Best Seafood Chowder Recipe is made with shrimp, clams, and crab meat; a delicious, creamy “chowdah” bursting with flavor!
We are so in love with clam chowder, especially this time of year. Today’s recipe, Best Seafood Chowder Recipe, you’re going to want to add to your holiday menu! And friends, have you bought my new cookbook? Buy Big Boards for Families today! It’s “editor’s pick” on Amazon this month!
Table of Contents
Best Seafood Chowder Recipe
Perfect for any soup night, this recipe is particularly “special” on the weekend. Like a Friday night … :) It’s a soulful meal, and everyone just seems to love a good bowl of “chowdah.”
Made with your favorite seafood, we added bay shrimp, crab meat and clams!
It’s creamy, and delicious served with a hot crunchy bread.
Friends, I love my home in the fall months. It’s crispy cold in the mornings, and warm and breezy in the afternoon. It reminds me of how much I love soup this time of year.
I can smell autumn dancing in the breeze. The sweet chill of pumpkin, and crisp sunburnt leaves.
– Ann Drake
Ingredients for Best Seafood Chowder
Bacon
Butter
Celery + leeks + onion + garlic
Potatoes
Broth
Clam juice + clams
Salt + pepper + dried thyme
Flour
Half-and-half
Salad shrimp (bay shrimp)
Crabmeat
Bay leaf
Old Bay seasoning
Chopped fresh chives or green onions, for garnish
TIP FOR BREAD: I love to keep my favorite bread in the freezer. When company comes, or I need a loaf for last-minute, I put a loaf in the microwave to defrost for a couple of minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees: Bake thawed bread for 10 minutes. If the bread is still frozen, bake for about 15-20 minutes.
OurBest Clam Chowder video has over 22 million views on Facebook! That’s right, it’s that good, and gets a lot of controversy with the bacon. HA. [PS. Do you follow me on Facebook?]
Do you love bacon in clam chowder? We do! So we have added it to this Best Seafood Chowder Recipe, too.
A few chowder tips:
Always add the clam juice.
Optional to add bacon, but it’s SO good. It’s great for garnish!
Add chicken bouillon powder for more taste, if you want.
You can add fewer potatoes, and cut them really small.
Leeks are optional, but they make the soup SO good.
How to make seafood chowder
Cook the bacon (drain fat, but keep some in the pot). Add butter to the drippings; saute celery, leek, and onion until tender. Add garlic.
Stir in the potatoes, broth, clam juice, salt, pepper and thyme.
Combine flour and 1 cup half-and-half until smooth. Gradually stir into the soup. Cook until thickened.
Stir in (drained) clams, shrimp, crabmeat, and remaining half-and-half. Add in 4 strips of crumbled bacon, and season to taste with Old Bay seasoning.
Crumble the reserved 2 strips of bacon. Garnish chowder with crumbled bacon and fresh chopped chives.
Serve with HOT crunchy bread!
Share soup with friends
We live in unusual times, but we can still gather in small groups.
I say, take simple pleasures this fall, like hosting a small meal. Cook, serve the food (you can always make my Clam Chowder Dinner Board), and listen and learn. We’ve enjoyed being with friends, family, and new neighbors this year. Even with many restrictions, being together and sharing meals has been a gift.
We anticipate tomorrow, with joy in our hearts, while living deeply in the present.
Being present with good food and good conversation!
3-4small potatoes, red potatoes or Yukon gold, peeled and cubed
2cupsbroth, chicken or vegetable
2 8ouncebottles clam juice
1tspwhite pepper
1tspsalt
1tspdried thyme
2/3cupall-purpose flour
4cupshalf-and-half, divided
36 ½ oz canswhole clams, chopped into chunky pieces, drained
6ozsalad shrimp, bay shrimp
6ozcrabmeat, shredded
Bay leaf
1-2TbspOld Bay seasoning
Chopped fresh chives or green onions, for garnish
Instructions
In a Dutch oven, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp. Remove to paper towels to drain; set aside. Add butter to the drippings (you can spoon out some of the drippings if you don’t want to use that much); saute celery, leek, and onion until tender. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Stir in the potatoes, broth, clam juice, salt, pepper and thyme. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 15-20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
In a small bowl, combine flour and 1 cup half-and-half until smooth. Gradually stir into the soup. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened.
Stir in (drained) clams, shrimp, crabmeat, and remaining 3 cups of half-and-half; heat through (do not boil); turn down to low heat; add the bay leaf. Cook for additional 2-3 minutes on low heat. Add in 4 strips of crumbled bacon, and season to taste with Old Bay seasoning.
Crumble the reserved 2 strips of bacon. Garnish chowder with crumbled bacon and fresh chopped chives.
Customarily, chowder included onion, potatoes, and cream. Nowadays, not all chowders adhere to these guidelines. New England Clam Chowder is sometimes made with milk, whereas Manhattan Clam Chowder doesn't have any milk or cream but has a tomato base instead.
New England clam chowder is perhaps the most popular and well-known iteration of the dish. It's a classic combination of clams, onions, corn, celery, bacon or salt pork, and potatoes.
To replace 1 cup (237 mL) of heavy cream in your recipe, add 2 tablespoons (19 grams) of cornstarch to 1 cup (237 mL) of milk and stir, allowing the mixture to thicken. You can use whole milk or opt for skim milk to help slash the calories and fat content of your recipe.
Roux (pronounced roo) is a mixture of equal weights (parts) of flour and fat (usually clarified butter; chicken fat, bacon fat, and margarine are also used) cooked over medium heat and stirred constantly. Roux is the most common thickener for sauces and soups.
What Is Clam Chowder Supposed to Taste Like? New England clam chowder is a mix of creamy soup and briny, salty, chewy clams. This is complemented with soft onions, celery, and cubed potatoes. Seasonings like pepper enhance the soup, preventing it from being bland.
Many regional variations exist, but the three most prevalent are New England or "white" clam chowder, which includes milk or cream, Manhattan or "red" clam chowder, which includes tomatoes, and Rhode Island or "clear" clam chowder, which omits both.
Chowder is a soup with cream or milk mixed with ingredients such as potatoes, sweet corn, smoked haddock, clams and prawns, etc. Some cream-style chowders do not use cream, and are instead prepared using milk and a roux to thicken them.
Although a bisque and a chowder are both cream-based soups and most often feature seafood, it is their consistency that defines them and makes them quite different from each other. Whereas a bisque is smooth, a chowder is chunky, chock full of hearty pieces of ingredients such as potato and clams or corn.
Cream is used to add richness to soup, as the extra fat makes it delicious. Be sure not to bring it to a boil, but rather, add it in at the last minute before serving. The best item to thicken a soup is some sort of starch, whether from flour, cornstarch, arrowroot, or even a lot of potatoes.
You really only have three choices when it comes to dairy for your chowder. You can use whole milk (hom*o milk), you can use heavy cream, or you can use a combination of the two. Any milk with a fat content lower than 3.25% is likely to split when heat, salt, acid, or even the seafood is added.
Sour cream is an easy replacement for heavy cream. It can be easily stirred into a dish and offers another flavor profile to soups, stews and sauces. Plus, using it as a heavy cream substitute is a great way to use up that lingering tub in the fridge.
These three ingredients can be used in place of heavy cream with a one-to-one substitution with just a few caveats. Sour cream will add tanginess to your dish, and if you use it for soups or other hot dishes, it's best to add it in at the end to avoid curdling.
Starches like flour or cornstarch help stabilize the milk emulsion. This will prevent it from separating. A common technique is to thicken your sauce or soup with roux before adding the milk. This changes the makeup of the liquid and prevents curdling.
Chowder is a soup with cream or milk mixed with ingredients such as potatoes, sweet corn, smoked haddock, clams and prawns, etc. Some cream-style chowders do not use cream, and are instead prepared using milk and a roux to thicken them.
Chowder is a rich, creamy soup that often contains clams and potatoes. Seafood chowders are typical in the Northeast, with New England clam chowder being the most famous. Other seafood chowders skip the clams and swap in scallops, shrimp, lobster, crab or even fish like cod or smoked salmon.
In other words, chowder is a very specific sort of soup. It is almost always thick and chunky (bisque, another type of soup, is generally smooth). Chowder is usually either corn based or seafood based, or both (as in our recipe for Salmon and Corn Chowder, which appeared in this space in early July).
The standard New England-style chowder contains fish or shellfish, salt pork, onions, potatoes, and milk. Manhattan-style chowder replaces the milk with tomatoes. Eighteenth-century chowders were more varied; meat or poultry chowders were made, and wine, spices, herbs, cider, and other flavourings were often added.
Introduction: My name is Kelle Weber, I am a magnificent, enchanting, fair, joyous, light, determined, joyous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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