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Creamy seafood chowder
Making seafood chowder is actually a lot easier than it seems. Really it's just a combination of all your favourite fish and all your favourite veggies!
In this post, I'm sharing the recipe that I followed to make this seafood chowder, but I encourage you to go off script and get a little creative! Feel free to use whatever seafood you have in your fridge, or swap out my suggestions for your favourite fish. Every time that I make chowder it ends up different. Sometimes I throw in carrots, sometimes corn, sometimes peas, and sometimes all of the above. And most of the time I change up the seafood based on whatever I have in my freezer. For this chowder I used halibut, shrimp, and two different kinds of scallops.
Feel free to mix and match veggies and fish in this recipe. Things like carrots, peas, corn, celery, and shallots will always be great in a chowder. And when it comes to seafood, the world is your oyster! Haha! 🐟
As a rule of thumb, I use a minimum of three different kinds of seafood in my chowder. Usually I use a combination of white fish, shrimp, and scallops. For whitefish, you can use halibut, tilapia, lingod, pollock, grouper, or haddock. I recommend thawing your seafood ahead of time (I usually thaw mine in the fridge overnight) and doing any other prep such as peeling and deveining shrimp before you start cooking the chowder.
The seafood in this recipe was from Skiperotto Community Supported Fishery, Organic Ocean Seafood, and West Coast Wild Scallops.
Learn more about where I get local, sustainable seafood HERE.
Seafood chowder wine pairing
I've said it a million times, but I'll say it again: seafood and wine are a perfect pair. And a creamy seafood chowder is not exception.
For chowder, I typically stick with white wines. The crisp flavours of white wine will compliment the flavours of this robust dish while the sweetness of the wine will bring out the chowder's saltiness.
Really, any white will pair well with a chowder. Something crisp like a Sauvignon Blanc or a Pinot Grigio will complement the chowder's flavours without overpowering the dish. Or vice versa.
This time around, I took a more interesting approach to my wine pairing and went with a Viognier. A Viognier is a full-bodied white wine that originated in southern France. It's a bolder, more full bodied white that has aromas of peach, tangerine and honeysuckle.
Since this dish has a cream base, it can stand up to a bigger wine with a fuller body like a Viognier. I found this bottle from Kew Vineyards in Niagara, had the perfect amount of sweetness to marry with the rich flavours of the seafood chowder.
Seafood Chowder
This flavourful chowder recipe is the ultimate winter comfort dish.
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What You'll Need
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 onion diced
- 1 tsp. of old bay seasoning
- 1/4 teaspoon thyme
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1 stalk of celery
- 1 carrot
- 1 pound potatoes
- 1/2 cup corn
- 5 cups of vegetable broth
- 2 pounds of mixed seafood (whitefish, scallops, mussels, clams, shrimp)
- 1/2 pound shrimp
- 2 cups heavy cream
- parsley for garnish
Instructions
- Heat a pot over medium high heat. Dice the onion and add to the pan once it's hot. Cook onion in butter until tender.
- Add flour, Old Bay seasoning and thyme and cook 2-3 minutes.
- Finely chop carrots, celery, and potatoes.
- Add carrot, celery, potato, corn, broth and wine & bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.
- Chop whitefish into chunks and stir in seafood and cream.
- Cook until fish is fully cooked and flaky and potatoes are tender, about 8-10 minutes.
- Top with parsley and season with salt and pepper to taste.
