30-Minute Gumbo has lots of flavor from a dark roux, andouille sausage, and chicken. It’s a one pot meal with the taste of New Orleans and it’s so quick and easy to make. It’s perfect for a weeknight dinner and , of course, Mardi Gras.
There are a few steps that need to be done in advance to make this 30-Minute Gumbo, but they can be done up to 3 months in advance and they will yield multiple pots of gumbo.
- Premake a dry roux in the oven that can be stored at room temperature for up to 3 months. You’ll have enough to make this recipe 4 times.
- Chop up the ingredients for your Holy Trinity (onion, celery, and green pepper) and freeze them.
The flavor of gumbo comes from the roux and in order to make a richly flavored gumbo, you need to cook the roux until dark, and that is very time-consuming. It can easily take 30 to 40 minutes just to make a dark roux.
But there’s a way around that. An easy oven-baked roux. I had never tried one until I saw this recipe in Louisiana Cookin Magazine. They always have lots of great recipes.
To make it, flour is baked in the oven until the color of ground cinnamon. You do need to stir it often to make sure it doesn’t burn around the edges.
Before adding it to the gumbo, you whisk it together with 1 cup of chicken broth. The flavor will be exactly the same as it would be if you stood over the stove stirring for 40 minutes.
Another benefit of this 30-Minute Gumbo is there is very little fat used (no oil and only 2 tablespoons of butter). Typically you use equal parts of flour and vegetable oil or butter.
Give this quick and easy 30-Minute Gumbo recipe a try and you’ll see why it is a real winner.
More Gumbo Recipes
30-Minute Gumbo
Ingredients
Roux
- 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Holy Trinity
- 4 cup chopped yellow onion
- 2 cups chopped celery
- 2 cups chopped bell pepper
Gumbo
- 2 tablespoons salted butter, divided
- 1 (12 or 14-ounce) package Andouille sausage, cut into slices
- 1 1/2 cups frozen Holy Trinity mixture thawed and drained
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 4 cups low sodium chicken broth, divided
- 1 cup dry roux, sifted
- 3 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 1/2 teaspoons file powder
- cooked long grain rice
- sliced green onions for garnish
Instructions
- Bake the Roux. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with foil. Spread the flour out on the pan. Bake, raking the edges in and pushing the center to the outsides every 10 minutes. Keep doing this until it gets the color of ground cinnamon. This will take about 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. Cool completely and store in an airtight container in a cool, dark place for up to 3 months.
- Make the Holy Trinity. Spread onion, celery, and bell peppers out on 2 baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Freeze for 2 hours. Transfer to freezer bags. Store in freezer until needed. Thaw required amount for 2 hours in a strainer before using.
- Melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium-high heat in a large Dutch oven. Add andouille and cook, stirring often until browned, about 4 minutes. Remove sausage with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- Add remaining butter and cook Holy Trinity until softened, about 5 minutes.
- Add garlic, Cajun seasoning, thyme, and bay leaf and cook 1 minute.
- Stir in 2 cups of chicken broth and use a wooden spoon to scrape any brown bits off the bottom.
- In a large bowl, whisk together dry roux and remaining 2 cups of chicken broth until completely smooth. Add to Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Add chicken for the last 5 minutes.
- Season to taste with salt and pepper and stir in file powder. Serve with rice and green onions.
Notes
Nutrition
Want to Save This Recipe?
Recipe Source: adapted from Louisiana Cookin
Disclosure: This post contains affliate links.
Shredding chicken, chopping Trinity and baking flour was 2 hours of high intensity prep and would have been longer if I’d frozen extra Trinity. The house smelled awful during and after the flour bake. Had to buy a flour sifter and it took a three stores to find file powder. If you know you’re going to try it, you can order these things from Amazon ahead of time and save yourself the drive-around time. We ate it and it was good, but I do not agree that this is quick, easy, weeknight fare, hence four stars.
Oops – I checked three stars instead of four. Great recipe. Thanks Christin!
Amazing! Cured my gumbo cravings. This will become a weeknight staple. Is there a way to adapt this to the seafood gumbo you have on your site I wonder?
All I can say is WOW! I’m a northerner who also lived in Mobile , AL for eight years. Gumbo, red beans & rice, and collard greens are the Bomb! I could never make the roux dark enough without burning it first. This dry roux recipe is great. I am a working widower with two children and need quick recipes to make during the week. It took me closer to 45 minutes to make this but I am kind of slow in the kitchen. Great recipe and great time saver. This is now a family staple on a bi-weekly basis. Thank you Christin.
So happy you loved it Tom! When I first tried making gumbo with a dry roux, I couldn’t belive how easy it was and how delicious the gumbo was!
This certainly looks delicious and so very tasty. I been browning my flour in my oven for a few years now, it does in fact make cooking with a roux much healthier by cutting out all that oil/fat. At first I was so afraid i was going to ruin my food, because of the lack of fat but that isn’t the case. I’ve bought store bought already made and ready to use Roux before but those are usually for emergency situations, lol…Yes, make enough to store some for later use
for sure.