How To Boil Crawfish

Cooking and eating crawfish is a Cajun’s delight, so with that said, it’s my pleasure to share our family’s methodology on how to boil crawfish with you. I include some helpful tips and a short video on peeling those tasty tails. There’s also a story of my favorite childhood memory of crawfishing in the rice fields behind our house. So, allons’! (That means let’s go!)

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Crawfish season begins in November, continuing through June in the fresh waters of southern Louisiana. There are many ways we Cajuns like to devour that fruit of the bayou country, but I agree with my mama who says a Crawfish Etouffée and boiled crawfish are the best ways to eat them. So true, but catching and boiling is the most entertaining way. Here’s a good example.

Crawfishing In The rice Fields

It was a day in late summer when daddy flew open the back door of our little green house and hollered out to mama, “Grab the kids and some buckets. The rice fields are full of crawfish.” They called our cousins who lived a few houses down the gravel road to join us, and the hunt was on!

It was a sight to see! The rice grew tall in those days, and I can still remember walking through the rows of rice stalks with their full heads bending above my head. Daddy was right. Those red mudbugs crawled around in the mud and water between the ripening rice everywhere we looked. Our buckets couldn’t hold them all, so we chose the larger ones and left the rest. It was like a Jubilee, and it was so much fun!

After we picked to our heart’s content, we loaded ourselves with our full buckets into the back of daddy’s pickup truck and headed down the levee back to our little green house. Mama and Daddy cooked the fresh harvest in a large boiling pot, and we ate until our lips were burning with cayenne pepper and our bellies were full. It was a joyful time!

Everyone shared their own story of crawfishing that day. Mama asked if we had seen any snakes. Thank God I didn’t! With all the excitement, I didn’t even think of that. She said she saw one eating crawfish and told that snake “you go ahead and have all you want,” then mama went the opposite way.

The Tradition Continues

This is a memory I wish I could experience again. But oh, how things have changed! We see more rice fields replaced with sugar cane fields. Also, because of the increase in demand for crawfish, farmers have developed ponds suitable for growing and fishing in those same rice fields.

But the benefit is that people are becoming more aware of our Cajun culture through the vehicle of food. This is a blessing in helping to preserve the good things of our heritage, like gathering your family together for a crawfish boil in the backyard.

I’m happy to say that my children enjoy that tradition today as much as I do, but I can still out-peel them all. With the help of some other family members and their own experiences, my two sons have gotten their crawfish cooking skills down pat. Those skills are broken down into steps as easy as ABC, essential to a rewarding outcome. I hope you find them helpful and have an opportunity to give them a try.

These steps will show you how to:

1. keep the crawfish fresh and alive
2. clean them with a purge
3. cook them in a proper cooker (a simple large pot will do)
4. season them up
5. add vegetables and sausages and such
6. boil and soak them in the right amount of time3
7. get an easier peel

Cord lost the stare-down. The crawfish never blinked.

The easy ABCs to remember:

Always buy the freshest.

It’s important to get live crawfish as local and fresh as possible. I now live in southeast Arkansas, close enough to the Louisiana border to pick up a sack or two ourselves or have them trucked the same day they’re harvested. However, we see a few crawfish ponds popping up in the Arkansas Delta area. That’s exciting!

For those of you who are too far away to quickly get a fresh delivery, I feel your pain! Some companies do ship live crawfish to just about anywhere. It comes with a higher price, but it may be a worthwhile splurge!

After getting your crawfish, they need to be kept in their netted sack in refrigeration or on ice. We usually buy 2 thirty-pound sacks at a time, transporting them in a large ice chest (about 60 quarts) with the bottom lined with bricks and the lid closed. The bricks keep the crawfish elevated enough so they don’t drown in the melted ice water. It takes about 6 regular-sized ice bags for this large ice chest with the 2 full sacks. Also, make sure la écrevisse are wet before placing them in the chest, spray them with fresh water, and close the chest drain.

As soon as I get home, the chest is unloaded from my vehicle and placed outside in a shaded area. Then, with the drain valve opened, we elevated the chest with a brick under it on the opposite side of the valve. This keeps the melted ice flowing out and away from the live crawfish. As the ice melts, we add more to keep them cold.

Preserving them this way is important because you don’t want to boil dead crawfish. That would not be good! And you don’t want to waste any either. So I have successfully kept them stored on ice for up to 2 days with little to no waste.

By the way, you can estimate 3 to 5 pounds per serving. Except, we Cajuns count on 5 pounds per person . . . at least. Yes, we do! Plus, the peeled leftovers are good in most recipes like Chunky Cheesy Creamy Crawfish Dip or Crawfish Nachos. Remember, you may need to adjust the seasoning a little.

Before you cook, purge

It’s time to clean the crustaceans.

Take them out of refrigeration or ice chest and allow them to warm up to room temperature while still in the sack. You will see them begin to move. This takes about an hour and a half, depending on how warm it is outside. Then, empty one bag of crawfish into a large ice chest, give them a good rinse of freshwater, remove any dead crawfish, grass, or debris, and drain.

Some prefer to purge with pure water, and others believe salt is needed to get the best results. I prefer the salt method to be on the safe side. Although I have eaten those purged with fresh water only, they were very clean tasting, but they were clean and fresh-looking to begin with.

Clear Water Method

All you do for this method is repeatedly rinse the crawfish, add water to the ice chest, then stir them around and drain until the water flows clear.

Salt Water Method

To purge using salt, fill the chest with water a few inches above the crawfish. Sprinkle half of a 26-ounce box of regular salt over the water, then stir the crawfish with a large paddle to mix well. Let them sit for about 5 to 10 minutes. This cleans them inside and out, causing them to excrete anything in the digestive tract. It also cleans the outside of the shell. Keep flushing and rinsing with fresh water until the water looks clean.

NOTE: Protect animals, grass, shrubs, trees, and/or flowers by draining the saltwater far away from them.

Cook the vegetables first, then the crawfish in the seasoned, boiling water.

Whether you are using a crawfish cooker or a big boiling pot on the stove or outside burner, the cooking process of “how to boil crawfish” is the same.

We recently purchased this gas cooker that boils up to one sack at a time. It’s so nifty! There’s a fill line to mark the water, so all we have to do is fill it up with fresh water and turn it on. It also makes draining and dumping an easy task.

Of course, you don’t need a big cooker like this one. All you need is a large pot half-filled with water and seasonings to set on your stove or on an outside burner. As far as how much water to use, a good rule of thumb is 2 gallons of water for every 10 pounds of crawfish.

Make It Easier With Bagged Seasonings

Nowadays, we use Louisiana Fish Fry Products Crawfish, Shrimp, and Crab Boil Seasoning. It’s delicious and super easy! Their 4.5-pound bag is the perfect size for a thirty-pound sack of crawfish. When cooking a second 30-pound sack of crawfish in the same water, we add another half bag or more.

You Can Use Your Own Seasoning Blend Way before pre-packaged crawfish boil seasonings became popular, we used our own simple seasonings of salt and pepper. The ingredients for 30 pounds of crawfish are 2.5 – 3 twenty-six-ounce boxes of salt and an 8-ounce bottle of cayenne pepper plus one stick of butter. After boiling the crawfish for 15 minutes, give them a 3-minute soak. Then add 1 more box of salt and a few more ounces of pepper plus 1 more stick of butter, give them a good stir and serve. That’s how I remember eating them as a child—it’s the classic taste of Cajun cooking. By using this method, you get more of the taste of the crawfish and less of the seasoning blend. YUM!

Time To Cook

When the water and seasoning have come to a full rolling boil, it’s time to cook. Boil the vegetables first to ensure the potatoes and the rest of the vegetables are cooked long enough. Our family’s favorite add-ins are potatoes, corn on the cob, mushrooms, onions, lemon halves, and small link sausages. The lemons are for added flavor, not eating.

Note: Cut onions in half and wrap them in foil to keep them from falling apart.

This cooker makes it easy to drain and dump the boiled food into an ice chest before eating. Bring the water back to a full boil then it’s time to add the crawfish and a stick of butter. The butter helps them peel easier.

Let them cook for 5 minutes for small to medium-sized ones, or 8 minutes if they are large. Then turn off the heat and dump a bag of ice into the boiled crawfish. Or, give them a spray of fresh, cool water from the water hose. Add enough to replace the amount of water that evaporated during the boil. Allow the crawfish to soak in the seasoned water until they sink to the bottom. The idea here is to cool them slightly and push water into the shell for a juicier bite. It seems to work because we get luscious easy-to-peel tails every time!

Now it’s time to drain and dump them into an ice chest, close the lid, and let them sit for about 15 minutes. This will cause them to soak up even more seasoning before serving.

We like serving ourselves straight from the ice chest which keeps them hot. Some prefer dumping them out on a table lined with newspaper or plastic.

They can also be eaten with saltine crackers and a dip made with one part mayonnaise and one part ketchup. The dip is for the crackers and the crawfish tails. This is how my children like it.

Here’s a short video tutorial showing one method of how to peel a crawfish tail after you twist it from the head:

This is only one way you can approach the peel. I know it can be a struggle if you’re new to eating boiled crawfish, but don’t give up. Let your hunger push you to learn your own peeling technique. As a child, the way I learned is by taking the tail-end off first, then pinching the back of the tail in half to crack it making it easy to pull the rest of the shell away. Many times the unwanted black line will come out when the tail is removed.

I’ve seen it done in different ways. Some even take a bite right into the shell while holding the tail-end with their fingers and they manage to pull the meat out between their teeth. It’s not for me, but whatever works for ya’!

You can also suck the heads or use your finger to retrieve the insides for the fat and more of the spicy juice flavor. Not for me, either!

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“A little faith will bring your soul to heaven; a great faith will bring heaven to your soul.” 
― Charles Spurgeon