which is spicier cajun or creole?
The main difference between Cajun and Creole seasoning is the pepper used in each seasoning. Cajun uses cayenne pepper to provide a little heat to a dish, while Creole seasoning uses several kinds of pepper— black, white, and cayenne.
Hotter Creole seasoning might contain flakes or powder from hotter peppers.
While Cajun and Creole foods, costumes, and sensibilities both center in and around New Orleans, the two cultures have very different origins. The seasoning blends are similar in their contents, but they are not identical. Each one imparts specific qualities to the dishes in which it’s used.
Cajuns were of French origin, coming to the New World and settling in Canada in the 17th century. They called their new home Acadia, but they found themselves forced south when they wouldn’t bow the knee to King Charles II of England. New Orleanians called them Acadians. Bastardization eventually turned that into “Cajun.”
On the other hand, the Creoles were generally people of a much more diverse background. Often raised in or near the West Indies, Creoles tended to have French ancestry and Native American, black, or Spanish roots. Many of them were what we now would call mixed race.
While this list of basic ingredients shows the two blends to be nearly identical, there is a lot more cayenne in Creole seasoning and more paprika. Adding the garlic, in addition to the larger dose of pepper ingredients, makes Creole much hotter than Cajun, though both add spiciness to any dish.
Due to their similar makeup, the two seasonings can be used interchangeably, but you will want to be aware of what you’ll be getting when using one instead of the other.
You don’t have to scale the amount you use— if a recipe calls for a tablespoon of Cajun seasoning, you can absolutely use a tablespoon of Creole seasoning instead, but you’ll need to be aware of the difference in heat you’ll get.
If you or your diners are overly sensitive to hot, spicy food, using the same amount of Creole seasoning that the recipe asks for of Cajun seasoning will make the dish quite a bit hotter than it would have been with Cajun seasoning.
The reverse is true, too— if you need a teaspoon of Creole seasoning but have only Cajun, then you’ll need to use more than the recipe calls for to approach the spicy kick the Creole seasoning would have brought.
For a ratio, start with 2:1, then adjust for taste as you need to. Unlike baking, when it comes to cooking, if your measurements aren’t precise, you can still have a very successful dish. If what you’re making calls for a tablespoon of Cajun seasoning, start with one and a half teaspoons of Creole seasoning.
Need one teaspoon of Creole, but only have Cajun? Start with two teaspoons. If you taste it and feel like the dish needs more heat, add a little more.
Cajun seasoning is a blend of spices with European connotations that have been ratcheted up to a New World flavor with the addition of a little cayenne pepper. The earthy flavors of thyme, basil, and oregano that form the flavor palate of many European cuisines join with the cayenne to boost the flavor mix.
Is creole seasoning spicy? It is, but it won’t make your food too hot to be enjoyable. The heat of the cayenne pepper doesn’t mask the flavors. A dish flavored with Cajun seasoning will rarely be so hot as to make the diners sweat or feel like they’re on an episode of “Hot Ones.”
Chefs use Cajun seasoning to give an instant Southern or New Orleans vibe to food, and unless you’re talking about breakfast cereal, pretty much anything you cook can benefit from it. Use it as a rub before cooking or grilling meat, chicken, pork, or seafood, but also realize that you can almost treat it like salt— a more complex salt.
Mix it into the breading you’ll coat something in before you fry it, sprinkle it on corn on the cob before or after it goes on the grill, season vegetables with it, or season your gumbo with it. Stirring Cajun seasoning into the roux for your gumbo is kind of imperative, actually.
Creole seasoning is much spicier than Cajun seasoning. It uses more cayenne pepper. It also contains garlic that Cajun seasoning doesn’t have. In addition to the cayenne, it usually contains ground black pepper and white pepper, which generally isn’t as hot as black pepper.
Still, it’s pepper. It brings a little heat with it, and when added to the other peppers, and considering that Creole seasoning uses much more cayenne than Cajun does, the seasoning blend is hotter and spicier.
The culinary traditions of the West Africans whose cooking proliferated in the West Indies called for hotter spices. Before slavers forcibly brought these men and women to the New World, many West African cultures used spices from the Arab part of the world.
The slave trade brought chilies to Africa, so when those people found themselves on the other side of the world, they couldn’t get the Arab stuff, but they still had peppers. One reason the Africans preferred such heat in their food stemmed from the hot climate in which they lived.
The West Africans understood the principle of evaporative cooling. They knew that if they ate hot foods, they would sweat. In turn, the sweat helped cool their bodies. The fact that spicy foods tasted great was probably just icing on the cake.
The way you use Creole seasoning can be summed up in a word: carefully. This is especially true if you or your dinner guests are particularly sensitive to hot foods. Think of it this way: if Cajun seasoning were a jalapeno pepper, Creole seasoning might be a habanero pepper.
Maybe that’s too extreme a choice for Creole, but the principle remains the same: when using a habanero in your cooking, you’ll use less than you would with a jalapeno unless you want your food to be hotter than it would be with that jalapeno.
Cajun food is typically spicier than Creole food, and it also contains more pork and crawfish.
I have to admit that I’ve always been a bit confused about the terms Cajun and Creole and always assumed that the two were interchangeable—not true. The first image that came to mind when I heard either word is “hot,” as in spicy—also not the case.
If you’re heading to New Orleans, the simplest way to distinguish between the two is that Creole cuisine is known as “city food” and Cajun is “country food.” Another distinguishing factor is that you’ll find tomatoes used in Creole cuisine, but not in proper Cajun food (with a few exceptions). While spicy dishes are found in both cuisines, every dish isn’t necessarily spicy…it all depends on how much cayenne pepper is used in the recipe. Cajun dishes tend to be a bit hotter than Creole.
In order to understand where the terms come from, it’s important to know a little bit of Louisiana history…
The word Cajun is derived from the term “les Acadians.” French settlers from Acadian Canada—New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island—were forced to leave their homes by the British in the mid-1700s, and find somewhere new to live. Many of them found their way to swampy Louisiana and settled in what is now known as Acadiana.
Being highly resourceful, they found ways to live off the land and the sea, as well as how to make use of every part of a slaughtered animal. The well-known Andouille sausage—which incorporates pork, along with smoke and seasonings—is one such dish originating from the Cajuns. Because there was no refrigeration, salts and smoke were used as preservatives. Seasoning—such as cayenne, paprika, garlic, thyme and green onions—play an important role in Cajun cooking. A French mirepoix—consisting of chopped celery, onions and bell pepper—provides the base of many dishes. This combination of vegetables is known as the “holy trinity of Cajun cuisine.”
The word Creole was used to describe the descendants of the French and Spanish upper class who ruled the city of New Orleans. The term eventually came to include native-born slaves as well as free people of color. Typically, French Creole is used to describe those with European heritage, while Louisiana Creole refers to those of mixed race.
Creole food is a combination of the cuisines of all the many races that inhabited New Orleans over the years. You’ll find influences from the French, Germans, Italians, Caribbean, Spanish and more. This cuisine is more complicated, contains more ingredients than the Cajuns had access to, and is thus thought of as being more aristocratic. Going back to my earlier comment about Creoles using tomatoes—the Cajuns didn’t have access to the precious fruit and that’s why Creole jambalaya uses tomatoes, but Cajun jambalaya doesn’t.
Louisiana is the place to visit for authentic Cajun and Creole cooking. Join us on our New Orleans Culinary Tour and experience the difference for yourself. Contact us or call 1-206-317-1860 if you’d like to join us on the delicious tour.
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Photo Credits: Gumbo header photo – Shannon Dosemagen via Flickr Barbecue shrimp – Pat Awmack Gumbo – Jeffrey W. via Flickr Chicken and Andouille sausage jambalaya – Jessica Rossi via Flickr
