Kyvan Jambalaya

As my regular readers know, I am a huge fan of Cajun food.  I have done 2 different week-long posts with my friend Lisa, known as the Creole Contessa.  To give you a flavor of Cajun food, here is the link to a Friday Five – Cajun addition I did a while back.  My friend Lisa introduced me to and the Kelly’s.  Kyvan sent me a few products so that I would try them.  This post is about their Jambalaya sauce.

 

To be clear, this is not a sponsored post but I can be influenced :).  Not really.  As all of us home cooks know, and I have written about it lately, there is nothing better than creating your dishes from scratch.  In this busy world, we may not always have time to cook, or for that matter, know how to cook this unique dish.  Having a great product/recipe to pull off the shelf to pull a meal together quickly is a great resource.  I think you all will like this bottled jambalaya.  It has great ingredients and just the right amount of spice.

Now the foodie in me needed to do up the recipe just a little.  I did some of the same steps I would do if I was making my this dish from scratch.  Browned some smoked sausage to make good bits on the bottom of the pot.  I spiced up my chicken with Cajun seasoning before browning.  Now the sauce did not need any additional flavors.  I added tomato paste and some chicken stock so that I could get a thicker consistency and have more sauce for the rice to sop up.

Ingredients:

• 4 boneless, skinless Chicken breasts
• 1 smoked beef sausage
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil, divided
• 2 tbsp Cajun seasoning
• 1 jar of Kyvan Jambalaya sauce
• 2 – 3 tbsp of tomato paste
• 1/2 – 1 cup of chicken stock
• 1 cup of rice

Directions:

Slice the sausage into 1″ slices.  Heat a pan, I used my Le Creuset, on medium high heat.  Add 1 tbsp of the oil and get warm. Add the sausage and brown on both sides.  Remove from pan.  Liberally spice the chicken with the Cajun seasoning.  Add the remaining oil and warm.  Add the chicken to the pot.  Brown on both sides for 7 – 8 minutes per side.

Remove from the pan and cut into 1″ cubes.  Return the sausage and chicken to the pot on low heat.

Add the jar of sauce and mix well.

After heating for a couple of minutes, add the tomato paste and the stock.  Mix well and let the flavors meld for a few more minutes.  Separately, boil 1 1/2 cups of water, remove from the heat.  Add the rice and cover the pot.  Cook until the water evaporates about 10 – 12 minutes.  To serve grab a big ladle of the rice and grab a bigger ladle of the chicken sausage jambalaya.

Enjoy!