Seafood & Fish
2025 recipes found
Spicy Clam Chorizo Pasta
Clams work their way into plenty of dishes in the Baja Peninsula of Mexico, which is where the chef Pati Jinich picked up this recipe for pasta con salsa picante de chorizo y almejas. The dish, which she featured on an episode of her PBS show, “Pati’s Mexican Table,” is a nod to the prized clams that are harvested in and around the coastal lagoons on Mexico’s Pacific shores. It pays homage to the surf-and-turf dishes in Tijuana, where cooks find seemingly endless ways to mix meat and seafood on a single plate. The dish takes its aggressive heat from chorizo and chiles de arbol, but it can be dialed down by substituting 1/2 teaspoon or less of red-pepper flakes. The beer in the dish is Ms. Jinich’s nod to the craft-beer boom in Baja.
Marinated Broiled Tuna Steaks With Sauce Nicoise
Shrimp and Grits
Grits go from breakfast accompaniment to dinnertime star in this dish. Enjoying grits with seafood, such as blackened fish, is nothing new. But the relatively recent popularity of shrimp and grits in restaurants certainly is. The andouille sausage in this recipe accentuates the Creole flavors while enhancing the shrimp, which is sautéed in the sausage’s rendered fat. The reduced chicken stock and swirl of sour cream complete the savory sauce that pools in the cheesy grits. The corn-forward flavor of stone-ground grits takes this dish to the next level, and the sweetness of the corn pairs nicely with the shrimp. You can make the shrimp component while the stone-ground grits are cooking.
Seafood Gumbo
For many African Americans, seafood gumbo is an essential part of New Year’s celebrations. This version, adapted from the chef JJ Johnson, uses celebratory seafood, such as scallops, crab, lobster and shrimp, and includes okra rounds in a nod to his family’s southern roots. Mr. Johnson also pulled inspiration from Gullah Geechee cuisine, Native American and West African flavors and Louisiana's culinary traditions for the ultimate melting pot of gumbo. Be sure to make the gumbo spice mix, which adds heat and depth to this luxurious and comforting stew.
Quick Pickled Amba
Adeena Sussman developed this brilliant recipe for amba, the habit-forming, hot and sour salt-cured mango pickle that usually takes several days to prepare. Ms. Sussman, a cookbook author who lives in Tel Aviv, completes the process in just 40 minutes, and adds an unusual ingredient that mimics the flavors of a longer fermentation: fish sauce. Make the quick pickle in the dead of winter with green, unripe mangoes, then use it to brighten up anything from a simple piece of sautéed fish to a bowl of rice and vegetables.
Shrimp Bathed in Olive Oil and Lemon
A simple but lavish bath of olive oil and lemon juice is the Italian way of showing off superfresh seafood. The key, according to Marcella Hazan, is that the dish should never see the inside of a refrigerator, which changes the texture of the seafood and the flavor of the olive oil. She calls for shrimp in this recipe, but the formula also works with squid, clams and meaty fish fillets.
Crab and Shrimp Boil Pasta
Sweet corn, salty sausage, zesty shrimp, creamy potatoes and butter for dipping — a crab boil has everything you want in a meal. But unless you’re a pro at cracking crab legs, it can be a challenge. Instead, capture those same flavors with this seafood pasta, which uses lump crab meat and this speedy sheet-pan shrimp boil. Get the shrimp boil into the oven, then immediately start preparing this recipe. (If the shrimp boil is done early, just cover it with aluminum foil until ready to add.) In the end, it all comes together in a big, shareable dish.
Bánh Cuốn
Bánh cuốn, or Vietnamese steamed rice rolls, pack platefuls of flavor into every bite. The dish originated in northern Vietnam, utilizing a batter that forms a delicate rice sheet, which gets rolled around a mixture of pork and wood ear mushrooms. Bánh cuốn’s accompaniments generally include bean sprouts, fried shallots, herbs and chả lụa (Vietnamese pork sausage), along with a dipping sauce of nước chấm. Though the dish has a number of ingredients, its preparation consists of simple steps; give yourself ample time to prepare and the cooking process will be seamless. This meal is best eaten immediately, but it can hold in the refrigerator for a day or two.
Pickled Shrimp
Shrimp season is summer and fall in marshy coastal Georgia and South Carolina and in the Louisiana Gulf. If you can find shrimp from any of those places at those times of year, get enough for eating for several weeks, and make this marinated or pickled shrimp, which lasts that long. There is a version of a recipe for this everywhere, over eons, including in Sciappi’s "The Works." His recipe is for a fish called gilthead, but the method and result are almost identical. Something very similar to this exact recipe was popular through the middle of last century as Pickled Shrimp, or Shrimp Sea Island. And the Alabama chef Frank Stitt has a recipe almost exactly like this one, in one of his fine cookbooks.
Succotash With Sausage and Shrimp
Succotash embodies the proverb “If it grows together, it goes together.” This dish is a celebration of summer: fresh corn, ripe tomatoes and shelled butter beans (also known as lima beans.) Succotash has earned its place of pride in regions across the U.S. — the Midwest, the Eastern Seaboard, and perhaps most notably, the South. This succotash is Cajun-style and a worthy entree, thanks to spicy andouille sausage and seasoned shrimp. But feel free to leave them out for a satisfying meatless option. The andouille sausage adds kick, so if you use regular sausage or eliminate it altogether, you can add some heat with ground cayenne and hot sauce.
Fried Catfish and Spaghetti
Spaghetti in a hearty tomato sauce accompanies this tender, flaky fish, coated in crisp cornmeal in this Southern dish. It’s often paired with potato salad, and linked to the Deep South and the Midwest. But the recipe developer Millie Peartree grew up eating it in New York, where her mother, Millie Bell, who is from Savannah, Ga., would serve it as part of Friday night fish fries. This recipe calls for catfish, but whiting or flounder would also work well. Just make sure to look for a cornmeal that’s not extra fine for the crispiest fish.
Eventide Fish Chowder
Clam chowder is the New England classic everyone knows, but fish chowder is also popular — and a lot easier to make. This recipe comes from Eventide, in Portland, Maine, a combination of a seafood shack, an oyster bar and a modern farm-to-table restaurant with Japanese influences. Dashi, the Japanese fish stock, has an oceanic taste that is perfect here, and the instant kind is easy to buy online and keep on hand.
Doenjang Salmon Rice Bowl
This speedy meal is for seekers of the sweet-salty, known as dan-jjan in Korean. Doenjang, a glorious Korean fermented soybean paste, anchors the sauce with funk and umami. This sauce, balanced with sweet mirin and tangy rice vinegar, both marinates and lacquers salmon, which is quick-roasted. Cutting the fish into cubes allows more surface area for the salmon fat to render quickly, while the centers cook to a medium-rare, melt-in-your-mouth tenderness, a satisfying contrast to the still-crunchy, just-charred onions. This soul-warming breakfast, lunch or dinner tastes best with white rice, kimchi and whatever other accompaniments you might enjoy.
Green Goddess Salmon With Potatoes and Snap Peas
A sheet pan and a broiler are the secret to many easy weeknight meals. In this particularly vibrant dish, they impart a complex grill-like flavor to salmon and potatoes, which are broiled simultaneously on the same sheet pan. While they cook, you’ll blend together a lively green goddess dressing of fresh herbs, yogurt, mayonnaise, garlic and anchovies. When the oven timer chimes, toss the roasted potatoes with raw cucumbers and snap peas. Serve alongside the just-flaky salmon and dollop with the verdant dressing. The crunchy vegetables, warm potatoes, tender fish and creamy dressing make for an unexpected though delightful combination. (For the dressing, tarragon, dill, parsley or cilantro will provide a familiar flavor to this classic sauce, but mint or arugula will work, too.)
One-Pot Orzo With Shrimp, Tomato and Feta
Inspired by a Greek appetizer, shrimp saganaki, this one-pot recipe adds orzo and grape tomatoes to make a complete meal. Blistering the grape tomatoes coaxes out their natural sweetness, which pairs well with the salty feta. For a vegetarian version, skip the shrimp and stir in some spinach or arugula at the end. Warm up leftovers by adding a splash of water to loosen the sauce, then drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with crumbled feta.
Soy-Butter Basted Scallops With Wilted Greens and Sesame
This simple dish was inspired by a recipe for steamed scallop and butter rice found in “Donabe: Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking” (Ten Speed, 2015) by Naoko Takei Moore and Kyle Connaughton. Here, sweet sea scallops are seared in a hot pan and basted with melted butter and soy sauce to finish cooking. Tender greens are sautéed in garlic oil, then the scallops are placed on top and everything is drizzled with the remaining soy-butter and a bit of sesame oil. Finish the dish with a good squeeze of lime, thinly sliced scallions and a smattering of sesame seeds. It’s wonderful served over steamed white rice, so be sure to get that on the stove before you begin cooking the scallops, as the rest of the meal comes together in no time at all.
Pad Thai-Style Rice Salad
My basic technique works like this: Cook the rice as you would pasta, in abundant salted water, tasting as you go; the cooking time will range from around 15 minutes for white rice to as long as 45 minutes for the most stubborn brown varieties (almost all will be done in 30 minutes or so). Drain and rinse; you want to get any remaining surface starch off so the salad isn’t too clumpy. When the rice is cool enough to handle, dress it; it will absorb a bit of the dressing. Add herbs and garnishes just before serving.
Bún Kèn (Coconut Fish With Noodles)
This version of bún kèn, a deeply delicious street food specialty of Kiên Giang Province in southern Vietnam, comes from the chef Diep Tran, who traveled to the region while researching “The Red Boat Fish Sauce Cookbook,” written with Cuong Pham and Tien Nguyen. The dish is built by infusing fish stock with aromatics and coconut cream, then ladling this fish curry over rice noodles and topping the bowls with fresh herbs, vegetables and a drizzle of sweet and salty coconut nuoc chăm. While you can often find yellowtail collar at Japanese and Korean markets in the United States, Ms. Tran suggests using a snapper head or grouper head, or any small whole fish that isn’t too oily, if you can’t get your hands on collar.
Swordfish Piccata
Learning to build a pan sauce is the highest yielding 25 minutes you'll ever spend in a kitchen. Pay attention to the flame at each step. Use high heat to sear properly and develop fond in the pan, reduced heat to add acid and build flavor, and then no heat at all — turn the burner off! — to whisk in the cold butter and build up your elegant, emulsified, (life-altering) pan sauce.
Suon Kho (Pork Ribs in Savory Caramel Sauce)
A richness permeates these ribs, which are first marinated, then grilled until charred and finally simmered in a bittersweet caramel sauce. They become so dark and savory that some people mistake them for beef. For Tet festivities in northern Vietnam, pigs are often slaughtered to celebrate the Lunar New Year, and this preparation is among the best ways to use the ribs. It reheats and freezes well, a perfect make-ahead dish for the holiday since it’s a time when everyone is supposed to relax rather than work hard in the kitchen. Pair the ribs with a side of dua hanh to cut their richness, and serve with rice and stir-fried greens to round out the meal.
Miso Fish Chowder
This twist on New England clam chowder features a lighter broth that gets its depth from caramelized miso and smoky bacon, and its briny seafood flavor from bottled clam juice. New potatoes are in season during summer months and have tender, thin skins, but peeled Yukon Golds are a great alternative. To ensure flaky, tender fish, it is gently poached in the broth during the last five minutes of cooking. For a meatless chowder, simply omit the bacon and add a few pinches of smoked paprika in its place.
Red Snapper Tacos With Tomatillo Salsa
These tacos are best served fresh, but can be wrapped in foil and held in a warm oven.
Tomato-Ginger Chicken and Rice Soup
Chicken and rice soup is meant to be gentle, and this one is. But it’s also subtly spicy from fried ginger, and a little sweet from tomatoes used twice: in paste form to build a caramelized base and in fresh, bright bursts. The final additions of fish sauce, lime and sesame or chile oil make the soup reminiscent of sizzling rice soup and tom yum, and allow you to adjust how robust you need the soup to be. Add less for a calming, mild soup and more if you need something powerful and pungent to clear your mind and congestion.
Shrimp and White Beans With Fennel and Pancetta
This quick, one-pan meal relies heavily on pantry staples. Browning pancetta or bacon adds richness to the tomato sauce, but skip it if you like. Anise-flavored fennel and seeds are incorporated into the soffrito, which plays nicely with the sweetness of the shrimp and the creaminess of the beans. But if you don’t like them, leave them out. Serve the dish in deep bowls with thick slices of garlic-rubbed toast, finish the dish with a flurry of fresh herbs, and pair it with a glass of something red, light and bright.