Recipe

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This recipe captures the best New Orleans flavors in small crawfish hand pies. Watch out, before you know it… all you’ll have left are crumbs!

Keep reading to learn all my tips and shortcuts to make these crawfish hand pies at home with simple ingredients and very little effort.

crawfish pies on top of each other, one of them is cat in half

New Orleans Crawfish Hand Pies

You should know that I love Jazz Fest and that I ~~only~~ mostly go for the food. I’ve been known to eat two cochon de lait po-boys in one day plus a few more things just for lagniappe (this is what New Orleaneans say for ‘extra’ or “as a bonus’).

Last week, my neighbors had a crawfish boil. Lucky for me, my husband appreciates my cooking so much that after everyone ate crawfish at the party he had, two women peeled all the leftover crawfish. The result: two gallon-sized ziplock bags filled with peeled boiled crawfish!

The first thing I made was these crawfish hand pies! They are one of my favorite classic New Orleans recipes (after the cochon de lait). They are usually fried in huge friers and served hot. I personally hate cleaning up my kitchen after the oil splatters everywhere… so I bake them!

Ingredients

The amounts are in the printable recipe card, but first, let me show you what you need to make these crawfish hand pies and the swaps to save time:

Jambalaya: use homemade jambalaya rice leftovers (without the meat) or a box of cooked Zatarain’s jambalaya.
Crawfish: seasoned and cooked. Shrimp makes a good swap!
Pie crust dough: both homemade or store-bought work perfectly.
Egg: to brush the handpie’s tops and make them shine!
Milk: any milk mixed with the egg to make the tops golden.

How to Make Crawfish Hand Pies

Baking the crawfish hand pies makes this recipe easier and reduces cleanup to almost zero! Check out which are the steps and all my tips and shortcuts:

Prep
Preheat the oven and line a baking sheet. If you have jambalaya rice leftovers and boiled crawfish, jump to the next step. Otherwise, cook Zatarain’s jambalaya and saute the crawfish.
Combine
Combine jambalaya rice (without any meat) and the cooked crawfish.
Prep the dough
Cut the pie dough into circles with a round biscuit cutter or round glass. Reuse the leftover corner pieces by reshaping dough into a ball, re-roll, and cut.
Make the hand pies
Add the filling on the top of half of the dough circles, leaving a ¼″ space around the edges so you can close the hand pies easily. Cover with another dough circle and clamp the edges with a fork. If you want to get ultra fancy, you can make them in “half-pies” but I will warn you that they are harder to stuff and seal close.
Make them shine!
For golden tops, brush the crawfish hand pies with mixed egg and milk.
Cook
Bake the pies for 12-15 minutes. If you are really into fried foods, you could fry these in a pan with 2″ of hot oil or deep fryer.

side by side images of making the crawfish pie crust dough

What to Serve with Crawfish Hand Pies

Turn these crawfish hand pies into a complete feast by serving delicious side dishes! I like to keep this meal NOLA-style so my favorites are creole tomato salad, Louisiana coleslaw, creole French fries, or my Authentic New Orleans Chicken Gumbo Recipe!

Storing and Reheating Leftovers

Crawfish hand pie leftovers are rare to see! That said, if you have any leftovers, store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days. When you want to enjoy them, reheat in the oven at 350F for 6-8 minutes until heated through.

Crawfish Hand Pies (New Orleans Jazz Fest at Home)

Servings: 10 hand pies

Prep Time: 5

Cook Time: 12

Total Time: 17

This recipe captures the best New Orleans flavors in small crawfish hand pies. Watch out, before you know it… all you’ll have left are crumbs!

5 from 21 votes

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Ingredients

1 box Zatarains jambalaya , cooked following box directions
2 cups crawfish*, cleaned, peeled, and seasoned – about 1lb
1 box pie crust dough with 2 crusts, or homemade pie dough
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk

Instructions

Prep:

Preheat the oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone.

Prep the filling:

Either cook your jambalaya and reserve 3 cups of rice for this recipe or cook 1 box of Zatarain’s jambalaya. Do not add meat to it, just cook the rice.
In a large bowl, mix jambalaya and boiled crawfish. If you are using frozen crawfish (or shrimp) that has not been boiled or seasoned, saute these first on a pan with ½ – 1 teaspoon creole seasoning. Once cooked combine with jambalaya rice.

Prep the dough:

Make your own pie dough or lay store bought pie dough on a flat, floured surface. If using my homemade recipe, roll out to about ¼" thick.
Using a round biscuit cutter or round glass, cut 16-20 round circles. If using store-bought pie crust dough, you should be able to get 10 circles with a biscuit cutter. To reuse the leftover corner pieces, reshape the dough into a ball, re-roll, and cut.

Assemble:

Lay 8-10 round circles onto the lined baking pan. Begin filling circles with crawfish rice leaving a ¼" space around the edges. Top with another round pie dough circle (while stretching it a bit with your hands). Using a fork, clamp the edges all the way around.
Whisk the egg and milk in a shallow dish. Brush the tops of the pies with egg mixture.