Three-Meat Okra Gumbo, Dutch Oven
Chicken, sausage, and shrimp in a dark roux, built in one pot over coals.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 47
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 60 min
- total time
- 80 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Boneless skinless chicken thighs | 1 lb | cut into chunks at home |
|---|---|---|
| Smoked andouille sausage | 12 oz | sliced into coins |
| Shrimp, peeled | 1 lb | frozen, thawed in the cooler |
| Butter | 4 tbsp | |
| Flour | 1/4 cup | |
| Onion | 1 large | diced at home |
| Bell peppers | 2 | diced at home |
| Garlic | 4 cloves | minced |
| Frozen cut okra | 1 lb | packed frozen, it thaws on the drive |
| Canned diced tomatoes | 1 can (14.5 oz) | |
| Chicken or seafood broth | 1 box (32 oz) | |
| Cajun seasoning | 2 tbsp | |
| Cayenne pepper | 1/2 tsp | |
| Black pepper | 1 tsp |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down. You want a bed of coals, not flame, or the roux scorches.
- Melt the butter in the dutch oven over the coals. Stir in the flour and keep stirring. Ten to fifteen minutes until it goes the color of a penny. Do not walk away from it.
- Add the onion, peppers, and garlic. They will hiss and stop the roux from darkening further, which is the point.
- Add the sausage and chicken. Cook until the chicken is no longer pink on the outside.
- Pour in the broth, tomatoes, and okra. Add the cajun seasoning, cayenne, and black pepper. Cover and hold at a low simmer for 40 minutes, pulling coals if it boils hard.
- Stir in the shrimp last. Five minutes, lid on, off the direct heat. They are done when they curl and turn opaque.
- Serve straight from the pot. Rice if you brought it, but it does not need it.
Gumbo has two thickeners working at once and both matter. The roux is a butter-and-flour paste cooked dark enough to smell like toast, which is where the depth comes from. The okra does the rest: its mucilage, the thing people complain about, dissolves into the broth over a long simmer and never shows up as slime. Cook it hard and fast and you get the slime. Cook it slow and submerged and you get body.
This is a cooler recipe, not a backpacking one. Three kinds of meat and a box of broth are heavy and cold, so it belongs at a car-camp site or a basecamp where the cooler stays packed. The order the meats go in is the whole trick. Chicken and sausage can take the full simmer. Shrimp cannot, and five minutes off the coals at the end is the difference between shrimp and rubber.
Packing
Dice the onion and peppers at home and bag them. Cut the chicken at home too. Sausage, chicken, and shrimp go in the cooler bottom under ice; the okra rides frozen and doubles as a cooler block for the first day. Premix the cajun seasoning, cayenne, and black pepper into one small jar.
Variations
- Skip the roux and let the okra thicken it alone. Slower, but one less thing to burn and it goes gluten-free.
- Swap the shrimp for a second pound of sausage if you do not trust your cooler on day two.
- A cup of instant rice stirred in at the end soaks up the broth and stretches it to eight.
https://www.pinchmeimeating.com/three-meat-and-okra-gumbo