What's the Difference Between Cajun and Creole? (2024)

Describing Louisiana not as a melting pot but as a big, bubbling pot of gumbo may sound just as cliche, but it's an accurate image. As West African, French, Spanish, and Choctaw cooking all contributed to the state's signature roux-based stew, the coming together of these cultures and others shaped Louisiana into a place like no other.

Many groups have inhabited this Southern state over the centuries, but none have made their mark on modern Louisiana like the Creoles and Cajuns. Here's the gist of who the historical Creoles and Cajuns were, the main differences between them, and the difference between their cuisines.

Creole vs. Cajun People

What Is Creole?

The term Creole came out of the European colonization of Louisiana. In 1682, France claimed land in North America as its own, dubbing it "La Louisiane" after King Louis XIV. In 1762, France handed over the Louisiana territory to Spain to pay back Spain for its aid in the Seven Years' War.

During this era, people used the term Creole to refer to children born in North America, whether of French, Spanish, or African descent, according to Louisiana State University (LSU) Libraries. Meaning "native born," Creole was derived from the French word criollo and the Spanish crioulo.

Though it's often assumed today, Creole didn't describe people of mixed race alone, nor was it a racial classification, LSU Libraries says. While many Creole people were in fact of mixed race, Creoles were also black or white, from African or European lineage. Historically, the label covered native-born slaves of African descent and free people of color alike.

As the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 opened up the territory to people of Anglo-Saxon descent and other immigrants, the term Creole became more significant in differentiating those already in the territory from newcomers, LSU Libraries says.

More than just a population, the term Creole came to refer to the unique, largely French-speaking culture that melded West African, French, and Spanish customs, not without the influence of the Native Americans who were rooted in the area. Though Creole people have assimilated over time, one aspect of the culture remains especially distinct: its food.

What Is Cajun?

Cajun is an English version of the word Acadian. Acadians are descendants of French settlers who first arrived in Acadia in modern Nova Scotia, Canada, in the early 17th century.

In 1755, a struggle for political control over Acadia led the British to deport a large number of Acadians to English colonies along the Eastern Seaboard. In the three decades that followed, Acadian exiles (about 2,600 to 3,000 people) who had yet to find a new home sailed to South Louisiana under the initiative of the Spanish governor of Louisiana, who hoped to counter British expansion, according to Shane K. Bernard, Ph.D., and Judy LaBorde, Ph.D.

Cajuns were poor, lived in rural areas, and spoke a different dialect of French than those who immigrated to Louisiana via France. This isolated Cajuns from other European immigrants, who saw them as inferior, Bernard and LaBorde say.

Yet, the slow assimilation of Cajun people to American culture (pockets of Cajuns spoke French as their first language till the mid-20th century) resulted in a strong identity that people in South Louisiana still rally around.

Cajun vs. Creole Food

Cajun Food

Cajuns were frugal with the already-limited resources available in rural Louisiana, and their cooking reflected this. Cajuns made sure to use every part of a slaughtered animal, according to South Louisiana chef and Food Network personality Jay Ducote.

In fact, families or communities would gather to butcher a whole hog at an event known as a boucherie. The products of a boucherie included tasso (a kind of ham) and andouille sausage, preserved with salt and smoke, Ducote says. Cooks combined scraps of pork meat with rice, onions, and seasoning into natural casings (in this case, pig intestines) to make boudin.

Cajuns often used rice, one of Louisiana's most abundant crops, to bulk up dishes. Cajuns living near bayous and other fresh-water sources found another affordable, accessible food in the form of crawfish, which resembled small versions of the lobsters the Acadians ate in Nova Scotia. And in time, people in South Louisiana used the same water-flooded, clay soil fields that yielded rice to also farm crawfish.

Creole Food

In the kitchens of aristocrats, meanwhile, slaves developed a Creole style of cooking, wedding ingredients available in the New World to the cooking techniques familiar to European colonists. Slaves drew on global flavors, including their own, to refine the cuisine. In fact, many African crops that crossed the Atlantic with enslaved people, including yams, okra, kidney beans, and black-eyed peas, became staple foods in Lousiana and across the South.

Creole-run kitchens could afford to take advantage of both imported ingredients and Louisiana's native seafood, game, and crops. Not to mention, access to dairy allowed cooks to prepare cream-based soups and sauces, like remoulade, Ducote says, further setting this cuisine apart from Cajun cooking.

Differences Between Creole and Cajun Food

To sum up the difference between Louisiana's two famous cuisines, consider Cajun cooking more rustic and Creole cooking more refined. Practically speaking, you can tell whether a recipe leans more Cajun or Creole by looking for a couple of key ingredients.

The type of roux a dish uses can tell you whether it has Creole or Cajun roots. As in France, a classic Creole roux consists of butter and flour. A Cajun roux consists of oil or lard and flour.

In addition, Creole cooking incorporates a lot of tomatoes. So, red, tomatoey versions of a dish like gumbo or jambalaya indicate a Creole influence. You can bet brown, tomato-free versions come from Cajun recipes.

Cajun vs. Creole Seasoning

The main difference between Cajun seasoning versus Creole seasoning comes down to spices versus herbs. That said, you'll find plenty of overlap in how people of these heritages cook and use seasoning.

Popular Cajun seasonings like Tony Chachere's and Slap Ya Mama get heat from red pepper, with black pepper, salt, and garlic powder in the mix to enhance the flavor of food. Creole seasoning rounds out spicy red pepper with herbs like thyme, oregano, basil, and bay leaf.

Similarities Between Creole and Cajun Food

Despite their differences, Louisiana's Creole and Cajun cultures certainly overlap, as these groups lived in the same region, developed during the same time, and even shared a heritage.

Both Creole and Cajun cuisines draw on the cooking techniques of their French heritage, such as roux-based cooking and building flavor with a trinity of vegetables called mirepoix, the predecessor to the Cajun holy trinity of vegetables.

Yet, cooks in North America were met with the challenge of adapting traditional dishes, trading familiar ingredients (like carrots in mirepoix) for ones that could grow in Louisiana's subtropical climate. These included crops that Native Americans cultivated and shared with settlers, like sassafras (an herb used to make a filé, an earthy-tasting powder that thickens and flavors gumbo) and corn.

Rice, first imported to North America from Madagascar, became integral to Creole and Cajun cooking. Planters sought African slaves to cultivate the crop, who then introduced their rice irrigation methods to the continent at the beginning of the 18th century, according to the LSU College of Agriculture.

While it's no surprise that elements of West African, Caribbean, Spanish, Native American, and even German cooking contributed to Creole cuisine, Cajun cooking would also look much different without these cultures around to shape it over time.