Crawfish Stuffed Chicken Thighs with Wild Rice

Crawfish and wild rice stuffed chicken thigh.

When visiting Missouri last winter my nephew, Todd, made these stuffed chicken thighs full of wild and long grain rice and crawfish. And after smoking on his Big Green Egg (and he has a really big one) smothered them with a creamy crawfish sauce.

Chicken thighs are my favorite cut of chicken. I prefer to buy it on the bone because there’s so much more flavor when they are cooked. This particular time though, I bought boneless and pounded out a little to make them large enough to hold all the filling I wanted to fill them with.

Did I say these are wrapped in bacon? Now who doesn’t like bacon cooked in just about everything and that crawfish sauce is so creamy and full of spicy flavors.

I think these will be a hit at your next dinner party. Let me know if you give them a try.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Parmesan Naan Breakfast (or dinner) Pizza. Great way to use that leftover steak you may have had the night before.

Flatten thigh a little and add some of the rice/crawfish mixture. Roll in a bundle and wrap with bacon.

I used a disposable muffin tin to bake the thighs in and saved a lot of scrubbing of my muffin pans.

We smoked these on our smoker but you could bake in the oven or do indirect heat on gas grill. These could be put in a casserole dish and baked or put on a broiler rack and baked in oven.

Make the sauce and add the crawfish at the end.

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Crawfish Stuffed Chicken Thighs with Wild Rice

Served with a creamy crawfish sauce.

Ingredients

• Sauce:
• 1 c. onion
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 Tbsp. minced garlic
• 2 small tomatoes chopped
• 2 Tbsp. Slap Your Mama seasoning or other cajun seasoning
• 1- 1 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1 c. chicken broth
• 5 oz. cream cheese
• 1 c. parmesan cheese
• 8 oz. heavy cream
• 1/2 lb. crawfish tails
• 1/2 tsp. liquid smoke optional
• Chicken:
• 6-8 boneless chicken thighs pounded thin
• 1 box Uncle Ben's Long Grain and Wild Rice not instant*
• 1/2 lb. crawfish tail meat
• 8 strips bacon

Instructions

1. Chicken:
2. Pound out the boneless chicken thighs until thin. Cook one box of the Uncle Ben's Long Grain and Wild Rice according to directions. When this is done, add in the 1/2 lb. crawfish and stir to mix.
3. Lay out one pounded chicken thigh and fill with a few tablespoons of the rice/crawfish mixture. Fold in the sides and rollup the bundle. Take one piece of bacon and wrap around the thigh bundle and then put into a muffin cup to bake or grill. Repeat with remaining thighs. Grill these until internal temperature reaches 165°.
4. Sauce:
5. Put the olive oil in a large skillet and sauce the onion and garlic for 4-5 minutes then add the chopped tomatoes and the seasoning and then the broth. Reduce this down to about half then use a stick blender and blend it until smooth.
6. Add the cream cheese, parmesan and heavy cream and stir until the cheese has melted and has thickened a little. Add in the crawfish and the liquid smoke (optional).
7. To serve put one cooked chicken thigh on plate and spoon some of the crawfish sauce over the top.

Recipe Notes

I usually make an extra box of rice to serve along side these.