Crawfish substitute

Best substitute

Small shrimp, peeled (51/70 or 71/90 count)

Use the same amount by weight as the crawfish you are replacing

Best for etouffee

Different texture

Small shrimp are the substitute to reach for, weight for weight, and shrimp etouffee is a genuine Louisiana dish rather than a compromise. Frozen langostino tails are even closer in size, sweetness and tenderness if your shop carries them. Lump crab meat works beautifully in etouffee and bisque if you stir it in at the very end. The one thing you have to add back is the fat: a bag of crawfish tails comes packed with orange crawfish fat, and that is where a huge amount of the dish's richness, colour and slightly mineral sweetness comes from, so whichever swap you use, build in a little extra butter warmed with paprika and a few spoons of shrimp or seafood stock. Do that and a stranger would not know. Skip it and the etouffee tastes thin and oddly pale.

Other crawfish substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Langostino tails (frozen)
Close match
Use the same amount by weight
Small cooked, peeled tails of a squat lobster, sold frozen in bags at warehouse clubs and larger supermarkets.
What changes
Best for
etouffee, bisque, crawfish pasta, dips and crawfish bread, salads and rolls
The best texture match on this list, and often the cheapest per pound. Langostino tails are already cooked and peeled just like crawfish tails, they are almost exactly the same size, and they have the same soft, tender give rather than a shrimp's snap. The flavour is sweeter and cleaner, closer to lobster, without crawfish's mineral edge. Because they are precooked they only need to be warmed through in the last two minutes, and they turn cottony if you simmer them. Drain them well, since they carry a lot of water that will loosen a roux-based sauce.
3Lump or claw crab meat
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight
Picked, cooked crab meat, sold refrigerated in tubs or canned.
What changes
Best for
etouffee, bisque, crawfish dip, stuffed peppers and mushrooms, cream sauces
Superb in anything saucy and a poor choice in anything stirred hard. Crab is sweet, delicate and rich, so an etouffee made with it tastes luxurious, if a little less rustic and savoury than one made with crawfish. The trouble is structure: crab arrives in soft flakes that break down into shreds and vanish into the sauce, so you lose the individual morsels you bite into. Fold it in off the heat at the very last moment and stir as little as you can bear. Claw meat is browner, cheaper and more strongly flavoured, and it actually holds up better than expensive jumbo lump here.
4Imported frozen crayfish tails
Close match
Use the same amount by weight
The same animal, farmed and processed in China or Europe, sold as crayfish tails rather than crawfish.
What changes
Best for
etouffee, gumbo, jambalaya, pasta, anywhere crawfish tails are called for
Worth hunting for before you substitute anything at all, because it is not a substitute, it is the same shellfish under the other spelling of its name. Check Chinese, Scandinavian and Eastern European groceries and the frozen aisle of large supermarkets. The honest differences are that imported tails are often blander, sometimes packed in brine rather than with their own fat, and occasionally a little tougher, and Louisiana cooks will tell you so at length. Drain and rinse brined tails, taste before you season, and add a knob of paprika butter to make up for the missing crawfish fat.
5Lobster or monkfish, cut into bite-sized pieces
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight
Sweet cooked lobster meat, or firm raw monkfish cut into cubes the size of a crawfish tail.
What changes
Best for
bisque, etouffee, cream sauces, special-occasion versions of crawfish dishes
Two different reasons to choose these. Lobster is sweeter and firmer than crawfish and turns an etouffee into something noticeably richer and more elegant, which may or may not be what you wanted; add it at the end, already cooked. Monkfish is the budget trick, sometimes called poor man's lobster, and cubed into a sauce it gives you dense, springy, sweet mouthfuls that hold their shape well. Monkfish tastes much less of shellfish, so if you use it, cook it in shrimp or crab stock so the sauce still tastes like it came from the water.
6Chicken thigh with andouille and shrimp stock
Taste and texture differ
Use 1 lb boneless thigh for every 1 lb crawfish tails
Dark chicken meat cut small, with smoked sausage, replacing the shellfish entirely.
What changes
Best for
etouffee, gumbo, jambalaya, shellfish allergies, landlocked kitchens
The right answer if shellfish is off the table for allergy or availability reasons, and chicken and sausage etouffee is a real dish in Louisiana kitchens. Chicken thigh gives you tender savoury bite-sized pieces and stands up to a dark roux, and andouille brings the smoke and depth that the shellfish is no longer providing. What is missing entirely is the sweet marine flavour, so this reads as a different, heartier dish rather than an imitation. If shellfish is only a supply problem rather than an allergy, cook the chicken in shrimp stock, which recovers a good deal of the character.

What is Crawfish?

Crawfish is Crawfish, also called crayfish, crawdads or ecrevisses, are small freshwater shellfish that look like miniature lobsters, and outside Louisiana they are usually sold as bags of cooked, peeled crawfish tails in the freezer case.

Cooking tips

Do not rinse the orange fat off crawfish tails, and add it back when you substitute. That coral-coloured fat clinging to a bag of tails carries most of the flavour and nearly all the colour of a good etouffee. If you are using shrimp, crab or langostino instead, melt two or three tablespoons of butter, stir in a teaspoon of sweet paprika and let it bloom for thirty seconds off the heat, then use that as the fat in your dish. It is the single change that makes a substitute etouffee look and taste right.
Get the timing right, because most substitutes need less cooking than you expect. Crawfish tails from a bag are already cooked and only need three to five minutes to warm through. Precooked langostino and crab need two minutes or less, added off the heat. Raw shrimp needs two to three minutes and nothing more, so stir it in at the very end, turn the heat off, and let the residual warmth finish it or it will go rubbery.
Make stock from whatever shells you have. A pound of shrimp gives you a handful of shells that will simmer into a light stock in twenty minutes with an onion top, a bay leaf and a stalk of celery. That stock is how you replace the depth crawfish brought, and it improves etouffee, bisque and gumbo far more than adding extra seasoning does.
For a boil, cook the substitute separately and later. A crawfish boil is built around crawfish taking around five to eight minutes and soaking up seasoned liquid afterwards. Shrimp in their shells need two to three minutes and will be ruined by a long soak, and crab legs are already cooked. Boil the potatoes, corn and sausage first, then kill the heat and add the shellfish so it poaches gently in the seasoned water.
Adjust seasoning at the end, not the start. Precooked langostino and imported crayfish tails are often packed in salted water, canned crab carries salt, and Cajun and Creole spice blends are salty already. Season the vegetables and the roux lightly, add the seafood, then taste and finish with salt, cayenne and a squeeze of lemon.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use shrimp instead of crawfish in etouffee?

Yes, and shrimp etouffee is a standard dish in Louisiana rather than a substitution. Use the smallest peeled shrimp you can find, about a pound for a pound of crawfish tails, and stir them into the finished sauce for the last two or three minutes with the heat off. Make two adjustments and it will taste right: bloom a teaspoon of sweet paprika in a few tablespoons of butter to replace the orange crawfish fat, and use a light shrimp stock made from the shells instead of water. Shrimp is sweeter and firmer, so the dish tastes a little brighter and cleaner.

Are crawfish, crayfish and crawdads the same thing?

Yes, they are the same freshwater shellfish under different regional names, along with ecrevisses in French and yabbies in Australia. That matters when you are shopping, because a store that has nothing labelled crawfish may well have frozen crayfish tails in the international freezer section, often from China or Scandinavia. Those are the real thing and swap one for one. They are frequently blander than Louisiana tails and are sometimes packed in brine rather than their own fat, so drain them, taste before salting, and add a little paprika butter for richness.

What can I use for a crawfish boil if I cannot get crawfish?

A shrimp boil or a crab boil, and both are traditional in the same kitchens. Keep everything else identical, including the potatoes, corn, sausage, onions, garlic and heavy seasoning, and change only the timing. Boil the vegetables and sausage until the potatoes are tender, then turn the heat off before adding shell-on shrimp, which need just two or three minutes in the hot liquid, or crab legs, which only need warming since they arrive cooked. The long post-boil soak that crawfish loves will overcook both, so keep it short.

Can I just leave the crawfish out?

Not really, because in etouffee, bisque or crawfish pasta the shellfish is the point of the dish, providing the protein, the sweet marine flavour and much of the fat. If you have no seafood at all, the better move is to change the dish rather than gut it: chicken and andouille etouffee over rice is excellent and is cooked in Louisiana all the time. If your problem is a shellfish allergy, be careful with substitutes and stocks too, since shrimp stock, crab, langostino and many Cajun seasoning blends with seafood flavouring are all off limits.

How much shrimp equals a pound of crawfish tails?

A pound of peeled shrimp for a pound of peeled crawfish tails, since both are sold as edible meat with the work already done. If you are buying shell-on shrimp, allow roughly a pound and a half to two pounds to get a pound of peeled meat, and keep the shells for stock. If you are buying whole live or boiled crawfish, the yield is much lower, around six to seven pounds of whole crawfish for a pound of tail meat, which is exactly why the bagged tails exist.

Related substitutes

More seafood substitutes

Crawfish substitute

Other crawfish substitutes

2Langostino tails (frozen)

3Lump or claw crab meat

4Imported frozen crayfish tails

5Lobster or monkfish, cut into bite-sized pieces

6Chicken thigh with andouille and shrimp stock