Irish Seafood Chowder is a hearty soup made with seafood and cream. It’s crammed with juicy prawns, plump mussels and clams, and tender calamari with plenty of vegetables for extra flavour. Serve this chowder with crusty seeded bread or Irish soda bread for a meal that will warm the cockles of your heart!
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Traditional Irish Seafood Chowder
My first taste of authentic Irish Seafood Chowder was on a cold rainy day in a pub in the Temple Bar area of Dublin.
My daughter and I had taken the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin for a quick holiday weekend in Ireland. I love going on a ferry. Even though you are travelling, it’s as though your holiday starts the moment you board.
You can sit and relax next to the windows and watch the sea roll by. Or you can go outside onto the upper deck and let the cobwebs get blown away by the strong bracing wind coming off the Irish Sea.
By the time the ferry docks in Dublin, you are ready for all the sights that Dublin has to offer.
So we were quite disappointed on our arrival to find that it was raining.
I should have known. I once spent 6 months living and working in Dublin, commuting Monday and Friday from England (by air, not by ferry). And it rained. Every. Single. Day. Maybe not the entire day and maybe just a shower. But every single day in Dublin for the 6 months I was there it rained for at least part of the day.
A traditional Irish bar
On the day my daughter and I arrived however, it wasn’t a gentle shower, it was a torrential downpour. Sightseeing was out of the question. So after checking into the hotel we grabbed a taxi and made our way to the Temple Bar area, and ended up at the Oliver St John Gogarty Traditional Irish bar.
We walked in through the doors, out of the rain, into the most amazing atmosphere. The place was jam-packed with people talking and laughing. In the corner of the room a band was playing traditional Irish music. One brave soul was doing an Irish jig in front of them. We managed to find a table to sit at, took a look at the menu, and both of us decided on a bowl of Traditional Irish Seafood Chowder.
We weren’t disappointed. The chowder was brimming with seafood, creamy potatoes, and chunky carrots. Little pops of sweetness were provided by juicy corn kernels. And it was all swimming in a deliciously thick, creamy sauce. It was served with seeded Irish soda bread, which we used to wipe every last drop out of the bowl.
That was when we decided we had to make our own version of Irish seafood chowder at home. So we searched our handbags for a pen (luckily one of us had one) and wrote down the ingredients we’d identified, onto a paper serviette. And this is the result. I hope you enjoy this Irish seafood chowder as much as we did!
What you will need
Equipment
As far as equipment goes, you won’t need much. A sharp knife and a chopping board for cutting up the vegetables and a large saucepan for cooking the chowder.
Ingredients
This recipe will easily feed 4 people. However, it freezes well so you can save any leftovers for another meal. If you want to make less chowder, cut down on the vegetables and seafood and adjust the amount of milk and butter.
**You can get the complete list of ingredients and full instructions for making Irish seafood chowder on the printable recipe card at the end of this post**
- Mixed seafood – this is frozen mixed seafood consisting of mussels, calamari rings and prawns. You can buy this in the frozen section of your supermarket. Some supermarkets sell fresh (unfrozen) packets of mixed seafood, and you could use this instead.
- Prawns – I buy frozen prawns that have been cleaned and have had the head and shell removed. If you decide to use fresh prawns you should remove the shell and head, and also remove the black vein (or alimentary canal) that runs down the back of the prawn.
- Potatoes – these should be peeled and cut into chunks about one inch in size.
- Celery – washed and cut into half-inch pieces.
- Carrots – peeled and cut into half-inch pieces.
- Sweetcorn including the liquid – I like to use Green Giant because it is so sweet, and has a lovely crunchy texture.
- Garlic (not pictured) – this is optional. You can use fresh garlic cloves, and mince them yourself, or for convenience, you can use the equivalent amount of ready-minced garlic from a jar.
- Butter – this forms the base of the sauce
- Milk – for the sauce. You can use full-fat or semi-skimmed.
- Single cream – for enriching the sauce. If you don’t want to add cream, you can substitute with extra milk, but in that case, I would be inclined to use full-fat milk.
- Cornflour (you may know it as cornstarch)- mixed to a paste with a little water and used to thicken the chowder.
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to your own taste.
What to do
This is a very simple recipe to make. There are only a few steps involved and it only takes around 30 minutes to prepare and cook.
Prepare the vegetables
- Peel the carrots and potatoes.
- Chop the carrots and celery into 1/2 inch (1cm) chunks and the potatoes into 1 inch (2cm) pieces.
- The reason for cutting the vegetables into different sizes is that the potatoes cook faster than the carrots and celery, so making them a bit larger ensures the vegetables are all cooked at the same time.
Make the soup
Melt the butter over a low heat in a saucepan and saute the garlic briefly to release the flavour into the butter.
Add the chopped vegetables and stir well to coat. Put the lid on the saucepan and allow the vegetables to sweat gently in the butter until they start to soften. This should take about 8 minutes. Keep the heat low – you don’t want to brown the vegetables, they should just steam in their own juices.
Add the milk, salt and black pepper.
Crank up the heat until the milk starts to boil, then reduce the heat back to a simmer and leave for about 10 minutes.
Don’t put the lid back on the saucepan at this stage or the milk WILL boil over.
You may find that the milk curdles slightly. Don’t worry, this is just a reaction from the milk being boiled with vegetables. It will righten itself once you add the cornflour at the end.
Once the vegetables are cooked, added the seafood, the prawns and the sweetcorn (along with the sweetcorn liquid).
Bring it back to the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes until the seafood is warmed through and the prawns are pink and cooked.
Stir in the cream, taste for seasoning and add more salt and black pepper if necessary. I think this dish benefits from lots of black pepper.
Mix the cornflour to a smooth paste with a little water and drizzle it into the chowder to thicken it. Keep the chowder on a low heat and stir continuously until the chowder has thickened to your liking. Allow to simmer for one minute to give the cornflour time to cook out.
You may not need all the cornflour.
Transfer the chowder to a serving bowl and optionally garnish with chopped parsley.
Serve the seafood chowder hot, with lots of crusty bread.
Can I freeze Irish Seafood Chowder?
Yes, you certainly can freeze this dish. In fact, I always make a large batch and freeze half for another meal.
Just allow the chowder to cool and then pack it into a rigid plastic container (Tupperware or similar) and freeze for up to 3 months.
To use, tip the frozen chowder into a saucepan and heat gently over a very low heat until it has defrosted. Then turn the heat up slightly and continue to heat until it is piping hot. Serve immediately.
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Save for later
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Other recipes
A loaf of homemade bread is the perfect accompaniment to Irish Seafood Chowder
If this recipe isn’t quite what you are looking for, you may like to try one of these other seafood recipes instead:
- Pasta peacatore – a classic Italian seafood pasta dish with prawns, calamari, and mussels in a tangy tomato sauce.
- Seafood linguine with shrimp and lobster – sweet juicy lobster and succulent garlic prawns in a creamy sauce, served on a bed of linguine.
- Fresh mussels and pasta in tomato sauce – plump, juicy mussels, cooked in their shells and smothered in a homemade chilli tomato and onion sauce.
- Garlic butter prawns – succulent shell-on prawns pan-fried in garlic butter.
- Seafood stuffed pasta shells – jumbo pasta shells stuffed with mixed seafood in a creamy sauce.
The recipe
Irish Seafood Chowder
(Click the stars to rate this recipe)
Equipment
- Garlic press
- Soup bowls for serving
Ingredients
- 10 ounces / 300 grams frozen mixed seafood precooked not raw
- 5 ounces / 150 grams frozen whole prawns (shrimp) raw
- 1 pound / 450 grams chopped potato (1" dice) approximately 2 large potatoes
- 2 stalks chopped celery (½" dice)
- 1 large chopped carrot (½" dice)
- 7 ounce / 197 gram tinned whole kernel sweetcorn
- 1 pint / 480 ml milk (2 cups)
- 1 cup / 240 ml single cream single cream or pouring cream
- 2½ ounce / 75 grams butter
- 2 cloves garlic finely minced
- 3 teaspoons cornflour mixed to a paste with 2 tablespoons water
- Salt to taste
- Black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Chop the carrots and celery into ½" pieces and the potatoes into 1" pieces2 stalks chopped celery (½" dice), 1 pound / 450 grams chopped potato (1" dice), 1 large chopped carrot (½" dice)
- Melt the butter over a low heat in a large saucepan2½ ounce / 75 grams butter
- Add the garlic, saute for 1 minute then add the chopped celery, carrots and potatoes.2 cloves garlic
- Mix well to combine with the butter. Cover with a lid and allow to sweat gently over a low heat for 8 minutes until the vegetables start to soften.
- Remove the lid from the pan and add the milk, salt and black pepper. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer with the lid OFF for about 10 minutes.1 pint / 480 ml milk, Salt to taste, Black pepper to taste
- Taste the vegetables to ensure they are fully cooked. If they are still a little hard, continue to simmer until they are soft.
- Add the mixed seafood, prawns (shrimp) and sweetcorn (including the liquid from the sweetcorn), mix to combine and bring back to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes until the seafood is warmed through.10 ounces / 300 grams frozen mixed seafood, 5 ounces / 150 grams frozen whole prawns (shrimp), 7 ounce / 197 gram tinned whole kernel sweetcorn
- Keep the heat on a slow simmer and stir in the cream.1 cup / 240 ml single cream
- Taste for seasoning and add more salt or pepper if necessary.
- Mix the cornflour to a smooth paste with 2 tablespoons of cold water. Drizzle in the cornflour/water mixture stirring continually. Simmer for a further 1 minute.3 teaspoons cornflour
- Serve in a soup bowl with slices of crusty seeded bread or Irish soda bread.
Notes
Nutrition
I am not a nutritionist. The nutrition information has been calculated using an on-line calculator, and is intended for information and guidance purposes only. If the nutrition information is important to you, you should consider calculating it yourself, using your preferred tool.
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I’ve made this and it is the best ever! We dig our own clams so have them fresh, but I love this recipe, it is fairly easy to assemble but well worth the efforts. I like the thickness of it, I love the corn in it as well.