With Super Bowl Sunday, Mardi Gras, Valentine's Day, and the Oscars, February happens to be one of my very favorite food months. It's just a shame it comes right after a month of many folks' diet and exercise resolutions. If I could give you only one festive (and Super Bowl-appropriate) recipe this month that is absolutely, positively worth a few extra hours in the gym, this crazy-good, decadent crawfish dip would be it.
Crawfish and cream sauce have always gone hand-in-hand, and this particular pairing is at the very tip top of my list. If it wasn't so dang sinful, I would offer this appetizer at every single gathering I ever hosted. Oh well. Enjoyed once a year, it makes watching the Super Bowl just a tiny bit more bearable. (Because we all know it's really just about the food.)
Creamy Crawfish Dip
Makes 2 cups4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
1 bunch green onions (white parts only), chopped
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened and cubed
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon creole seasoning, such as Tony Chachere's
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or more to taste
1 (12-ounce) package crawfish crawfish tail meat, thawed and drained
Kosher salt, to taste
Crusty bread and Louisiana-style hot sauce, for serving
In a medium skillet, melt the butter over moderate heat. Add onions and bell pepper and cook until softened, about 8 minutes. Add garlic and sauté for another minute.
Stir in the cream cheese, mayonnaise, creole seasoning, and cayenne; whisk until smooth. Reduce heat to low. Add the crawfish tail meat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Season with salt to taste. Serve immediately with toasted bread slices and hot sauce. Garnish with the green tops of the onions, if desired.
Recipe Notes
• Frozen Louisiana crawfish tail meat is available at CajunGrocer or in the frozen seafood section of a well-stocked grocery store. If using freshly cooked, whole crawfish, 5-6 pounds will yield 12 ounces of meat.
• If you cannot find crawfish meat, you can substitute cooked, chopped shrimp.
Related: Mardi Gras Recipe: Creamy Crawfish Pasta
(Images: Nealey Dozier)
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Comments (7)
Yum! This is exactly what I was looking for to spice up our Superbowl party. I have some frozen crawfish tails that have been begging to be mixed with butter and cream.
Sinful, or not, this looks to die for, and I can see this doctored up into something other than a "mere" dip...
:-)
What a great looking dip! The husband would love this one.
Just be careful to watch where your crayfish comes from. Louisiana (per the recipe) is fine, but based on our experience of searching for it locally (Columbus, Ohio) most places carry crayfish from China. The Seafood Watch recommendations from the Monterey Bay Aquarium warn about those sourced from China. Other sources warn about heavy metals in Chinese crayfish.
I make an almost identical dip using crab meat. Nothing sinful about it. It's just downright delicious. Fresh crawfish are inexplicably hard to come by here so I snap them up when the opportunity arises as dh & dd love them. I, on the other hand, have yet to conquer the gag reflex where mudbugs are concerned....tho I must confess they are delicicious.
Perhaps it's due to catching & playing with one too many as a child....combined with a recollection of being served chicken 'n dumplins just when my [grown] Easter chicks disappeared (makes me queasy thinking about it even now). Whatever, I'm not givin up just yet. Maybe this'll be the year. Kinda weird for one who grew up in an environment where pretty much anything that moved was fair game for the dinner table, huh?
One day... :)
This looks awesome. One note: the crawfish at Wal Mart are not from LA. If you look carefully, you'll see that "Boudreaux's Tail Meat Crawfish" are actually from China.
Well, I made this for our little old SuperBowl family party (hubby, kid, dog, me). I have to say that the flavor was great, but...this recipe is pretty off. I thought the butter was a bit much (I mean I love me some butter, but really) and it never incorporated into the dish at all. I ended up pouring the butter out since it just kind of hung around the cheese. Also, green onions don't need to cook that long, and for goodness sakes, why only the whites of the onion? The picture certainly shows that the greens are worthy. Takeaway: use just a enough butter to saute the peppers till soft, add some green onions (both whites & green) for a couple of minutes, add the garlic for the last minute. And use a medium saute pan, not a skillet. It was so rich, so lovely. It's a keeper recipe, with the modifications.
Made this for my Super Bowl party and it was a total hit!! Loved it!