Let the good times roll because tonight’s dinner takes you down South to the cuisine of Louisiana with this chicken and pasta skillet. Just like our other gnocchi skillet dinners, this one is absolutely craveable; plus, it brings all the flavors we associate with New Orleans into your kitchen. If you’re celebrating Mardi Gras or just enjoying a fun dinner, pair this dish with a batch of Hurricanes for total Big Easy vibes.
Cajun flavor starts with two key sets of ingredients: “the holy trinity,” plus Cajun or Creole spice mixes. The holy trinity is a simple sauté of diced onions, celery, and green bell pepper, the base for most of the Cajun and Creole dishes that we love and associate with the cuisine, such as crawfish étouffée (we have a shrimp version), gumbo, and jambalaya.
Then the dish is richly seasoned with Louisiana staple: Tony Chachere’s Creole Spice. Other spice brands try to compete, but this one stands out as the local favorite. It does contain sodium, so you don’t really need to salt the dish if you use Tony Chachere’s, but if you end up buying a Creole spice mix from another brand and it doesn’t have salt, you’re going to need to season both the sauce and the chicken with salt in addition to the spice. From there, we finish the sauce with tomato paste, cream, and broth, then simmer gnocchi and chicken to finish it off for a ridiculously good dinner.
Did you try this? Let us know how it went in the comments!
