This Crawfish Pie recipe is a great way to use up those leftover crawfish tails, a delicious pie crust with a filling that is very similar to etouffee. Juicy crawfish tails in a filling full of vegetables and seasoning to give a dish full of flavor. We absolutely love this pie around here.
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🧅 Ingredients
You will need:
- Louisiana Crawfish Tails
- Butter
- Flour
- Yellow Onions
- Green Bell Pepper
- Celery
- Garlic
- Canned Tomatoes and Chilies
- Chicken Broth
- Bread Crumbs
- Creole Seasoning (or Cajun seasoning)
- Parsley
- Black Pepper
- Worcestershire Sauce
- Dried Thyme
- Liquid Crab Boil
- Heavy Cream
- Milk
- Egg
- Coarse Salt
See quantities in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Tip: The above crawfish pie was made using a frozen pie crust (the type that has a foil dish). Just bake according to the instructions below, but minus putting the crust on top. It is similar to a quiche, without the egg!
🥣 How To Make Crawfish Pie
- Step 1: Melt butter in a Dutch Oven pot, or a cast iron pot (or large skillet), on a medium heat.
- Step 2: Add the flour and cook until you get a caramel color (roux).
- Step 3: Add the trinity of bell pepper, onion and celery and cook until translucent.
- Step 4: Add garlic and cook a further few minutes, until the garlic becomes fragrant.
- Step 5: Add the chicken broth, tomatoes and chilies, bread crumbs and all the seasonings. Cook for 10 minutes.
- Step 6: Add the crawfish tails and stir carefully.
- Step 7: Add the cream and cook a further 10 minutes.
- Step 8: Add the milk and turn off the heat.
- Step 9: Press your pie crust into a 10" pie dish and spoon the crawfish pie filling into the bottom crust.
- Step 10: Cover with another pie crust and cut three slits into the middle. Brush with the egg wash.
- Step 11: Sprinkle with coarse salt and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F for 20 minutes. After those 20 minutes turn the oven down to 350°F and cook a further 20 minutes.
- Step 12: Remove from the oven when golden brown and allow to rest for 20 minutes before cutting into the pie.
🔄 Substitutions and Variations
- You can swap out the crawfish for shrimp if you prefer, or don't have access to crawfish.
- Order the crawfish online if you prefer to boil your own and don't have access. I recommend Louisiana Crawfish Co, they do an excellent job of shipping/packaging live crawfish etc. See link below to use Amazon for the ordering process.
- The pie shell is flexible, you could use your own favorite crust recipe, or use the frozen type. I like to use the refrigerated version that I can put into my own pie dish.
- This recipe can be made into an open face pie (with no crust on top), or hand pies or the pie like I made. I used the extra filling to make an open faced pie to show you.
- Add some green onions to the filling after cooking it.
- Add a little spice and add some hot sauce to the filling.
- Red Bell Pepper - use this instead of green pepper, for sweetness.
- White Pepper - add for a little different kind of spice.
- Chicken Stock - instead of broth.
🍽 How To Serve
Crawfish Pie is one of those dishes that is all in one. You don't really need anything else, however, it is good with a little salad on the side. Some crusty garlic bread. Mmmmmm.
Serve 20 minutes after coming out of the oven. If you try too soon, it may be a little on the sloppy side and not set completely. Tasty sloppy though, if you don't mind that!
🧊 Storage
After cooling completely you'll need to keep the pie covered with some foil, or in an airtight container and in the refrigerator.
To reheat, I recommend the oven for a few minutes. The microwave can make the crust a little on the soft side.
The pie does freeze well, make sure to wrap tightly in plastic wrap and again in foil. Allow to defrost in the refrigerator before warming up again.
🦞 More crawfish recipes:
- Crawfish Ravioli
- Crawfish Etouffee
- Crawfish Monica
- Crawfish Bread
- Crawfish Pastalaya
- Crawfish Enchiladas
- Crawfish Mac and Cheese
You should also check out this list of 18 Amazing Cajun Seafood Recipes.
👩🍳 FAQs
On average you're looking at about 20-30 crawfish, however much smaller will get you more (like 40 or so) and bigger monster crawdads will get you about 10-15.
Yes, you can. I prefer to use the leftovers from a crawfish boil as the seasoning is killer, but you can adjust the seasoning in the cooking.
When we go crawfishing we will use a rotten type of fish that they call Pogie. It works really well. You can also use beef melt - but that tends to dissolve really fast. I've heard they love corn too.
You can use cut up fish of any kind really, but that Pogie works the best that we've seen.
It has quite a firm texture, kind of like a shrimp but the flavor is sweet, like a cross between shrimp and crab.
Your normal crawfish season will be January to July, however if you get a very wet and warm year the season may start earlier (November/December)
Cangrejo de río
There is a species native to Florida which is blue. However, blue crawfish in Louisiana is rare. Some think it's a birth abnormality. Others suggest is could be something to do with the light spectrum or surroundings. It is very rare to find a blue crawfish in LA though.
Blue crawfish do cook the same though and have the same taste (we tested it when we found one) - We tied a piece of string to it's claw so we could identify it as once cooked it looked like all the others.
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Crawfish Pie
This delicious and juicy Crawfish Pie in one of our favorite things to do with leftover crawfish tails. Tasty pie crust with an etouffee-like filling.
Ingredients
- ½ Cup Unsalted Butter (1 Stick)
- ½ Cup All Purpose Flour
- 2 Medium Yellow Onion, chopped
- 2 Sticks Celery, chopped
- 2 Bell Peppers, chopped
- 4 Cloves Garlic, minced
- ¼ Cup Panko Bread Crumbs
- 2lb Peeled Crawfish Tails
- 1 Can Tomatoes and Chilies (10oz), mild
- 1 Cup Chicken Broth
- 1 Tablespoon Creole Seasoning
- 1 Tablespoon Fresh Parsley, chopped
- 1 Teaspoon black Pepper
- 1 Teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
- 1 Teaspoon Crab and Shrip Boil (liquid)
- 1 Teaspoon dried Thyme
- 1 Cup Heavy Cream
- ½ Cup Milk, 2%
- 2 Refrigerated Pie Crusts
- 1 Large Egg, beaten
- ½ Teaspoon Coarse Salt
Instructions
- Using a Dutch Oven melt the stick of butter.
- Add flour and cook on a medium heat, continuously stirring until a caramel like color has been reached.
- Add your chopped onions, bell peppers and celery. Cook until translucent (about 10 minutes).
- Add garlic and cook a further 2 minutes.
- Add chicken broth, tomatoes and chilies, bread crumbs and all the seasonings. Cook for 10 minutes.
- Add the crawfish tails and stir carefully.
- Add heavy cream, stir and cook for 10 minutes on low-medium heat. Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Add milk, stir and turn off the heat.
- Take one of the pie crusts and press evenly into a 10" pie dish. Fill the crust with the pie filling.
- Take the second pie crust (top crust) and layer over the top of the filling. Using fingers crimp the edges to create a seal. Cut three slits into the top to allow steam to escape. Cut around the edge of the pie, anything you have left you can use to add a little decoration on top. Brush with egg wash.
- Sprinkle the coarse salt over the top of the pie. Bake at 400°F for 20 minutes then reduce the temperature to 350°F for another 20 minutes.
- Allow the pie to rest for 20 minutes when removing from the oven.
Notes
Cooking this way will give you enough filling for another savory pie. Pop the remainder into the freezer to pull out on another day if you don't want to make 2 pies today.
If it looks like the edges of the pie are browning too quickly use foil or a pie liner to protect the edges of the pie.
Adjust the seasoning in the crawfish pie per your preference. You can swap out the mild tomatoes and chilies to the original or hot version. This adds more heat. You can also change up how much creole seasoning you like.
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Nutrition Information
Yield 8 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 490Total Fat 35gSaturated Fat 18gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 14gCholesterol 90mgSodium 931mgCarbohydrates 39gFiber 3gSugar 7gProtein 7g
Terry says
How many pounds of crawfish tails? One or two?
Melanie Cagle says
Thanks Terry, I missed that in my recipe card (of all things!). I would use 2lb for a pie of this size.