One of our favorite things to do here in Louisiana is have a good old Crawfish Boil. To do that, you need a good Crawfish Boil Recipe!
If you have never been a part of this Louisiana tradition, you need to figure out a way to get in on it! Crawfish are tiny little “mud bugs.” That probably sounds gross to eat, but it is one of the most popular things to do down here in the South when they are in season. (Just think of them as mini lobsters.)
In fact, we are so into Crawfish down here that you can find many Crawfish Festivals throughout the state. These aren’t small little festivals either, these are large festivals with thousands of people attending! There are tons of booths with just about everything “Crawfish” you can imagine: Crawfish Pie, Crawfish Enchiladas, Crawfish Etoufee, Crawfish Cheesecake, etc. (I haven’t seen Crawfish Ice Cream yet, but I am sure that someone has tried that, too.
Crawfish Boil Recipe
We like to do our own Crawfish Boils. In order to do that, there are a few ingredients you need to have on hand:
- A large boiling pot
- Gas cooker
- Large cooler to put the live crawfish in (on water)
- Salt (2 large canisters)
- Crab boil (1 gallon liquid and powder)
- sausage
- onion
- lemon
- red potatoes
- bell peppers
- corn
- garlic (whole)
- jalepenos
- lots of water
- determined number of lbs. of live crawfish
Just remember, the amount of ingredients you will need will depend on the amount of crawfish you are cooking. If you look below, we chopped up enough ingredients to do 3 batches of crawfish at our boil.
Ingredients
First you want to bring your water in your large pot to a boil. This can take a while. While waiting for it to boil, add your squeezed lemons into the water and your crab boil seasoning. After your water comes to a boil, you can add your veggies and sausage and other ingredients to the water.
Crawfish Boil Recipe
While you have that going, cleanse your crawfish. Not everyone does this, but this is called a “purge”. Add water to you cooler with the live crawfish and dump in a lot of salt. The salt causes them to “purge” everything and leave you with a nice clean little crawfish.
Once your sides have come to a boil and your crawfish have been purged, go ahead and dump (carefully) your crawfish in the boil. Place a lid on to get things going.
It doesn’t take long for the crawfish to boil, and once your water come up to a boil again with the crawfish in, it’s time to turn the gas off.
Cooked Crawfish
Once you have the as turned off and the lid back on, now is the time to soak. Soaking them allows them to “soak” up the spice. The longer you leave them in, the hotter and spicier they will get. (We like things spicy down here.)
Once you have the soak done to your liking, it’s time to grab one of those large trays and scoop them up!
Crawfish Boil Recipe
Even the kids like to be a part of it! Here is a onesie I made for Addy last year to wear to our local Crawfish Festival. She had on a red little tutu skirt to match, too cute!
Little Crawfish Connoisseur Shirt
If you have never tried a Crawfish, I have to warn you, they can become addictive! If you are looking at this and are disgusted, I say “Hey, Don’t Knock it Until You’ve Tried It!”
Make sure to give this Crawfish Boil Recipe a try while they are in season!
Thanks for hanging out with me today! Jen
Thanks for posting this recipe! My son LOVES crawfish (well, we call them crawdads). 🙂 That onsie you made for you daughter is too cute!!
everyone in the family loves crawfish or baby lobsters which we call them.. yummy
I have about 8 lbs of frozen crawfish, will they work or do they have to be alive?
Love Love Love them!! Your recipe sounds wonderful
~Anna
I have never tried it with frozen crawfish, so I couldn’t tell you. We always use live ones.
They will come out mushy using frozen tails from a grocery store, when we boil crawfish down the bayou we use live crawfish , and then if we want to have them warm the next day we steam them ,I like them cold muself , but mind you they’re already boiled to perfection . Any left overs we freeze for crawfish stew, fried crawfish, or gumbo , many other dishes. I personally would not suggest it.