If you try to keep different stocks on hand like I do, then you have to plan ahead of time. Not everyone buys a variety of seafood all at one time, So what I do, is when bring home shrimp or lobster, I then freeze some of the ingredients below all in one Ziploc bag until I have enough to cook the stock.
This is an ongoing process and it does not mean I will always have all of the items below. So don’t feel you can’t make it just because you don’t have everything.
Ingredients
- Lobster Body, Legs, Shells
- Shrimp Shells
- Crab Shells
- 1 Onion (rough chop)
- 2 Carrots (rough chop)
- 2 Celery Stocks (rough chop)
- 2 Bay Leaves
- Ground Pepper
- 6-8 Cups of Water
Instructions
- Place everything into a crockpot.
- Pour approximately 6-8 cups of water on top of the shellfish and vegetable mixture, enough to just cover the top (size of your crock pot will vary how much water you add).
- Cook on high for 6-7 hours.
- Turn the heat off, let cool for 1-2 hours.
- Strain through a very fine strainer to ensure no shells sneak through.
- Cool overnight in the refrigerator.
- Pour the stock in one-gallon size freezer bags, but only fill ½ way.
- Double up on the freezer bag and lay flat in your freezer.
- When ready to use simply take out of the freezer and place in cool water or put a bag in a large bowl to defrost.
Dishes that you can use with your seafood stock
- Seafood Newburg
- Chowder
- Seafood Risotto
- Paella
Watch How I Make a Homemade Seafood Stock
I’m gonna show you how to make a seafood stock. As the season went by we had Lobster at our house and we don’t eat the bodies of the lobster which includes the head and maybe a few of the claws. We also had king crab legs so we have just the shells we did not discard. You might find that you have had some shrimp that you had to peel and so you can see we have some leftover shrimp skins in there.
So basically, any time you have seafood in a shell, Once you’re done eating that seafood go ahead and save the shells or the bodies that you have leftover because this makes an amazing stock.
I always prefer to make my own stock rather than using any bullion or any type of canned or pre-made stock because it’s full of additives and sodium. I really like to control what I put in my food and the taste that you get from making a homemade stock versus something that came out of a bullion or a can is a hundred times better. It’ll always make your dishes taste a lot better.
What I do is just keep everything in a big Ziploc bag in the freezer and then once I have enough of it or you’re running out of room in your freezer is when I usually decide, “alright it’s time to do a stock.”
I’m home for the day so I just grabbed my crock-pot, threw in the shells that I had in the freezer. Everything’s still frozen but you don’t have to let it defrost. I added some onion. (you don’t have to) If you’ve watched my previous tutorial I did on homemade stock, you don’t have to use perfect cuts of anything. So if you have an onion, just cut it and leave the skin on. If you have have celery around, you’ll always find that when cutting it, you have the ends, don’t discard them. Stick them in the freezer and you can use it for your stock.
I added one carrot that I just cut up. it’s not peeled, I just roughly chopped it. So we get the celery, the onions, the leftover seafood shells. I added some ground fresh pepper and then two bay leaves. I’m gonna leave my stock on high and put the cover on it. I’m gonna leave it for a good six to seven hours. After that, you can let it cool. Strain your stock and to make sure there’s nothing you want in the final product, be sure to use a fine cylinder strainer so that way no shell pieces get in your stock.
Then what I do is let my stock cool, Then I pour it into big Ziploc baggies and I double them up. Next, you write on the bag what it is. Here I am putting “seafood stock” and then you simply put it in the freezer. That way when you’re going to make some sort of a risotto or a seafood Newburg or any type of a chowder or seafood stew, you’ll have this amazing stock ready to go.
