I have to admit this was very good. When I asked Lacy what was for dinner, she said ‘Paella.’ I cocked my head to the side and looked at her strange. She said something, I heard the words, but I couldn’t quite understand what she was saying. It sounded like gibberish! As you can tell, I’m a husband and like most husbands we sometimes struggle to listen. So when I said, ‘what’ she simply said it again, like that would help. So I turned to my assistant SIRI and asked her. You try…. #fail. So I Googled Paella and then quickly went upstairs to complain. You see Paella consists of white rice, green vegetables, meat (usually chicken), seafood, land snails, beans and seasonings. LAND SNAILS?! Okay so I know that Lacy is adventurous but seriously?! I also do NOT like seafood. I have a motto, if it swims under the water, I don’t eat it. Lacy has a motto too: Eat around it or starve.
Suffice to say I don’t starve. We are busy people and so Lacy thought it would be a good dish to try in the crockpot. Traditional Paella takes a while to prepare, so if you’re a traditional paella lover, this may not be for you. But if you’re like us, busy parents who are trying to balance fifty different things at once, AND you want to try a little Spanish food, this is for you!! We did a few things differently than traditional paella. First saffron is expensive, so we used in it’s place turmeric. (It’s a great substitute for saffron). Also paella is generally cooked slowly in a skillet, layering flavors (look at me talking about something I have no idea about HA. My wife is helping me over my shoulder!!). We just put most everything in the crock and let it go.
- 1½ cups of the long grain brown rice
- ½ lb sausage
- 1 onion
- 1 green pepper
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1½ lbs of chicken (boneless skinless chicken breast)
- 1 lbs of medium shrimp
- 1 can of Rotel tomatoes
- ½ tsp of Turmeric
- ¼ tsp of Paprika
- 1½ cup of chicken broth
- 2 tsp of salt
- 1 bag of frozen peas
- Brown sausage in skillet.
- Place all ingredients except for shrimp into slow cooker.
- Cook on low or 4 to 5 hours or until rice is just cooked. (Pay attention to the rice, if you cook it to long, it will get mushy!)
- Add in shrimp in the last 20 minutes
- If you like you can add optional frozen peas at the end
Notice that in the recipe we selected long grain brown rice. You MUST select this type of rice or you will end up with a big pile of mush! Regular white rice or short grain Spanish rice will NOT WORK in the crockpot. We nuked a bag of peas at the end and stirred it into the recipe. Lacy also added shrimp to this at the end as well. Now if you wanted to add lobster, you could. We are on a budget, so lobster isn’t something we work with often LOL.
When it was all said and done, I would have to say I was impressed. I did not eat any shrimp, which meant more shrimp for my wife. The Rotel’s gave the Paella a really nice kick which I liked a lot. I definitely felt like I was eating Spanish food. It’s worth a try, minus the shrimp!! 🙂
I absolutely love Lacey’s motto, “Eat around it or starve!” Unfortunately, my husband would choose starve over eat around it. 🙁 Would love to try this sometime! Thanks for the recipe!
LOL now that’s funny!
As a Catalan who has family and who has lived in the Valencia province, the birthplace of paella, this recipe is so wrong on so many levels:
> Turmeric is never acceptable as a substitute.
> Lobsters are rarely used in the weekly Sunday paellas made by many working-class families in Spain.
> Long grain brown rice? The type , quality and doneness of the rice is the ART of making paella.– if the rice is overcooked like it is in your photo, that’s not acceptable. Since when does rice need to cook for 4-5 hours? Do you realize that if you cooked paella using a traditional recipe, your cook time would be about 30 minutes, not including prep work?
> Sausage – never. Green Pepper? never – always red bell pepper. ROTEL mexican tomatoes? NEVER!!! use only grated fresh tomatoes.
> Crockpot? C’mon! You can make a semi-decent paella, if using the correct ingredients, in a large cast-iron skillet.
It’s really sad how Americans rape authentic cultural recipes.
oh my! I agree about the saffron and turmeric switch being a bad idea. The only thing they have in common is that they both impart a warm yellow/orange color to food.
I am Indian and we use both turmeric and Saffron in our recipes. Turmeric would make this taste more like curry
Well said; not sure what this dish is, it is not paella. Turmeric is never acceptable, ever. And the rice is heart of the dish, overcooked brown rice needs to go straight in the bin.
This is the culinary equivalent of serving heinz ketchup and chinese noodles for spaghetti marinara.
You can cook paella properly from scratch in under an hour in a dutch oven.
Christine, Shashi and Adey J: the article and writer clearly states, ” if you’re a traditional paella lover, this may not be for you.” No need to be so rude about busy parents attempting a new dish that worked for them. Where are your manners?
How true! I agree!
what a snob you are. Paella is the Mulligan stew of several cultures. Do your homework dear.
great recipe Lacey!
Bravo Christine!! Your point is very well taken. Traditional Paella preparation is a bit labor intensive but the result is worth the effort. On a budget crockpot meals are fantastic for a great many dishes but to get the true flavor of a very traditional, rustic, regional treasure like paella there are really no good shortcuts.
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I really like that you tried too cook paella in a crook pot. Cheers to you.
I am a little uncertain about the way your rice looks done so this would not be something I would serve to dinner quests, but I imagine it all tasted fine so for just my wife and I it could be worth a try.
Decidedly better then frozen processed food. Thanks so much for being creaTive! .
Have you used quinoa in this? Do you know if it would work?
I like checking your web sites. Thanks a ton!