Pappadeaux Dirty Rice Recipe (2024)

Pappadeaux, more commonly known as Pappas Restaurants is a popular chain of American restaurants that adopt various culinary concepts such as Pappa’s Steakhouse, Seafood House, Bar-B-Q, and Pappa’s Burger.

Today we are sharing a recipe for one of Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen’s most popular side dishes which is their dirty rice.

They use it for all kinds of different meals, whether that be stuffing it into Cajun Sausage or serving it alongside Blackened Catfish.

No matter what you plan on eating it with, it’s always a delicious and filling meal and is far preferable to boring old white rice.

So today we’re going to show you how to make Pappadeaux dirty rice from home with this copycat recipe!

How to make Pappadeaux Dirty Rice

Why is it called dirty rice? It’s not actually dirty, is it?

Dirty Rice gets its name from the fact it’s often made with darker ingredients such as chicken liver, ground pork, and sometimes even gizzard.

These dark tasty bits give it the ‘dirty’ look and it’s generally considered some of the nicest tasting and flavorful rice around.

It’s also sometimes referred to as ‘Cajun Rice’.

Ingredients:

(4 servings)

• 2 cups of long-grain white rice
• 4 cups of chicken broth
• 1/2lb of chicken liver
• 1/2lb of ground pork
• 4 tbsp of butter
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 cup of diced onions
• 1/2 tsp of dry mustard
• 2 tsp of old bay seasoning
• 1 tsp of oregano
• 1/2 cup of green bell pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt
• Black pepper

Instructions:

This is nice and easy to prepare where we’ll be frying most of the ingredients together and combining everything in a saucepan.

The hearty and home-cooked nature of the meal means we don’t need to be ultra meticulous with everything, just fry it all up and make some great food!

Step 1:

With a sharp knife, finely chop the onion and garlic cloves.

Step 2:

Place the chicken livers and ground pork into a food processor and blend them thoroughly for 5 minutes to create the meat mixture.

Step 3:

Melt the butter in a skillet using low heat.

Step 4:

Once the butter is melted, add the meat mixture and increase the temperature to medium-high.

Continue cooking for about 10 minutes until the raw pink color changes to the brown you’d typically associate with cooked pork.

Step 5:

At this stage, we need to add the old bay seasoning, oregano, salt, and black pepper to the meat mixture, and continue frying it for another 5 minutes.

Step 6:

Turn the heat back down to low so the meat mixture is just simmering.

We can now add the dry mustard along with the minced garlic and onion we prepared earlier.

Give it all a good stir.

Step 7:

Let this mixture continue simmering for another 3 minutes before removing it from the heat and transferring everything into a separate bowl.

Step 8:

Now we need to prepare the rice: place the saucepan (you can use the same one as it will have some nice, residual flavor from the previous ingredients) over high heat, and add all of the chicken broth, chopped bell pepper, and the uncooked long-grain rice.

Step 9:

Once the broth is boiling, cover it with a lid that allows a little steam to escape and lower the heat so the broth can simmer.

Leave this for about 20 minutes, being sure to stir it every so often to make sure the rice doesn’t stick to the pan.

Step 10:

Once the rice is fully cooked, drain any remaining water and re-add the meat mixture back to the pan.

Cook it for a further 5 minutes mixing everything thoroughly over low heat.

And that’s it! Your Paddadeaux Dirty Rice is now ready!

Ingredients substitutions

Pappadeaux has its own version of a delicious dirty rice recipe, but it’s important to remember that this dish is used by many restaurants and comes in many varieties.

Here are some great alternatives and substitutions if you want to shake things up a little and get creative with it.

1. Chicken Gizzards

You can use chicken gizzards either to replace the chicken liver in the provided recipe or even just use them both together to make everything extra delicious.

It’s a really common choice for dirty fried rice recipes that other restaurants use.

If you want to use it as a total replacement 3/4 lbs of it should do! You can blend it up in the exact same way as the liver.

2. Cayenne pepper

If you’re looking for a little more kick out of the dish you can replace them with fairly mild and dry mustard with a half teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or even a dash of tabasco sauce works).

Try to use this as a direct substitute instead of an addition otherwise the flavor might become a bit too strong.

3. Bacon drippings

If you want to really help the rice become more rich and flavorful, replace the butter you use in the pan with bacon drippings and it’ll give it a delicious flavor.

That extra fat in particular will help everything fry together and taste exquisite.

What to serve with Pappadeaux Dirty Rice

While Cajun/dirty rice can actually be used as a whole meal by itself, its main job is to enhance and bulk up the main dish.

Pappadeaux serves this dirty rice with many of their main dishes, so here are a few of our suggestions on what to serve it with.

Boudin

Boudin is essentially a large sausage casing that will then be stuffed with dirty rice, extra peppers, meat, and seasonings.

It’s not uncommon to see restaurants get creative with it, offering unique takes such as seafood stuffed boudin.

Jumbo Shrimp Brochette

Grilled shrimp wrapped in char-grilled bacon which is then filled with Monterey Jack Cheese and a little jalapeno. This gets served with a nice bowl of dirty rice to make a delicious, filling, and flavorful meal.

Cajun Combo

In keeping with the Cajun theme of the rice, this is a blackened catfish fillet with shrimp creole which is served with dirty rice.

How to reheat Pappadeaux Dirty Rice

Rice is one of those meals that tastes just as good, if not better the following day thanks to the less starchy qualities it develops after it’s been left for some time.

This makes dirty rice ideal for storing for later, here’s how to go about reheating it.

How to reheat Pappadeaux Dirty Rice in a pot

If you have any of the chicken broth left just splash a little into the pot.

If not, water can also work.

Heat the pot over low heat, add the rice to it and cover with a lid.

Check the temperature after about 5 minutes and it should be nice and hot, if not cover it again and let heat for another 3 minutes.

How to reheat Pappadeaux Dirty Rice in a microwave

Transfer the rice into a microwave-safe bowl and cover with either a plate or a wet paper towel to help retain the moisture.

Cook the rice for 3-4 minutes, making sure to give it a good stir at the 2-minute mark to ensure it heats evenly.

How to reheat Pappadeaux Dirty Rice in the oven

Preheat the oven to 300°F.

Spread the rice out evenly in a baking dish, and add 2 tablespoons of water (or the chicken broth). Cover the dish with foil. Bake it for 20 minutes.

How to reheat Pappadeaux Dirty Rice in an air fryer

Preheat the air fryer to 320°F.

Transfer the rice to the cooking basket and fry for 10 minutes.

Remove the basket and add a little olive oil or cooking spray to help it re-fry, making sure to stir the rice so everything gets coated with the oil.

Now turn the temperature up to 360°F and fry for a further 5 minutes.

How to store Pappadeaux Dirty Rice

Storing rice for later is very easy which makes this a great dish to cook in bulk and store for a few days.

As it pairs well with so many dishes you can easily eat this a few days in a row.

Store in the fridge

Let the rice cool to room temperature, the dryer it is before storing the longer it will keep.

Simply place it in an air-tight container and refrigerate.

Once stored it will keep for 3 to 4 days.

Store in the freezer

Once again ensure that the rice is cooled to room temperature beforehand, transfer all the rice to a freezer bag, and press out as much air as possible.

Once frozen it will keep for 1 to 2 months.

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