This Cajun Chicken and Rice Skillet is an easy one pot meal that’s hot, hot, hot! Of course, if you don’t like the heat, you can turn it down with less cayenne pepper.
This dish is a take off of a Cajun Dirty Rice. I slightly modified a spice mix recipe from a cookbook I love – Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen
For today’s rice dish I used chicken breasts because that’s all I had in the freezer, but I think the addition of some andouille sausage would be welcome in here as well. If you wanted to omit any protein and just make this a Cajun spiced rice side dish, go for it! I realize this isn’t the prettiest looking thing you could eat but boy is it full of flavor. If you want a more colorful dish, add different color bell peppers, or even carrots.
Wake up your tastebuds with this Cajun Chicken and Rice Skillet, it’s a nice change of pace!
- 2 chicken breasts, cut into chunks
- 1 C. diced red bell pepper (about ½ lg. pepper)
- 1 C. diced onion (about ½ lg. onion)
- 1 C. sliced celery (about 3 sm. stalks)
- 2 Tbls. oil
- 2 Tbls. butter
- 1½ C. rice (I used Uncle Ben's converted rice)
- 3 C. chicken stock, heated
- 2 tsp cayenne pepper (use 1 if you want less heat)
- 1½ tsp. salt
- 1½ tsp. pepper
- 1¼ tsp. paprika
- 1 tsp. dry mustard
- 1 tsp. cumin
- ½ tsp. corriander
- ½ tsp. garlic powder
- ½ tsp. thyme
- ½ tsp. oregano
- Garnish: chopped, fresh parsley
- Combine spice mix ingredients and set aside.
- In large saucepan, heat oil and butter or medium high heat. Add chicken and veggies and stir/saute a couple minutes, Add spice mixture and continue to cook a couple minutes more. If it looks too dry, add more butter or oil.
- Add rice. Stir to combine, then add hot chicken stock.
- Cover pan, reduce heat and simmer about 20 minutes, until rice is cooked and broth is absorbed.
- Garnish with chopped parsley, if desired.
Here's more I think you'll love...
I love all the spices in this recipe. This is going to be one fabulous chicken dinner.
Yum! I love Cajun rice, the spicier the better! This looks great Judy!
Boy howdy you like it spicy! I have a bunch of crawfish in the fridge, I think I’ll try your recipe with that today! Thanks
My husband will love this! I think shrimp would work nicely here, too!
Shrimp would be great in this!
You’ve made such a simple dish look and sound amazing! Just pinned for later…
Love the flavors in this! It’s the perfect weeknight meal! Pinning!
I made this tonight and it was fantastic! I lowered the cayenne as you suggested for my husband, but otherwise followed the recipe. It is a great week night recipe as it doesn’t take long to cook.
I will be making this again and am thinking of increasing the vegetables and maybe using turkey kielbasa instead of chicken.
Thanks, Judy, for a great recipe!
Thanks for letting me know how it turned out for you! Love to hear from my readers. More veggies and turkey kielbasa sound like a good idea!!!