First, chop all of your veggies and herbs. This will make things so much easier when timing is important down the line, because you can just dump your ingredients in. Have your butter measured out and ready to go, and your rice measured out and rinsed.

Now chop up your sausage—I did mine in half moons—and basically dice up your baked tofu. You want your tofu to be the size of really small cubed ham. Set the tofu aside for later, and fry the sausage in a few Tbsp of oil until it is lightly browned on each side. Set the fried sausage aside.

Now to the roux. Pour the canola oil and sprinkle the four into the bottom of a large, deep pot or dutch oven. Have your diced onion, garlic, bell peppers, celery, and butter handy. Turn the heat to medium-high and begin stirring the oil and flour together. You won’t stop stirring now until your roux is done! As you stir, the oil and flour will come together and lose all lumpy-ness. The roux will go from looking like white paste, to bubbly white stuff, and then it will begin to brown. Keep stirring. You are doing it right unless it begins to smell burnt and black flecks appear. If you begin to smell burn, you can still save it! Turn down the heat to medium and keep stirring until the roux gets to a golden brown color.

After about 3-5 minutes, your roux will turn a golden brown color. It is done! Now we move fast! Turn the heat down to medium and toss in your diced onion, garlic, celery, and both bell peppers. Mix everything together so that the roux coats all your veggies. Once this happens, throw in the 2 Tbsp butter and 1 tsp sea salt. Mix again until the butter melts and coats everything.

Let the veggies cook on medium heat (turn down the heat a bit if things are sticking to the bottom of the pan too much) for 10 minutes, until the onion is translucent and the peppers have softened a bit, but still have a bit of their crisp, rawness.

Once boiling, add the rice. Give it a good mix, then once again, wait for the pot to come to a boil. Once it is boiling, turn the heat down to low and cover, with the lid slightly ajar. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Now back to the small cubed tofu! In the same pan you fried your sausage in (but now your sausage is not in the pan!), add another Tbsp of oil and over medium –high heat, add the tofu. Cook for about five minutes. The tofu will sizzle and start to darken. Now add the Frank’s hot sauce, liquid smoke, brown sugar, sea salt, and aminos. Mix everything together and let it continue to sizzle away for 10 minutes, mixing every so often. Play with the heat a bit here. If medium high is too hot and the tofu is burning, turn down to medium. If medium is not high enough and the tofu is not browning and getting crispier, turn up the heat to medium-high. After ten minutes, your tofu ham is done!

And your rice has finished its 15 minutes of simmering too! Remove the lid from the pot and stir the jambalaya a few times, helping to release any rice that may be sticking to the bottom of the pan. Then add your veggie sausage and tofu ham. Mix a few times so that they are well incorporated, put the lid back on the pot, and cook your jambalaya for five more minutes.

After five minutes, take the jambalaya off the heat, remove the lid, and add the parsley, cilantro, scallions, and lemon juice. Stir everything together, then cover the pot once more and (remember, off the heat!) let everything steam together for five minutes. You did it!!!!! Now uncover and serve your masterpiece (: