Chicken & Sausage Slow Cooker Jambalaya Recipe

We love Jambalaya – especially during Mardi Gras season – but it’s great any time you are looking for a hearty meal to fill you up and warm you up. That means basically half the year in the Midwest!

This Chicken & Sausage Slow Cooker Jambalaya recipe is the perfect way to feed your crew a rich meal combined with set it and forget it easy of a slow cooker recipe. You can get crazy with ingredients when you make jambalaya, but at its heart, jambalaya is a fairly simple dish, so this is meant to be a simple recipe.

In addition to being a simple recipe, this is a recipe that makes A LOT of food, it will for sure feed at least 8 people, so plan on having leftovers or invite a lot of people over for a Louisiana-style party. If you do have leftovers, don’t worry, because this dish is good for 3 – 5 days in the refrigerator after cooking and the flavors just get more and more deep and delicious as it sits.

If you’re looking for a more traditional stove top jambalaya instead of this stove top jambalaya, check out our Easy Mardi Gras Jambalaya recipe. We also have more Mardi Gras inspired recipes like gumbo, etouffee, and more right here. Here are the answers to a few questions you may have about this recipe. If you’re ready to get cooking, scroll on past them, and get started on our yummy slow cooker jambalaya recipe!

What type of chicken should I use for this recipe?

You can use either boneless skinless chicken breasts or boneless skinless chicken thighs for this recipe. We wrote the recipe using breast meat, because we know it’s a more popular option for many people. If you like darker meat chicken, thighs taste reallllly delicious in this recipe.

If you’re shopping at Lake Geneva Country Meats for your chicken (and why wouldn’t you?), we strongly recommend using one of our marinated chicken breasts like our bourbon chicken to bring more flavor to this dish.

What type of sausage should I use for this recipe?

For our the sausage part of our chicken & sausage slow cooker jambalaya, we recommend using our Smoked Andouille Sausage. Our Smoked Andouille Sausage is an international award winning product with a rich flavor base, a touch of smoke, and a lasting heat that will have you smacking your lips and wanting more and more and more.

If you like a less spicy sausage, try a plain smoked bratwurst. We do recommend using a smoked sausage for slow cooker jambalaya because the smoke from the sausage helps the flavors come together in the lower heat setting of the slow cooker. If you really don’t like smoked sausage, any cooked sausage will work in a pinch!

Do I need to sauté the ingredients before I add them to the slow cooker jambalaya?

We are trying to keep this recipe as simple as possible and did not write the recipe to sear the ingredients before dumping them into the slow cooker.

If you like a bit more flavor, you can sear the chicken, onion, bell pepper, and celery in butter before adding them to the slow cooker. This will give them a bit more crunch and some lovely caramelized flavor.

However, if you don’t have time to sear the ingredients, it’s totally fine, don’t worry about it!

I like shrimp in my jambalaya – can I add shrimp to this slow cooker jambalaya?

Shrimp are super popular in jambalaya, but don’t do great in slow cookers. If you would like to add shrimp to this recipe, here’s how to do it:

1. Defrost 1 pound of cooked shrimp – make sure you use cooked shrimp, whether they’re fresh shrimp you bough and cooked or they were already cooked when you purchased them.
2. With 30 minutes left in the cooking time, add them to the slow cooker and stir.
3. Make sure the shrimp are warmed through before serving.

We recommend using slightly smaller (around 30 count) shrimp for this slow cooker jambalaya recipe instead of larger 10 – 20 count shrimp. They’re more bite sized!

What should I use for Creole Seasoning?

We are big fans of these two Creole seasonings and using either one will work for this recipe:

• Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning
• Zatarain’s Creole Seasoning

If you prefer homemade seasonings, you can use this Chef Emerile Lagasse’s Creole Seasoning recipe to make a fresh batch at home!

I really would like a spicy version of this recipe – do you have any tips on how to spice this dish up?

We wrote this recipe to be fairly mild so the whole family can enjoy it. If you are looking for a spicy version, here are two methods you can follow to spice it up:

1. Add a teaspoon or two of cayenne pepper along with the Creole seasoning.
2. Drop in a dash or two or three of hot sauce like Tabasco at the end of the cooking cycle and stir it in.

As always, be sure to taste the dish and make sure it’s seasoned to your liking!

Let us know if you have any more questions or tips for this recipe by leaving us a comment below. We appreciate your feedback and hope you enjoy our chicken & sausage slow cooker jambalaya recipe!