Seafood Boil (The Best Recipe!)
Sample a taste of New Orleans cuisine with this seafood boil recipe! Fresh, delicious, and simply addictive, this traditional Louisiana seafood boil recipe has shrimp, crawfish, and Manila clams, all boiled together in a homemade Cajun seasoning and butter sauce.
Servings: 4 People
Calories: 580kcal
Ingredients
- 1 lemon, halved
- 1 lb (500g) head-on and shell-on shrimp, mustache and legs trimmed off
- 1 lb (500g) crawfish, scrubbed and rinsed with water
- 1 lb (500g) Manila clams, scrubbed and rinsed with water
- water, for boiling
- 2 ears corn, cut off the cob into 2-inches (5cm) pieces
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
- 2 heads garlic, peeled and minced
- 2 tablespoons Louisiana hot sauce
Seafood Boil Seasonings
- 4 tablespoons Old Bay seasoning
- 2 tablespoons smoked paprika
- 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
- 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
- 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
Instructions
- Combine all the ingredients of the seafood boil seasonings in a bowl. Stir to mix well. Set aside.
- Fill a large stockpot halfway with water and bring to a boil. Add the lemon halves, followed by the shrimp, crawfish, Manila clams, and corn. Cover the stockpot and cook the seafood and corn until they turn red or cooked through for about 2 minutes. Drain the seafood and corn, and discard the water and lemon. Set aside.
- While the seafood is cooking, in a big skillet over medium heat, add the butter and stir in the minced garlic. Sauté the garlic for 1 minute (not brown). Add the homemade seasoning and Louisiana hot sauce and stir well. Turn off the heat.
- Transfer the seafood and corn to the spicy sauce, and stir to combine well. If you have a small skillet, mix the butter sauce and the seafood in two batches. Serve immediately.
Video
Notes
Adapted from Cultural Chromatics. This is a Vietnamese-Cajun version of seafood boil, which in my honest opinion, is so much better than the traditional.
- Use a big pot to boil the seafood. If you don’t have a tall and deep pot, you may boil and cook the seafood in batches.
- I skipped potatoes and smoked sausage. Feel free to add 8 oz. of baby potatoes and 8 oz. of sausage to the mix.
- You may also add crab legs, blue swimmer crab, Dungeness crab, and mussels.
- If you have plastic bags, mix the seafood and the sauce in the bag. You can also serve it that way, usually in a 1-gallon plastic bag.
Nutrition
Serving: 1g | Calories: 580kcal | Carbohydrates: 19g | Protein: 31g | Fat: 49g | Saturated Fat: 29g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 18g | Cholesterol: 329mg | Sodium: 999mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 8g