Vegan Gumbo | Instant Pot Gumbo Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to good gumbo? ›

Great gumbo starts with roux, a flavorful thickening agent made from equal parts fat and flour. Once the roux is a deep golden color, add diced veggies and sausage to the mix. Then, incorporate beef bouillon, hot sauce, tomatoes, and seasonings to intensify the flavor.

Add the sausage to the gumbo and at the same time add the file powder, bay leaves, and frozen okra. Don't stress if it doesn't seem thick enough, the file powder and okra will help to thicken. Stir gently and let simmer for another 20 minutes.

Filé can provide thickening when okra is not in season, in types of gumbo that use okra or a roux as a thickener for gumbo instead of filé.

For the most flavor, use stock or broth in your gumbo instead of water. Whether you use chicken or vegetable stock, homemade or boxed, the stock will give your gumbo more depth and complexity.

Thou Shalt Always Use a Bowl. If you use a plate, it is not gumbo it is rice and gravy! Thou Shalt Only Use a Wooden Spoon. There is only one kind of spoon that can enter a gumbo pot and that is a wooden one.

Gumbo is much denser than a simple soup; the broth has a thick, almost viscous consistency. And that characteristic is most commonly created by making a roux, cooking flour and oil together until they thicken and darken. Otherwise, gumbo can be thickened with file, which is just powdered dried sassafras leaves.

Yes, you could increase the quantity of roux even more to thicken the gumbo further, but the toasted flavor and fat can really start to weigh the gumbo down if you get too roux-heavy. So you still need a way to push the liquid in the gumbo to a more spoon-coating texture. Enter okra and filé powder.

There's no right or wrong to which fat you use; it just depends on what flavor you want. In a dairy-heavy sauce, like milky béchamel, butter is the common choice (and is also the more common fat in most French roux), while oil is often preferred in Creole and Cajun cooking. Butter, though, is more than just a fat.

In the case of okra (or kelp), heating increases the viscosity of mucilage of the plant, and the result is very gooey. This isn't a great quality if you're sitting down to a mountain of boiled okra, but it's a highly desirable characteristic when you want to thicken up your gumbo.

You can thicken gumbo by making a roux, a flour, or cornstarch slurry, mixing in cornmeal, adding more vegetables like okra, or reducing the liquid by cooking it down. Ingredients like instant mash, cream, or coconut milk can also thicken gumbo but will be less traditional.

How do you thicken gumbo quickly? ›

There are three ways to thicken gumbo, but the most commonly used method is to add roux. Roux, which is made with equal parts flour and butter and slowly cooked over low heat, is added to hot gumbo stock. The starch in the flour breaks down to become gelatinous, and gives heft to the stock without altering the flavor.

Making Your Roux Too Watery

If the roux is too runny, your gumbo will end up more like a soup. A good rule of thumb for adding flour to make the roux is to aim for a one-to-one ratio.

I - Thou Shalt Never Use Tomatoes If we've learned anything from the Disney folks, it's this. Any cooyon with half a brain knows "Making Gumbo 101" contains this golden rule -- it's roux-based and not tomato-based! Tomatoes are for things like spaghetti sauce.

Not Adding Enough Flour

If you don't use enough flour, the roux will be watery. "Often times people do not make the roux thick enough and it will result in a gumbo that is more like a soup than a stew," says Dickensauge. You want to add enough flour to your fat until the roux is like a paste.

For purposes of this discussion, we will limit our focus to plain old polished white rice. Even then, it comes in different sizes — short, long and medium grain. I prefer medium grain rice in a gumbo, because the grains puff up, the perfect medium for a gumbo. The thick gumbo juice sticks to the grains just right.

Another old aphorism that speaks to good gumbo cookery is this: You can't rush perfection. Gumbo takes time, and that's because it's best cooked low and slow, namely slowly over low heat.

Turns out, your preference for tomatoes in gumbo comes down to whether you learned your skills from a Cajun cook or a Creole cook. (Learn about the difference here.) Cajun gumbo does not include tomatoes in the base, but Creole gumbo (typically shellfish or seafood gumbo) does call for tomatoes.

Creole gumbo is usually made with okra, tomato, and often a combination of meat and seafood, while the Cajun version contains meat or seafood, and is typically okra-free and made with a darker roux.

Turn down the heat, cover and simmer for an hour and a half. 7. Add the okra and sausage, stir, replace the lid and simmer for a further 45 minutes.