Seafood Stuffed Monkey Bread

This savoury version of the popular monkey bread is similar to crawfish bread found at New Orleans Jazzfest. Each bite is stuffed with your choice of seafood, creole seasoning, and lots of cheese!

Holding biscuit stuffed with seafood and cheese.

Monkey bread is a popular recipe that has been around for years. If you have never had monkey bread before, it is quite simple to make. You take homemade dough, or go the store bought route and get a couple tubes of Pillsbury country biscuits. Cut the biscuits in halves or quarters, roll them in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon and throw them in a bundt pan. Bake it and you have some sweet baked goodness! Today’s recipe takes the monkey bread concept and turns it into a savoury gameday food.

Many years ago, my family drove to Detroit to see a New Orleans Jazz Festival. The music was great and the atmosphere was a lot of fun. One thing about the day that I still remember was this crawfish bread that I bought. It was a hand sized bread, like a large empanada. It was stuffed with crawfish and gooey cheese. It was incredible and I still think about it!

A close up picture of baked biscuits in a bundt pan.

So, I thought it would be amazing if I could take what I remember about the crawfish bread from Jazzfest and merge it into monkey bread.

Monkey bread is so good and I already have a dessert version: Praline Monkey Bread.

A plate of cooked lagostina meat.

I wanted to find crawfish for this dish, but crawfish is difficult to find in Canada. I went to a local fish and seafood market that sells bricks of frozen crawfish meat occasionally.

Unfortunately, they did not have any in stock. Instead, I bought a brick of langostino meat. Langostino is a crustacean caught off the coast of Chile. They look similar in size to crawfish. I thought that this could work perfectly for this savoury monkey bread.

Place some filling on top of some biscuit dough.

I sauteed the langostino meat with butter, minced onion, pepper and a little creole seasoning. Each little ball of dough is stuffed with some of the langostino mixture and mozzarella cheese. They are then brushed with melted garlic butter and placed in the bundt pan. The stuffed monkey bread baked perfectly and it tasted delicious. In the end, it wasn’t crawfish, but it was awesome. I imagine these little monkey bread bites could be stuffed many types of seafood: crawfish, shrimp, langostino, lobster, crab.

I used langostino, but almost any seafood could work. Make sure they are small enough pieces so you can seal the edges of the dough. Do not overstuff it with filling.

Fold the biscuit dough around the filling to seal.

Make sure you brush the bundt pan and each ball of dough with melted butter. That way they can pull apart easily after they are baked.

A bundt pan filled will stuffed biscuits.

Once you brush the ball of dough, place it in the bundt pan.

Once you have finished throwing all the stuffed dough balls in the mold, it is ready to go in the oven!

Monkey bread baked and ready to be removed from the bundt pan.

Bake it in a 400F oven for 30-35 minutes. The top will be nice and brown. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes before flipping it and removing it from the bundt pan.

Baked monkey bread on a plate.

The monkey bread turned out amazing! Golden brown and stuffed with cheesy seafood goodness. It is delicious on its own but is also great with a marinara dip or hot sauce!

A bite sized biscuit stuffed with seafood and cheese.

Seafood Stuffed Monkey Bread

A close up picture of baked biscuits in a bundt pan.
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This savoury version of the popular monkey bread is similar to crawfish bread found at New Orleans Jazzfest. Each bite of bread is stuffed with your seafood of choice and lots of cheese!
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 50 minutes
Servings: 4

Ingredients

  • 2 tubes Pillsbury country biscuits
  • 1 pound seafood meat (crawfish, shirmp, crab, lagostino)
  • 2 cups mozzarella cheese , grated
  • 1/2 cup onion , minced
  • 1/4 cup red pepper , minced
  • 1/4 cup green pepper , minced
  • 1 1/2 creole seasoning
  • 6 tbsp butter
  • 6 garlic cloves , minced

Instructions

  • Melt 2 tbsp of butter in a frypan. Add the onions, peppers salt and pepper, cooking until translucent. Add the seafood meat (crawfish, langostino, shrimp, crab, lobster) and cook for a couple more minutes. Remove from heat and cool completely.
  • In a pan melt the remaining butter with the minced garlic. Cook on medium heat for a few minutes. Do not let the garlic burn. Remove from the heat. Brush the bundt pan with some of the garlic butter.
  • Cut each of the pillsbury biscuit dough rounds in half. Flatten and stretch to make a circle. Add about a teaspoon of the seafood filling and a little bit of grated cheese. Fold the edges over and pinch to seal. Form it into a ball and brush with garlic butter. Keep filling the bundt pan with the balls of dough.
  • Bake in a 400F oven for 30-35 minutes. The top of the monkey bread should be a golden brown. Remove from the heat and let rest for 10-15 minutes.
  • Flip the bundt pan onto a serving plate. Serve the monkey bread hot.

Categories

Holding biscuit stuffed with seafood and cheese.

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Leave a comment and let me know how it turned out. Or, take a picture to share on Instagram and tag me @theblackpeppercorn.

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26 comments

  • Great recipe. I am in importer of langstino meat and I just added a link back to this page on our langostino Facebook page where I have a collection of many great langostino recipes.

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  • Wow, I have never seen anything like this! What an ingenuous idea 🙂

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  • Wow! I’m a native New Orleanian, and I just spent a good portion of this Easter Sunday morning peeling the remains of several pounds of crawfish left over from a Good Friday feast.

    I usually make homemade crawfish fettucini, and was wanting to do something different, so I looked up recipes for our local crawfish bread and crawfish pie, which are awesome.

    I came across your recipe and have to say it looks incredible! We have monkey bread here, but your twist looks divine! From Canada to New Orleans, thanks for teaching an old dog a new trick; I WILL be making this!!! I’m so happy that I can get crawfish year-round, fresh or frozen, just so I can try new ideas!

    Laissez les bons temps rouler!

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  • This looks fabulous! Reminds me of the pepperoni pizza monkey bread I made – it gets requested at nearly every party now! Here is my version: http://blog.healthyandsane.com/2011/10/pizza-monkey-bread-pomi-giveaway/

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  • awesome!

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  • Such a fun idea. I’ve been wanting to make a savory monkey bread.

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  • That is such a great idea! I’m allergic to shrimp, but that would work with all kinds of stuff – sweet or savory. I’m totally digging this one!

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  • Wow, this looks amazing!! Such a unique and delicious twist on monkey bread…I wouldn’t be able to stop eating these gems!

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  • Wow… now that’s awesome!!! I have been wanting to do a savory monkey bread… but I never thought to make it with seafood. Well done!! Hope you’re all ready for your super bowl now. 🙂 Have a great weekend! Ramona 🙂

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  • This sounds really MONKEY yummy!:P
    Monkey bread is just so cute, I love the name and the sound of it;) Stuffing seafood into this unique bread makes it even more tempting 😉

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  • I’ve never had monkey bread – been resisting the temptation – but I love the idea of savory rather than sweet. And anything with melty cheese gets my vote.And shellfish. Oh my. Crayfish abound in the summer time in Minnesota lakes – but right now – all we can get are frozen walleye (if we’re lucky) from the lake! Saving this – it’s too unique to pass down.

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    • I enjoy monkey bread in both the sweet and savory variations. Stuffing with cheese and seafood though makes this version my fav!

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  • Sheer briilance adding seafood I cant believe I didnt think of that your a genius Steve this is truly fabulous!

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    • Thanks Claudia!

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  • What *is* monkeybread? This looks fantastic, I would love a seafood stuffed bread like this 🙂

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    • Here is a link to wikipedia about Monkey Bread – here. Wikipedia says it became popular in the 1950s. Such an odd name though – LOL. Typical monkey bread is little bite size bites of a bread that is rolled in cinnamon sugar or caramel or something. I wanted to do a savoury twist on it.

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  • Boy, I really should get out more, I need to eat something and then make it at home-now you have me wondering what all I am missing from cajun cuisine. This monkey bread sounds amazing…oh by the looks of these comments I think that the sales of crawfish and langostinos just took a big jump. This is the best one yet Steve-delicious!

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    • Thanks Tina! You do need to try crawfish bread sometime. It is awesome

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  • OMG Drool!! I love the seafood choices you’ve made. I’ve recently become obsessed with crawfish (used to be langostines). They’re soooo delicious! This really sounds amazing.

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    • Yeah, I wish crawfish was more available up here

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  • Great recipe. Love this.

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  • Awesome recipe Steve! Man, I haven’t had langostinos and crawfish in ages!

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    • I loved the taste of the langostinos. I will definitely get the again!

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  • Wow Steve. I love monkey bread and stuffing it with crawfish or lobster sounds insane…yet brilliant at the same time. 🙂 Great job on the entire series!

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    • Thanks!

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  • This is AWESOME, Steve! I love, love it!

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