Skinny Roux Gumbo

We have been told by a few people that we make our gumbo “backwards”. Instead of starting with the roux, we end with the roux. But it turns out great every time we cook it! We think that browning everything first gives the gumbo such amazing flavor. From start to finish, the process takes 2-3 hours.

We cook ours in a 13-quart oval-shaped Magnalite pot. We cook up to 6 thighs and 6 breasts per pot, but sometimes less. We use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (that we eventually debone at the end of the cooking process) and boneless, skinless chicken breasts. We use 2.5 lbs of sausage in this sized pot and two 16 oz tubs of the Guidry’s veggie blend. We also use 12 cups of chicken stock, plus extra water if needed, and one 16 oz. jar of Skinny Roux. (Sometimes we add a little more if we want the color to be darker.)

We make our own Cajun seasoning blend (because we want ours to use Himalayan pink salt) but you could use anything you happen to have on hand (i.e. Purely Cajun, Tony Chachere’s, Slap Ya Mama, etc.). We get our organic chicken stock at Costco because it has very clean ingredients. (Believe it or not, a lot of mainstream chicken stocks contain sugar, of all things, in the list of ingredients.) And our favorite sausage to use is Savoie’s Mild Smoked Sausage, which is sold in 4lb. boxes at Costco.

These are step-by-step photographic instructions for how we make our gumbo, from start to finish.