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Last Updated on April 11, 2025 by Melanie
Creamy Seafood Chowder – How to make a delicious thick seafood chowder with fresh cream, shrimp, scallops, and crab. This recipe is the BEST. No potatoes or fillers, thick and creamy with the perfect flavor.
Today I’m bringing you seafood chowder. This recipe has been a favorite of mine for quite a few years now. For Christmas eve we would visit my husband’s aunt and uncle’s house with all the extended family. It’s a great evening with family and delicious food. My husband’s family is Italian so there was always pasta, Italian bread, and an antipasto platter. But this is the food that captured me every year. I couldn’t help but go back for seconds.
I asked his aunt to share the recipe and she kindly did. So this year I made it at home. Oh dear, there is no greater joy in the food world than deliciousness passing through your lips. All 5 of us in our family love seafood so it gets a bit expensive.
But Christmas and New Years are the perfect time to splurge on delicacies that we don’t get to enjoy regularly. So even if you can’t afford to make this creamy seafood chowder year round, I encourage you to try it if just for the special occasions in life.
This creamy seafood soup is perfect.
With ingredients from the sea like crab, shrimp and scallop you’re sure to delight your taste buds. In reality, this soup is irresistible.
Certainly, with fresh cream and real butter, it boasts a rich and hearty taste.
INGREDIENTS NEEDED TO MAKE THIS SOUP:
- butter
- onion
- garlic
- celery
- flour
- whole or 2% milk
- half and half
- seafood stock
- shrimp
- scallops
- crab meat
- dry sherry or white cooking wine
- parsley
- paprika
- sugar
TOOLS YOU’LL NEED TO COOK THIS SEAFOOD CHOWDER
- DUTCH OVEN OR SMALL STOCK POT
- SHARP KNIVES FOR CHOPPING AND MINCING
- WOODEN SPOON OR SIMILAR
- LARGE SKILLET
- SOUP LADLE
Many people include seafood at their New Year’s Eve tradition. How about your family? Is shrimp and crab part of your New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day tradition? I’d love to hear your typical celebratory food for New Year’s!
Til we meet and eat again,
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Creamy Seafood Chowder
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 8 1x
Description
How to make a delicious thick seafood chowder with real cream, shrimp, scallops, and crab. This recipe is the BEST. No potatoes or fillers, thick and creamy with the perfect flavor.
Ingredients
- 8 ounces butter (divided (2 sticks))
- 1/4 cup minced onion
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1/4 cup minced celery
- 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 4 1/2 cup milk (2% or whole)
- 2 1/2 cups half and half
- 2 cups seafood stock
- 1 pound large shrimp
- 2/3 pound scallops (chopped)
- 2/3 pound crab meat (lump or claw)
- 1/4 cup cooking white cooking wine
- 1 1/2 tablespoons parsley
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 tablespoon sugar
Instructions
- In a Dutch oven or small stock pot melt 6 ounces butter over medium-low heat. Saute onion, garlic and celery until softened and translucent.
- Whisk in flour. Cook and stir. Do not allow it to burn.
- Slowly pour in milk, half and half, and seafood stock stirring constantly as you pour. Continue to stir until thickened and heated through. Turn to low.
- Using a large skillet on a separate burner, saute shrimp and scallops in remaining 2 ounces of butter. Cook and stir until opaque about 4-5 minutes.
- Add shrimp and scallop mixture to soup. Stir in crab meat, white wine, paprika and sugar. Simmer and stir occasionally for 5 minutes. Turn off heat
- Let rest 10 minutes before serving.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Soup
- Cuisine: American
adapted slightly from a recipe from my aunt Toni
You may also like:
Slow Cooker Clam Chowder
Coconut Spinach Shrimp Soup
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Look at all those chunky pieces of shrimp and scallops! Wow Melanie – I sure could tuck into a bowl of this especially since it has no fillers or potatoes! Delicious!
BTW – Happy New Year!
Oh man this looks great! I have never made chowder before but that needs to change!
I am dying to make this chowder but the recipe instructions seem incomplete. Would you please let me know how to complete this recipe? Thanks so much!
I’m sorry about that Marla! I’ve updated the directions and I hope you find it complete. 🙂 Enjoy the chowder. It’s probably one of my top favorite soups of all time.
I’m thinking of making this soon. One quick question though. There is not much seafood stock and a lot of milk and cream. You don’t put in any salt?
Hi Shannon! Thanks for taking the time to stop by. Yes, this is cream based soup so lot of cream and milk. Feel free to change it up a bit though to your specific preference. Salt is to taste. I’ll adjust that in the recipe. Thanks. I hope you enjoy it. Our family surely does!
Thanks for the quick reply! I am planning on making it for my family on Thursday so I will let you know how it turns out for sure! Is there a kind of baseline salt amount? I wouldn’t even know where to start! I would guess maybe 1.5 teaspoons and then just add from there as needed? Would it be super bland without salt? My dad tries to watch his salt intake.
I would start with 1 teaspoon of salt. And yes, add to taste as necessary. I don’t think it would be too bland since there is some chicken broth that has sodium in it. I really hope you all enjoy it!
Hey Melanie, I just made a pot of your soup and for your info if anyone ever asks you how to make this keto, you add xanthan gum powder instead of flour. To use the xanthan gum you need to mix the powder with hot water and as it sits it will look as thick as bacon fat when in the fridge. To add it to the soup you mix it into the garlic, celery, onion mix with a whisk a little at a time. As you add the cream turn heat up to a boil to really activate the xanthan gum. 2/3 cup of flour has about 63 grams of carbs, with 2.2 grams of fiber, so net carbs for the flour is about 60 which is alot.
Thea you’re an angel! What about the sugar?
For the sugar, use a tablespoon of monk fruit granulated sweetener, or a tbs. of Swerve granulated sweetener, or even a “squirt” of the liquid erythritol/Stevia blend commonly sold at Kroger. You can even leave it out, but that hint of sweetness does add something.
You must try this! It is the best seafood chowder I have ever tasted!
I’m cooking this for my elderly parents and it sounds delicious however, they have a very small kitchen now with few utensils, spices, etc.. Can I make this the night before and just heat it up when I get there? thank you so much
I have made this several times delicious I highly recommend this. It looks difficult, but it really isn’t. Hope you enjoy. I do have a question I want to make this for my work dinner I was going to make it the night before and put it in a crockpot. Should I add more milk?
Thank you Valoree. So glad it’s a recipe you use over and over! I hope you found out what worked best in the crock pot. Blessings!
I wanted to make this a one pot meal, so I used 1 tablespoon each for both the shrimp and the scallops, so not to steam each protein because I wanted a sear on them both. Then I removed after both had been seared, reserved on a plate and continued with the rest of the recipe. However, the recipe says 8 ounces 1 stick butter. What? So, I am assuming that a typo was involved and should be written as Tablespoons, not ounces. Should say 8 Tbsp (1 Stick Butter). Same as in the recipe, it should be written as 6 Tbsp in step 1, followed by the 2 Tbsp in step 4.
Thank you Stephanie. I’ve made that correct for the butter. Appreciate you taking the time to let me know! Thanks for your tips on searing. Happy cooking!