You can serve creamy, cajun crawfish bisque as an appetizer, or with French bread or rice for a decadent entree. 


Cajun Crawfish Bisque Recipe: How to Make Crawfish Bisque

Crawfish bisque is a thick cream soup that chefs purée and strain for a fine, smooth final result. Traditional bisque recipes feature seafood like lobster, crayfish, shrimp, clams, or crab meat as the main ingredient—chefs typically grind the crustacean shells into a fine paste to thicken the mixture. However, modern bisques may use puréed vegetables or aromatics in place of shellfish and thicken the base with rice or other starches. 

Other key ingredients of bisque soups are heavy cream and white wine. Common bisques include lobster bisque, seafood bisque, crab bisque, and tomato bisque. Crawfish bisque is often topped with toasted bread crumbs or stuffed crawfish heads.

A popular theory for the name “bisque” is that it comes from the French words “bis” and “cuite,” which roughly translates to “twice-cooked,” a reference to the soup’s two-stage cooking process.

French colonization of Louisiana in the early eighteenth century led to strong French influence in creole and cajun cuisine. In the gulf of Louisiana, where seafood (particularly shellfish like crabs and crawfish) are plentiful, this version of the French classic is made with crawfish. Cooks mix this bisque with creole seasoning and cayenne pepper for a little heat to balance the sugars in the shellfish. In New Orleans, this is a popular dish at the end of Louisiana crawfish season as a way to utilize leftover crawfish shells to make crawfish stock.

You can serve creamy, cajun crawfish bisque as an appetizer, or with French bread or rice for a decadent entree. 


Crawfish bisque is a thick cream soup that chefs purée and strain for a fine, smooth final result. Traditional bisque recipes feature seafood like lobster, crayfish, shrimp, clams, or crab meat as the main ingredient—chefs typically grind the crustacean shells into a fine paste to thicken the mixture. However, modern bisques may use puréed vegetables or aromatics in place of shellfish and thicken the base with rice or other starches. Other key ingredients of bisque soups are heavy cream and white wine. Common bisques include lobster bisque, seafood bisque, crab bisque, and tomato bisque. Crawfish bisque is often topped with toasted bread crumbs or stuffed crawfish heads.

What Is Crawfish Bisque?

A popular theory for the name “bisque” is that it comes from the French words “bis” and “cuite,” which roughly translates to “twice-cooked,” a reference to the soup’s two-stage cooking process.French colonization of Louisiana in the early eighteenth century led to strong French influence in creole and cajun cuisine. In the gulf of Louisiana, where seafood (particularly shellfish like crabs and crawfish) are plentiful, this version of the French classic is made with crawfish. Cooks mix this bisque with creole seasoning and cayenne pepper for a little heat to balance the sugars in the shellfish. In New Orleans, this is a popular dish at the end of Louisiana crawfish season as a way to utilize leftover crawfish shells to make crawfish stock.

What Is the Origin of Crawfish Bisque?

Cajun Crawfish Bisque Recipe

You can serve creamy, cajun crawfish bisque as an appetizer, or with French bread or rice for a decadent entree.