is simmered in the soup.
The roux can be made 3 – 5 days in advance stored in an airtight contained.
Shrimp is a typical seafood ingredient in Gumbo. You can also use crab, white fish or crawfish.
What To Serve With Gumbo
Rice is a traditional partner for gumbo. Start with this beautiful New Orleans recipe for Louisiana Sunburst Salad. A popular recipe made famous by the Palace Cafe in New Orleans. You could also serve it with Cornbread Muffins or try this Herbed Tomato Bread. And why not make a Chile Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Bourbon Frosting for dessert.
Storage and Leftovers
With just the two of us, this easy gumbo recipe made plenty of welcome leftovers for next evening’s dinner.
- When storing leftovers in the refrigerator, place rice and soup in separate containers, reheat separately and then bring them back together in the soup bowl. The texture of the rice is much happier that way. And only a gentle reheat of the soup is needed, we don’t want rubbery shrimp.
- Because this gumbo contains shrimp, we don’t recommend keeping in the refrigerator for over two days.
- You can freeze gumbo for up to six months. I like to use a gallon zip lock back. Just fill the bag with the gumbo to about two inches to the top. Squeeze the air out and make sure the bag is sealed well. Lay flat in freezer for maximum storage.
- To reheat, let the gumbo thaw in the refrigerator overnight. Then gently reheat in a saucepan, over low heat.
Recipe for Easy Gumbo
I can’t claim this gumbo to be 100% authentic, there’s not even any file powder in it, but it’s delicious and easy to make with ingredients found at your local supermarket. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to gumbo, and as I learned during my visit to New Orleans, each restaurant has their own version.
The only necessity is to make a good roux (pronounced “roo”) which is the mixture of fat and flour cooked stovetop until it becomes a dark caramel color.
I hope you give this easy Louisiana gumbo recipe a try. This hearty gumbo is a true melting pot meal that will transport you to Louisiana in just one bite. A top notch flavorful creole stew with origins from West Africa, Germany, French and Choctaw and has become a staple of Southern cooking.
So whether you’re looking for a dish to celebrate Mardi Gras, or just a fun weekend meal, you and your family will find this easy gumbo recipe very satisfying.
More Super Easy Soup Recipes Ideas
If you like robust shrimp style recipes, don’t miss my recipe for Shrimp Stew.
And if you love soups as much as we do, you won’t want to miss my Soup Category. You’ll find tons of great soup recipes, including the most popular on my site for Anthony Bourdain’s New Mexico Style Chili.
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Easy Gumbo Recipe with Shrimp and Sausage
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons Neutral Oil canola or vegetable oil will work well here.
- ½ cup sweet onion chopped
- 1 cup celery chopped, about two good sized stalks.
- 1 cup green bell pepper chopped, 1 medium pepper
- 1 cup red bell pepper chopped, 1 medium pepper
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup neutral oil vegetable or canola work well here.
- 3 cups chicken broth
- ½ teaspoon ground red chile pepper Cayenne, or red chile pepper
- ½ – 1 Tablespoon Creole Seasoning or Cajun seasoning. Start with ½ tablespoon, some brands can be quite spicy.
- 1 ½ cups fresh okra sliced. Or one 10 ounce package frozen cut okra
- 8 ounces andouille sausage fully cooked, sliced
- 1 bay leaf
- ½ pound large shrimp shelled, deveined and tails removed
- 3 cups hot cooked rice
- Tabasco sauce
Instructions
- In a skillet heat the two tablespoons oil. Add onion, celery and peppers. Cook, stirring until softened. About 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. About 1 minute. Remove from heat.
- For roux, in a large heavy saucepan or Dutch oven combine flour and oil, stir till smooth. Cook over medium-high heat for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium low. Cook and stir about 15 minutes or till roux is dark reddish brown and has a nutty aroma.
- Gradually stir in chicken broth, stirring.
- Add cooked vegetables, creole seasoning, bay leaf and ground red pepper, sausage and okra.
- Bring to simmer. Cook covered for about 15 minutes or until okra is tender.
- Stir in shrimp and cook until done, about 3 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Serve in bowls with rice. Finish with a few shakes of Tabasco Sauce.
Notes
Nutrition
Shrimp and Sausage Easy Gumbo Recipe …It’s What’s for Dinner.
Why Trust These Recipes? Lea Ann Brown has lived, worked and played in Colorado for 45 years. She has immersed herself in the Colorado Culinary space, is a Culinary School Graduate and publishes her Colorado food Blog, Cooking On The Ranch.
Great recipe, full of flavor.
Fabulous! So glad you liked the recipe and thanks for taking the time to write a review.
Wonderful recipe. Looking forward to trying it.
Thanks Robin. Let me know what you think. It’s sure popular around our house.