Jambalaya Spices: The Trinity, Thyme, Bay, Cayenne and Louisiana Seasoning Blends

Jambalaya is a Louisiana rice dish of meat, seafood or both, cooked with vegetables, stock and seasonings.¹ Its flavor rests on onion, celery and bell pepper, then a short list of herbs and spices: thyme, bay leaf and cayenne in both recipes cited here, with garlic and parsley. Many cooks use a bottled Cajun or Creole blend instead. This page covers the job each seasoning does and how the Creole and Cajun styles differ.

At a glance

Creole and Cajun jambalaya

Britannica and Louisiana’s tourism office draw the same line: Creole jambalaya, the usual style in New Orleans, includes tomatoes; the Cajun version, common in the southern bayou country, does not.¹⁵ Louisiana’s tourism office describes Creole cooking as “city food” and Cajun as “country food,” and traces the Cajuns to French Canadians whom the British drove out of Acadia in the 18th century.⁵ Both recipes cited below include tomatoes, so both are Creole-style.²³

Britannica says no one can say with certainty how the dish evolved, and describes it as a mix of the African, Spanish and French cultures that settled Louisiana; andouille sausage is one of its later French features.¹

The core seasonings and what each does

Onion, celery and bell pepper

Britannica calls onions, celery and bell peppers the staple vegetables of jambalaya,¹ and Louisiana’s tourism office names the same three as the holy trinity of Cajun cooking.⁵ The Louisiana Cookin’ recipe uses 1½ cups of each; the Cook’s Illustrated recipe uses one medium onion, one rib of celery and one red bell pepper.²³ Garlic goes in with them: three cloves in one recipe, five in the other.²³

Thyme

Both recipes use fresh thyme: 2 tablespoons chopped in the Louisiana Cookin’ version, ½ teaspoon minced in Cook’s Illustrated’s.²³ The characteristic constituents of thyme oil are thymol and carvacrol.⁶ See cooking with thyme.

Bay leaf

Each recipe uses two bay leaves.²³ Take them out before serving. J. Kenji López-Alt compares eating a dried bay leaf to eating a fish bone,⁷ and doctors have reported whole bay leaves lodged in the esophagus.⁸ See bay leaves and too much bay leaf.

Cayenne

The Louisiana Cookin’ recipe uses ½ teaspoon of cayenne, Cook’s Illustrated ¼ teaspoon.²³ Louisiana’s tourism office puts cayenne’s role plainly: part of the pantry, but seasoning, not the main event.⁵

Parsley and green onion

Both recipes finish with 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley; the Louisiana Cookin’ version adds chopped green onion as a garnish.²³

Using a Cajun or Creole blend

Cook’s Country tests Cajun and Creole seasoning as one category, finds that commercial blends generally combine paprika, garlic, salt and pepper with a bit of heat, and suggests its own blend for chicken jambalaya.⁴ USDA’s purchasing specification sets different minimum ingredient lists for the two:⁹

Because most blends start with salt, taste before adding more (our advice). For the differences, see Cajun vs. Creole seasoning.

Worcestershire sauce

Neither recipe here uses Worcestershire sauce,²³ though some cooks add a dash for depth (our note). Britannica traces the sauce to about 1835, when a retired governor of Bengal asked the Worcester chemists John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins to make up a sauce from a recipe he had acquired in India; they put it on sale in 1837.¹⁰ Its original form included tamarind, soy, garlic, red onions, anchovies and spices.¹⁰ See Worcestershire powder.

Two recipes side by side

These are the named recipes, not a house standard.

Related

• Creole seasoning
• Cajun seasoning
• Bay leaves
• Thyme