Brown Rice Jambalaya

Jambalaya is a one pot dish where the rice cooks in the liquid, so swapping in brown rice means changing two numbers. Get those right and it works beautifully.

Prep: 20 min · Cook: 1 hr 5 min · Serves: 8 · Rice: Brown

What Changes With Brown Rice

Brown rice jambalaya needs about 40% more liquid and roughly twice the cooking time of the white rice version. Change those two numbers and nothing else has to move.

Jambalaya is different from red beans and rice in one important way. The rice cooks in the pot, absorbing the stock and the fat and the seasoning as it goes. That is what makes it jambalaya rather than a stew served over rice.

It also means the rice has to be able to survive an hour in liquid without disintegrating, and brown rice is genuinely good at that. The bran layer slows absorption and holds each grain together, so you get distinct grains at the end rather than a casserole. The trade is time.

We moved ours into the oven rather than fighting the stovetop. An hour of low simmering on a burner scorches the bottom unless you stir, and stirring jambalaya breaks the grains. A covered Dutch oven at 350 degrees heats from all sides and needs no attention at all.

• Use 2 1/3 cups of stock per cup of dry brown rice, against about 1 3/4 for white.

• Bake it covered rather than simmering on the stove. No stirring, no scorching.

• Brown the andouille first and cook everything else in its fat. That is the flavor base.

• Let it rest 15 minutes after it comes out. The grains finish absorbing in that window.

Ingredients

• 2 cups 4Sisters Organic Brown Rice

• 4 2/3 cups chicken stock, warmed

• 1 lb andouille sausage, sliced 1/2 inch thick

• 1 1/2 lb boneless chicken thighs, cut in 1 inch pieces

• 2 tbsp neutral oil

• 1 large yellow onion, diced

• 3 ribs celery, diced

• 1 green bell pepper, diced

• 5 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 can diced tomatoes, 14.5 oz, drained

• 2 tbsp tomato paste

• 2 tsp Cajun seasoning

• 1 tsp smoked paprika

• 1 tsp dried thyme

• 2 bay leaves

• 4 green onions and 1/4 cup parsley, to finish

Prep

Heat the oven and warm the stock

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Warm the stock in a saucepan or the microwave. Adding cold liquid to a hot pot drops the temperature and adds fifteen minutes to the bake for no reason.

Cut everything first

Dice the onion, celery, and bell pepper, mince the garlic, slice the andouille into coins, and cut the chicken. Jambalaya is built in layers with no pauses between them, so nothing should still be on the cutting board once the pot is hot.

Do not rinse the brown rice. There is very little loose surface starch on a whole grain and you want all of it.

Jambalaya is a one pot dish because the rice cooks in the liquid. That is what separates it from beans served over rice.

Cooking

Brown the sausage and chicken

Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high and brown the andouille coins on both sides, about 5 minutes, then lift them out. Add the chicken in one layer, season lightly, and brown it for 5 minutes without moving it much. Lift that out too and leave every bit of fat behind.

Build the base

Add the onion, celery, and bell pepper to the fat with a pinch of salt and cook 8 to 10 minutes until soft. Stir in the garlic, Cajun seasoning, smoked paprika, and thyme for one minute, then the tomato paste for another minute until it darkens. Add the drained tomatoes and cook 2 minutes more.

Add rice and stock, then bake

Stir in the brown rice and let it toast in the base for a minute. Return the sausage and chicken, pour in the warm stock, add the bay leaves, and bring the whole pot to a boil.

Cover it tightly and move it to the oven for 55 to 60 minutes. Do not open it before 55 minutes.

Rest and fluff

Take the pot out and let it stand covered for 15 minutes. Remove the bay leaves, fluff gently with a fork from the edges toward the middle, and fold in the green onions and parsley.

Done brown rice jambalaya has grains that are tender with a slight chew at the center and no standing liquid in the pot. If there is liquid left at 60 minutes, uncover it and give it 10 more in the oven. If the rice is still hard, add a half cup of hot stock, re-cover, and go another 10.

Fluff gently and only once. Brown rice grains are sturdy but the point of the resting period is that everything settles, and stirring it undoes that.

Tip from the farm

If you want jambalaya on a weeknight, use our Parboiled White Rice instead and cut the stock to 3 1/2 cups and the bake to 30 minutes. Parboiled rice is steamed in the husk before milling, which sets the starch and makes it almost as resistant to breaking down as brown rice, at half the cooking time.

How We Serve It

We put the pot on the table and let people serve themselves, with hot sauce and a green salad alongside. It feeds eight generously and reheats better than almost anything else we cook, which makes it a good Sunday dish for a week of lunches.

Jambalaya is a Louisiana dish through and through, and our family has grown rice in the northeast corner of the state since the 1960s. The LSU AgCenter rice program covers the agricultural history if you are curious how this became rice country.

For the whole grain cooking method on its own, see best practices for cooking organic brown rice. For a Cajun brown rice side rather than a full one pot meal, we have Cajun brown rice with the trinity.

Questions We Get

Yes, and it holds up better than white rice does over a long cook. Use 2 1/3 cups of stock per cup of dry brown rice instead of the 1 3/4 you would use for white, and bake it covered at 350 degrees for 55 to 60 minutes rather than simmering for 25. The bran layer slows absorption, which is why it needs both more liquid and more time.

Because an hour on a burner scorches the bottom unless you stir, and stirring breaks the grains and turns jambalaya gluey. A covered Dutch oven in a 350 degree oven surrounds the pot with even heat, so nothing catches and you never have to touch it. This matters far more with brown rice than white, simply because the cook time is twice as long.

Where the rice cooks. In jambalaya the rice goes into the pot and absorbs the stock, the fat, and the seasoning, so it is a true one pot dish. Red beans and rice is a two pot dish, where beans are simmered separately and spooned over rice cooked on its own. Cooking jambalaya rice separately and combining it later gives you neither dish.