It’s Mardi Gras time, and so it’s time for crawfish. Crawfish Cornbread is a recipe I have seen in many Louisiana community cookbooks over the years, and I’ve whipped up a batch or two in my time. I have no idea if this is a traditional Cajun recipe, or started it’s life on the back of corn bread mix box, but that doesn’t matter to me, because it is a sound idea that results in a delicious dish.
I’ve altered my version so it is packed with crawfish and has a nice level of spice. I use frozen crawfish tail meat, which is easy to find around here, but if you happen to have some fresh daddies around and want to pull out all that juicy flesh, please do so. This cornbread is lovely beside a bowl of Red Beans and Rice, but cut into small squares it makes a nice nibble. It is even hearty enough to serve with a nice green salad for a meal.
Crawfish Cornbread
2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon Creole seasoning
6 eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 yellow onion, finely diced
8 ounces cheddar cheese, grated
1 (12-ounce) bag frozen corn, thawed
2 pounds crawfish tail meat, finely chopped
1 (4-ounce) can diced jalapenos
Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease a 9 by 13 inch baking dish.
Stir the cornmeal, baking powder, salt and creole seasoning together in a very large bowl. Stir in the eggs and oil and mix thoroughly. Add the onion, cheese, corn, crawfish and jalapenos and stir until everything is completely mixed together and evenly distributed.
Spread the cornbread into the prepared pan, smoothing out the surface. Bake for 45 – 50 minutes until golden and firm and a tester comes out clean. Let rest for about 10 minutes before slicing and serving warm.
Serves 8 – 10
Where can you get crawfish locally?
I find frozen crawfish tail meat in the frozen seafood section of my grocery.
This sounds fabulous! Do you think this recipe would work as individual muffins, and if so, how long would you bake them?
Thanks! I have never done this as muffins. My worry would be that there is a lot of crawfish meat in proportion to the cornbread. I think you need to have the whole mix in one place to get the cornbread effect. If it wasn’t divided absolutely equally, I’d worry that some would be to bready and some would have too much filling and fall apart. Does that make sense? If you do try it, let me know how it works out! Bonne Chance!
I was looking forward to this dish and it came out very dry-followed the directions except for the jalapenos-what did I do wrong!
I used to have an old family recipe for graham-cracker cake that I loaned to someone never to be seen again. It was so light and airy and not sickenly sweet. I’ve tried many recipes since and not found one that comes close in comparison. Do you possibly have one you’ve run across in your travels that you would recommend? I’ve heard that my original was (of all things) Italian in origin! I’m so hoping you can help me or suggest a site that I can research. THANK-YOU going broke in epic fails!!
Sorry, I don’t have any ideas. Maybe do a search of old-fashioned community cookbooks from the area?
Sorry this didn’t work for you. The jalapeños do add some moistness, but that shouldn’t have been a problem. I’ve always found this to be very moist and packed with corn, crawfish and onion. It really only needs to cook until it is just firm and a tester comes out clean. Over cooking any cornbread can produce dry results.
Made this for my Louisiana born husband for Valentine’s and he went nuts. So good! But he put some hot sauce on it too.
Before my old high school football coach was about to say something disparaging, he would first say “Not to disparage anyone, but..” So, not to disparage anyone, but after attempting to mix up 4 pounds of stuff into a small amount of cornbread mix, I made another half amount of cornbread mix and added it to what the recipe calls for. I still find it could have used less non-cornbread ingreedients. This is not to say it wasn’t good, (It was tasty) It just wasn’t of, what I consider to be, cornbread texture. At all. I think if you mix everything up, roll it into balls, roll it in flour and deep fry it, it would probably make some killer crawfish cakes. Either way, thanks for the recipe.
This sounds great. I recently had a dish called Crawfish Moulon – it was crawfish cornbread covered with crawfish étouffée. Yum!!
Does the crawfish have to be finely chopped or could I leave some in bigger pieces?
Thanks!
I few larger pieces might be ok, but to keep the cornbread from falling apart, all the ingredients need to be pretty finely chopped.
Can this dish be frozen?
I really don’t think so. Part of the glory of this recipe is how moist it is and I don’t think that would translate after freezing.
I found the whole mix too dry. I added 1/2 cup milk & it was perfect. Thanks for the recipe!