Celebrate Mardi Gras With These Classic New Orleans Recipes

Whether or not you observe Lent, Fat Tuesday is a great excuse for an indulgent New Orleans-style feast. We have all the Mardi Gras recipes you need, from colorful king cake and crawfish étouffée to gumbo and bananas Foster. Make sure you have the right tools and ingredients for gumbo: the thick, rich stew is great no matter what you put in it and is a great way to clean out leftover vegetables from your fridge. Oysters and okra are also perfect for the holiday and require only minutes to prepare. For even more Cajun food recipes, check out our <a href="https://www.saveur.com/gallery/Classic-New-Orleans-Recipes/">classic New Orlean's recipes</a>. We've rounded up our favorite Mardi Gras recipes here. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Crawfish-Etouffee-Recipe">Get the recipe for this Crawfish Etouffée</a> (Todd Coleman/)
This recipe combines inexpensive cuts of meat, including oxtail, ground sausage, and turkey necks, yielding a rich, hearty gumbo that, despite its humble ingredients, is nothing short of extraordinary. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/oxtail-gumbo">Get the recipe for Oxtail Gumbo</a> (Ingalls Photography/)
Pickled okra is great smothered in tomato. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/smothered-okra">Get the recipe for Smothered Okra</a> (Ingalls Photography/)
This stew uses rendered duck fat in the roux instead of butter and quartered ducks in lieu of the classic chicken. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/duck-leg-and-andouille-sausage-gumbo-recipe">Get the recipe for Duck and Andouille Gumbo</a> (Christina Holmes/)
Located in a Lafayette, Louisiana farmhouse from the 1830s that has served as both a Confederate Army headquarters and, during the city's 1980s oil boom, a singles bar, Café Vermilionville smokes the turkey for this luxurious gumbo right out back in a makeshift smoker. The resulting dish embodies the rich flavors of dark roux and barbecued meat. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/smoked-turkey-and-andouille-gumbo/">Get the recipe for Smoked Turkey and Andouille Gumbo</a> (Ingalls Photography/)
This classic oyster stew from Justin Devillier, the chef of La Petite Grocery in New Orleans, is packed full of Swiss chard and flavored with smoky ham and absinthe, which perfumes each steaming bite with an enticing note of licorice. The buttermilk biscuits on top are just as delicious cooked separately and slathered with butter and honey. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/oyster-pie-with-buttermilk-biscuits-recipe">Get the recipe for Oyster Pie with Buttermilk Biscuits</a> (Christina Holmes; Spoon from Old World Kitchen/)
Grilling fish skin-side-down with scales still attached protects the delicate meat and insulates it from the heat, resulting in perfectly tender flesh. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/grilled-redfish-on-half-shell-with-milk-grits-recipe">Get the recipe for Redfish on the Half Shell with Creamy Grits</a> (Christina Holmes/)
This traditional Mardi Gras cake, made here with rich brioche dough and stuffed with a decadent cream cheese filling, is drizzled with a buttermilk glaze and sprinkled with crunchy green, gold, and purple sanding sugars. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/King-Cake/">Get the recipe for King Cake</a> (D.J. Costantino/)
New Orleans chef Donald Link was born and raised in the Cajun town of Lake Charles, Louisiana, and this rustic gumbo, which is often served at his St. Charles Avenue restaurant Herbsaint, always reminds him of home. To give the gumbo added flavor, Link makes his roux with the same oil he uses to fry the chicken, which he later shreds and adds to the pot, along with his homemade andouille sausage. The result is a dark, thick, rustic stew with just the right amount of heat. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/fried-chicken-and-andouille-gumbo/">Get the recipe for Fried Chicken and Andouille Gumbo</a> (Chris Granger/)
Two of our favorite New Orleans desserts combine in an extravagant white chocolate and banana rum bread pudding. <a href="http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/White-Chocolate-Bread-Pudding">Get the recipe for White Chocolate Bread Pudding with Bananas and Rum Sauce</a> (Todd Coleman/)
Banana liqueur heightens the flavor of the bananas in this flambeed dessert from the New Orleans restaurant Brennan's. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Brennans-Bananas-Foster">Get the recipe for Brennan's Bananas Foster</a> (Matt Taylor-Gross/)
Fried oysters are paired with a garlicky sauce in a toothsome appetizer served at Upperline, a restaurant in New Orleans' Uptown neighborhood. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Upperlines-Oysters-St-Claude/">Get the recipe for Upperline's Oysters St. Claude</a> (Todd Coleman/)
Spicy paprika and whole-grain mustard sauce coats plump shrimp in this classic New Orleans red rémoulade from the late chef Warren Leruth. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/leruths-red-shrimp-remoulade">Get the recipe for LeRuth's Red Shrimp Rémoulade</a> (Ingalls Photography/)
This ubiquitous New Orleans dish was invented at Antoine's in 1889. <a href="https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Oysters-Rockefeller-recipe">Get the recipe for Oysters Rockefeller</a> (Todd Coleman/)
In this slow-cooking Creole classic, ham hocks give the dish a savory, smoky depth. <a href="https://www.saveur.com//article/Recipes/Classic-Red-Beans-Rice">Get the recipe for Red Beans and Rice</a> (Maxime Iattoni/)