The broth is the real star of this Seafood Stew-rich with tomatoes, fennel, garlic, white wine, and a hint of smoky heat. Add your favorite seafood and plenty of crusty bread for soaking up every last drop!
You simply can't have too many seafood stew recipes in your life and this one is a real keeper! So delicious, bold flavours and easy enough to make. I cut onions and fennel rather rustic style and it turned out great!
For me, a great Seafood Stew is all about the broth-and this one is so good you’ll want crusty bread to soak up every last drop. Tomatoes, fennel, garlic, white wine, and a touch of fish sauce create a rich, savory base, while optional chorizo adds smoky depth and just a little heat.
The beauty of this recipe is its flexibility. Use whatever fresh seafood looks best-firm white fish, salmon, shrimp, mussels, or a combination. The broth can be made ahead, then simply add the seafood just before serving for an impressive dinner that’s surprisingly easy to pull off.
Think of this as a relaxed cousin of cioppino and bouillabaisse-with a rich tomato-wine broth, plenty of fresh seafood, and an optional touch of smoky chorizo. Here are some key differences…
- This Seafood Stew: A flexible, Mediterranean-inspired tomato and white wine broth with fennel, mixed seafood, and optional chorizo. It’s not tied to one traditional preparation.
- Cioppino: A San Francisco Italian-American seafood stew traditionally made with a tomato-and-wine broth and a mixture of whatever fresh seafood is available-often crab, clams, mussels, shrimp, and fish.
- Bouillabaisse: A traditional Provençal/French fish stew from Marseille, distinguished by its particular fish, saffron and other aromatics, and traditionally served with bread and rouille. It’s generally more specific and structured than cioppino.
Why you’ll love this Seafood Stew recipe!
The broth is incredible. Tomatoes, fennel, garlic, white wine, and a touch of fish sauce create a savory, aromatic broth you’ll want to soak up with plenty of crusty bread.
Use your favorite seafood. Make it with firm white fish, salmon, shrimp, mussels, or whatever looks freshest at the market.
Optional chorizo adds smoky depth. A little chorizo gives the broth richness and gentle heat, or keep it seafood-forward with a pinch of smoked paprika instead. Sometimes I’ll use plant-based chorizo!
Impressive yet surprisingly easy. It has all the flavor and beauty of a restaurant-worthy seafood stew without requiring hours at the stove.
Perfect for entertaining. Make the flavorful broth ahead, then add the seafood shortly before serving so it’s perfectly tender when your guests arrive.
Fresh and nourishing. It’s satisfying without feeling heavy, with plenty of seafood, tomatoes, fresh herbs, and a bright squeeze of lemon to finish.
Seafood Stew Recipe Ingredients
- Seafood: Use firm fish like halibut, tilapia, mahi mahi, or salmon, mussels, prawns. These types of fish and shellfish hold up well when cooked in a stew, ensuring they remain intact and contribute to the rich texture.
- Chorizo: This optional addition adds depth and smoky heat to the stew. Mexican chorizo and Spanish chorizo both work well here. Or sub a pinch of smoked paprika!
- Onion and Garlic: These aromatic ingredients infuse the stew with a deep, savory flavor.
- Fresh fennel: Its subtly sweet and licorice-like flavor adds a unique depth to the aromatic base of the stew. Feel free to substitute celery.
- Tomatoes: Fresh tomatoes bring brightness and acidity to balance the dish.
- Broth: A combination of tomato paste, white wine, chicken stock, fish sauce, and chili flakes enriches the broth, adding layers of flavor. The fish sauce imparts a subtle umami note. You can also substitute fish stock if available, or a combination of chicken stock and clam juice.
- Salt and Pepper: Essential for seasoning, helping to bring out the flavors of all the other ingredients.
- Flat Leaf Parsley: Adds a fresh, herbaceous flavor.
- Lemon: A squeeze of lemon juice brightens the broth, adding a zesty finish that enhances the seafood’s natural sweetness.
Please see the recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and instructions.
How to make Seafood Stew
Step One– Brown the chorizo (if using) in a little olive oil. Set aside.
Step Two– Saute fennel, onion and garlic until golden. Add tomato paste. Turn heat up to high, constantly stirring, until paste darkens, about 3 more minutes. Frying the paste deepens the flavor of the dish.
Step Three- Add white wine and cook down by half. Add chicken stock, tomatoes, browned chorizo, and fish sauce and bring to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste, and chili flakes. Squeeze with half the lemon. Taste. You want the broth to taste rich and flavorful.
Step Four- Add fish, simmer a couple of minutes and add prawns, simmer a couple minutes, then add mussels. Remember, the larger the prawns, mussels, or fish pieces, the longer they take to cook, so look at all your seafood ingredients and determine which will take the longest to cook, putting them in first.
What to serve with Seafood Stew
Serve with a warm, crusty loaf of bread, or garlic bread, perfect for dipping and soaking up the rich, flavorful broth. A light, crisp green salad like our Caesar salad or this Little Gem Salad helps balance the richness of the stew.
Storage and Make Ahead
- To prep ahead, make the broth 1-2 days ahead of time. Store the broth in the refrigerator for 3-4 days in a sealed airtight container. Reheat the broth, and add the fish and seafood right before serving.
- Seafood stew is best eaten immediately when cooked, but leftovers will keep up to 3 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator or can be frozen for up to 3 months.
What is the Best Fish to use in Seafood Stew?
You generally want to use firm white fish ( along with shellfish) for most stews and soups, because they will hold their shape and not disintegrate in the liquid. Here are 10 of the best fish (and seafood) to use in soups and stews.
- sea bass
- halibut
- black cod
- haddock
- escolar
- ono
- red snapper
- salmon
- scallops
- shrimp
Chefs Tips
- Brown the tomato paste. Here is an amazing technique to build depth and flavor, and can be used in many other dishes. Add the tomato paste to the hot pan and stir constantly, sauteing on high heat for a few minutes. It will begin to darken. Cooking or frying the tomato paste like this really adds deep umami flavor.
- Mimicking Fish Stock. When I don’t have time to make a good fish stock, I use chicken stock and add a teaspoon of fish sauce. Clam juice works too, but I do not always stock this in my pantry- fish sauce works wonders!
- Smoky flavor. Smoky Spanish-style chorizo, or smoked paprika, would be mainly for seasoning the broth.
More favorite Seafood Stews!
I hope you enjoy this summery Mediterranean-style Seafood Stew! Please remember to rate the recipe below.
xoxo
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Seafood Stew Recipe
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 25 mins
- Total Time: 35 mins
- Yield: 4-6 1x
- Category: 30 minute Dinner, Dinner, entertaining, fish, fish and seafood, Main, seafood, Soup
- Method: stovetop
- Cuisine: Mediterranean
- Diet: Dairy-Free, Gluten Free, high protein, Keto, Low-Carb, Paleo, Pescatarian
Description
This easy Seafood Stew is loaded with fish, shrimp, and mussels in a rich tomato, fennel, and white wine broth. A flavorful, restaurant-worthy dinner!
Ingredients
- Optional: 6–8 ounces crumbled Mexican chorizo; see notes for Spanish Chorizo, or leave it out.
- 2 cups finely diced fennel (one large bulb)
- 1 cup finely diced onion (half a large onion)
- 4 garlic cloves, smashed and roughly diced
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 cup dry white wine
- 4 cups Chicken Stock (or a good fish stock)
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce ( leave out if using fish stock)
- 2 medium tomatoes- diced ( or one canned tomatoes, diced and juices)
- 8 oz firm white fish like halibut, sea bass, mahi mahi, or black cod
- 1 lb mussels (or sub clams)
- 1 lb large prawns, raw, peeled and deveined (or sub scallops)
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes or cayenne
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1 lemon
Instructions
- In a large heavy bottom pot or deep skillet or Dutch oven, brown the chorizo in a little extra virgin olive oil. (Remove from casing and break up or crumble into small bite-size pieces). Once browned, set aside. Pour off the fat, wipe out skillet with paper towel.
- In the same skillet, heat the olive oil on medium-high heat. Add fennel, stirring often for about 3 minutes. Add onion, turn heat down to medium and saute both until tender, about 8-10 minutes. Add garlic, and sauté 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until garlic starts to turn golden. Add tomato paste. Turn the heat up to high, constantly stirring, until paste darkens, about 3 more minutes. You are frying the paste to deepen the flavor of the dish.
- Add white wine and turn heat down to medium-high, stirring until it cooks down by half, about 2 minutes. Add chicken stock, tomatoes, browned chorizo, and fish sauce and bring to a boil and let simmer.
- Add salt and pepper to taste, and chili flakes. If using chorizo, the broth may be salty enough- each chorizo is different. Squeeze with half the lemon. Taste. You want the broth to taste rich and flavorful.
- Add fish, simmer a couple minutes and add prawns, simmer a couple minutes, then add mussels. Remember the larger the prawns or mussels or fish pieces the longer they take to cook, so look at all your seafood ingredients and determine which will take the longest to cook, putting them in first.
- Taste, adjust salt and lemon to your preferences.
- Divide among bowls and Finish with the fresh parsley.
Notes
- Chorizo. If you can find cured Spanish chorizo, dice it thinly-you’ll only need 1/4th of a cup! This is my favorite, but it can be harder to source. Mexican chorizo works too. AND If you leave out the chorizo, a pinch of smoked paprika works nicely here!
- Serve with crusty bread. I like to cut a loaf of good quality garlic or rosemary bread into thick slices, arrange on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and fresh rosemary sprigs, and bake in a 400F oven until toasty, or even better, grill the bread.
- If you are going gluten-free, try adding a cup of cooked cannellini beans to the stew for added heartiness, instead of serving with bread.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 ½ cups
- Calories: 476
- Sugar: 4.6 g
- Sodium: 1007 mg
- Fat: 23.6 g
- Saturated Fat: 6.6 g
- Carbohydrates: 14.3 g
- Fiber: 2.9 g
- Protein: 49.3 g
- Cholesterol: 224.5 mg
Faqs
Cioppino is an Italian-American tomato-based seafood stew, while bouillabaisse is a French fish soup with a clear broth, flavored with saffron and other aromatics.
Crusty bread and a crisp green salad along with a crisp white wine, like Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio.
We recommend you freeze just the broth of seafood stew for future use, reheat, and add fresh seafood just before serving.
We really enjoyed this recipe- will def do again
This was delicious!
Yay! Im so happy you liked it!!!
This is a winner recipe, flavorful and delicious.
Put a medley of frozen seafood in at the end, mussels, calamari, 1 1/2 lb of shrimp and mussels…really good in no time, and a hit with my dinner guests.
My husband would like pasta added, but that is a personal request ?
Can I skip the white wine?! I’m fresh out and don’t want to drag the kids to the store ?
sure! Try it and see!
oh my, this was so scrumptious!! and beautiful! I served it with a choice of toasted garlic artisan bread or rosemary focaccia and a simple fresh-greens salad. Fresh berries and cream for dessert. Also Rioja and Riesling. Served on our patio with good friends. I doubled the recipe. There were seven of us and I have leftovers for three. No complaints here!!! Thank you!
so great to hear…. thanks!!!
Can I use frozen mussels and shrimp? Would you recommend that I thaw it before cooking?
You can. 🙂 They are not as good as fresh, but they’re not horrible either, so if frozen is your only option, I’d say go for it. I think it would be fine to throw in frozen.
I love this dish. Thank you. It was absolutely delicious and very easy to make.
Oh Good! I love it too. Time to make it again…it’s been while!
The recipe calls for a firm fish, cod is a soft fish. Please learn the differences in fish before complaining.
I don’t have cod in the recipe
How much chorizo? It’s not on the ingredients list!! thanks!
Ooops sorry! it’s there now…6-8 ounces. Thanks for letting me know!
I just stumbled upon your blog when I was browsing Pinterest. Pinned this in less than a second and drooling as I read this post. I can’t wait to try it. I have a stock pile of fish in my freezer right now that I purchased on sale. Now I need to find some friends to invite over – because this dish is way too pretty to not share!!!
What time should I show up?? haha!!
Esaminare gioielli d’oro sotto una lente di ingrandimento orologi bvlgari per trovare un piccolo numero timbrato seguito dalla lettera ‘k’. Questa anello b zero bulgari prezzo è la purezza carati dell’oro nella voce. Guardate il volto di lingotti d’oro per un numero di quattro cifre, che indicano il grado di purezza, con ‘9999’, che significa orologio bulgari bulgari
I’ve made this dish a few times. It is one of my family’s favorites and I’ve added your recipe to my “tried and true”
Thanks so much for letting me know! Appreciate it Joy!!
The family really loved this. My husband actually said; “Superb” Can’t get better than that.
So great to hear!!!
This is the best thing I’ve ever made. I added scallops, cooked them in the chorizo fat and set them aside, and skipped the fish. Yum!
Yay!! That makes me so happy!!!
Thanks so much for submitting this recipe to our Paleo Recipes link party Sylvia!
Normally I just serve this alone, or perhaps with a salad beforehand. For dessert ideas, I always look at what’s in season. Now, it’s stone fruits and berries. Peach cobbler, Apricot Galette or huckleberry tarts. 🙂
Summer seafood stew is perfect to relish with family. I will prepare it on weekend. THanks to this fabulous post
It is right above the comment section, below the photo’s and text. Do you not see it?
I have now made this recipe three times – once for my family and twice for guests. The flavors are amazing – the tip on cooking the tomato paste out was priceless. It added incredible flavor!! My guests all went hone with your recipe
beautiful tasty dish
AMAZING. I will make immediately. Thanks!
This looks so simple but you’d be amazed once you’ve taste this because this is so savory!
The cooked fennel adds a subtle sweetness and the licorice flavor does mellow with cooking.
Excellent recipe! I made this tonight for dinner and hubby agreed, it’s delicious! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the feedback!