Boiled Crawfish Recipe

Purge crawfish

Place live crawfish in a large cooler or bucket. Rinse with fresh water to remove debris. Sprinkle 1 cup kosher salt over them and stir gently; add just enough cool water to cover and let sit 10 minutes. Drain and rinse thoroughly with cool water until water runs clear. Repeat purge once more if water is very murky. Keep crawfish cold (on ice) and discard any dead crawfish before cooking.

Wash and scrub potatoes; cut larger potatoes in half. Husk corn and cut cobs into halves. Halve lemons and quarter onions. Slice andouille sausage lengthwise or into 2-inch pieces.

Build seasoned broth

In a very large pot (6–8 quart or larger) add 6 liters (or enough to cover ingredients) of water. Add 1 cup crawfish boil seasoning, bay leaves, black peppercorns, allspice, halved garlic cloves, quartered onions, halved lemons (squeezed into water and then added), and thyme. Bring to a vigorous boil over high heat.

Cook potatoes and sausage

Once the seasoned water is at a rolling boil, add the potatoes. Boil 10–12 minutes until potatoes are just tender when pierced with a fork. Add sausage and boil 3–4 minutes to heat through and absorb flavors.

Add corn

Add halved corn cobs to the pot and continue boiling 5 minutes until corn is heated through but still slightly crisp.

Boil crawfish

With the pot at a full rolling boil, add the purged crawfish in batches if needed to avoid lowering the boil too much. Stir briefly to ensure even submersion. Boil crawfish 4–5 minutes, until shells turn bright red. Turn off the heat and let crawfish soak in the seasoned broth for 10–15 minutes for maximum flavor (soak time depends on how spicy/salty you want them; shorter soak = milder).

After soaking, use a large slotted spoon or drain basket to remove crawfish, potatoes, corn and sausage from the pot. Transfer to a large serving tray, table covered in newspaper, or disposable pan. Pour a little of the cooking liquid over the top for extra flavor if desired.

Drizzle melted butter over the hot boiled ingredients, sprinkle chopped parsley and coarse sea salt to taste. Serve immediately with lemon wedges and hot sauce on the side. Provide mallets or crab forks if guests want to extract meat; instruct guests to twist off the head and peel the tail to eat the meat. Leftover boiled crawfish can be refrigerated and reheated briefly in a covered pan; best eaten the same day.