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    Home » Recipes » Soups & Stews

    Seafood Chowder Recipe Served In A Bread Bowl

    Published: Nov 15, 2019 · Modified: Aug 6, 2023. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.

    Recipe Jump to Video
    seafood chowder pin
    This seafood chowder recipe is a reproduction of the chowder I discovered on my first trip to Ireland, creamy and packed with large chunks of seafood. Mussels, cod and salmon chowder to eat in a bread bowl or with a nice slice of Irish brown bread.

    This seafood chowder recipe is a reproduction of the chowder I discovered on my first trip to Ireland, creamy and packed with large chunks of seafood. Mussels, cod and salmon chowder to eat in a bread bowl or with a nice slice of Irish brown bread.

    Seafood chowder served in a bread bowl decorated with Agastache
    Jump to:
    • Chowder and Irish seafood
    • What seafood in the seafood chowder
    • Preparing the mussels (or the clam)
    • How to cook the fresh mussels
    • Boiling the potatoes
    • Preparing the seafood chowder
    • What bread to use for a bowl
    • Serving the seafood chowder in a bread bowl
    • Tips for making the best seafood chowder
    • Decorating with edible flowers
    • More recipes with edible flowers
    • 📋Seafood Chowder Bread Bowl
    • Tips for the bread bowl

    Chowder and Irish seafood

    Chowder is a common dish in New England, it is a soup made with a white sauce. It is usually made with milk and cream and thickened with potatoes or a roux (a mix of flour and butter). The most well-known chowder is clam chowder, and you can find the recipe on Dishes Delish.

    It seems that the name was originated by the French word chaudière (“cauldron”) and spread into Nova Scotia and New England by the Breton fishermen. While originally it is made with seafood, there are now many versions of chowder with vegetables or meat.

    It is no surprise that chowder is so common in Ireland, as the fresh fish from the Atlantic Ocean or the Irish sea make for delicious chowder, a seafood lovers paradise.

    If you want to know more about Irish seafood and where I recommend going to eat the best Irish seafood, you can read my article  Fish Pie with a Mediterranean Twist.

    For seafood ideas for the Feast of Seven Fishes, check out this Web Story.

    Hoawth restaurants on the pier

    What seafood in the seafood chowder

    I have tried different types of chowder in Ireland and my favourite is the one with large chunks of fish like cod or salmon. I have had chowder with razor clams, and, if you can find them I highly recommend using them.

    Here in the Mediterranean, I prefer to use mussels but I wouldn't change cod or salmon with any other fish. You could use seabass but I think it will be too chunky for the soup.

    Seafood chowder ready to be served

    Preparing the mussels (or the clam)

    Whatever type of shellfish you decide to use, you can follow the instructions below. The same rules and techniques can be applied to any shellfish.

    The juices from the shellfish will be used to flavour the soup once it has been filtered to remove any residual sand.

    How to choose and cook fresh mussels

    Mussels are delicious when fresh, but they can be a dangerous source of seafood poisoning if not chosen correctly.

    Buy them only at your trusted fishmonger and ask them to clean them as they are a pain in the neck to clean. They are often full of barnacles and if you are lucky your fingers will be sore but not bleeding.

    Personally I always try to avoid them during the hot season, neither buying them or ordering them at restaurants. The heat makes seafood more susceptible to attract bacteria.

    Fresh mussels should be cooked alive, once dead they will be infected.

    Here is how to make sure fresh mussels are alive:

    • Fresh mussels should always be closed and cannot be opened no matter how hard you try
    • Discharge any open or broken mussels
    • Rinse them under running water one by one and throw away any open or broken mussels
    • If they are open but when you touch them they close and will not open if you try, they are fine to eat.
    fresh mussels in a pan

    How to cook the fresh mussels

    In this recipe, I make 1 lb - 500 gr of mussels as they are sold in that quantity, but you only need a small amount.

    Fresh mussels are naturally salted, you do not need to add any salt

    The ingredients are:

    • 1 lb - 500 gr of fresh mussels
    • 1 clove of garlic
    • 1 cup dry white wine
    • 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

    This is how to proceed:

    1. In a frying pan, stir fry 1 sliced clove of garlic.
    2. Put in the mussels and stir fry them covered until they are all open.
    3. Stir from time to time
    4. Add 1 cup of white wine and let it simmer for 1 minute until it evaporates
    5. When they are ready, remove the mussels...
    6. ...but keep the water.
    Cooking the mussels

    Important points when cooking mussels

    • Fresh mussels are naturally salted, you do not need to add any salt
    • When cooking mussels, keep the pan covered and turn them every once in a while to make sure they are all open
    • Once open, the mussels are cooked
    • Do not overcook the mussels, 2 to 3 minutes is enough.
    • If some mussels are still not open, remove the open ones and cook only the closed ones.
    • Any mussels that remain closed even after cooking them should be discarded.
    • Remove any broken open mussels after you have cooked them, but do not worry if you find some when you have finished cooking. The rest of the mussels will not be infected.
    straining cooked mussels
    1. Strain the water through a paper cloth and let it rest so that any residual sand will fall to the bottom.
    2. Clean the mussels and put them aside.
    Filter the juices and cleaning the mussels

    Boiling the potatoes

    The potatoes are boiled separately in milk and cream as they take longer to cook. The potatoes will release their starch in the milk, making it creamier.

    The ingredients you need are:

    • 3 medium potatoes
    • 1 ¼ cup - 300 ml of milk
    • ½ cup - 120 ml of cream
    • 1 bay leaf
    1. Peel and chop the potatoes and put them in a casserole
    2. Add the milk, the cream and the bay leaf
    3. Bring to boil, then simmer for 20 minutes
    how to boil the potatoes in milk

    Preparing the seafood chowder

    Now we can start completing the chowder, and here are the rest of the ingredients needed

    Ingredients

    • 1 diced onion
    • 2 chopped carrots
    • 2 celery stalks, diced
    • 5 oz - 150 g of bacon
    • 3.5 oz - 100 g cod
    • 3.5 oz - 100 g salmon
    1. In another casserole dish, stir fry the chopped onion, carrots and celery stalks with butter
    2. Once the onion is translucent, add the bacon
    3. Let the bacon crisp a little
    4. Pour the boiled potatoes with the milk into the casserole dish
    5. Add 1 cup of the filtered mussel juice
    6. Simmer for another 5 minutes
    Prepare the seafood chowder
    1. Add the chunks of cod and salmon
    2. Stir but make sure you don't break up the chunks
    3. Once the cod and the salmon is cooked...
    4. ...add the mussels and stir
    5. Taste and adjust for salt if necessary
    6. The chowder is ready to be served
    Finalizing the chowder

    What bread to use for a bowl

    Using a loaf of bread as a bowl is a fancy way to present a dish, but you need to choose the right bread to do so. Sourdough or rustic bread will do.

    Make sure it has a crunchy thick crust so that it will hold the food and not get too soggy once you fill it with the chowder.

    I prefer to serve it in a large bowl to avoid any possibly spilling on the table.

    sourdough bread top open and hollow inside

    Normally you use the top of the bread to dip into the soup, and that would be already quite filling. Even if the bread bowl itself would have nicely soaked up all the juices, I doubt any normal person could eat the entire bread bowl. But...you never know!

    Serving the seafood chowder in a bread bowl

    1. Cut the top off the bread loaves
    2. Remove the inside leaving the crust
    3. Fill the bread bowl with the chowder
    4. Decorate with edible flowers Agastache
    Serving the seafood chowder in a bread bowl

    Tips for making the best seafood chowder

    • Make sure the fish you buy is fresh
    • Use large chunks of cod and/or salmon
    • For shellfish you can use clams, razor clams or mussels, make sure they are fresh
    • Never overcook seafood, always add it at the end
    • Add the juices of the shellfish but make sure it is filtered and the sand removed
    • To make the chowder creamier boil the potatoes for 10 minutes longer

    Decorating with edible flowers

    Edible flowers are a wonderful decoration to use for a festive dinner party. Not only they add colour to a special dish but also a unique taste.

    They are very versatile and you can use them in many ways, but personally, I prefer using them raw. Cooking edible flowers ruins their beauty, and it is their fresh colourful look that brings joy to a dish.

    I like to use them in salads or soup, but it is very important to choose the right combination of flavours. Some flowers have a garlicky or peppery flavour and will only go with savoury dishes, while others have a more acidic flavour and can be combined with sweet dishes as well.

    Edible flowers Agastache

    I must tell you the truth, even if I like its shape and colour, Agastache is my least favourite of the 4 edible flowers. But that is just me, aniseed, dill or fennel seeds are too strong for my taste but I must admit, they do combine well with seafood.

    So I thought they would go well with nice seafood chowder, and indeed they do. In addition, they finish the beautiful bread bowl off with joyful purple colour.

    seafood chowder recipe served in a bread bowl

    What else can you do with Agastache

    It is up to your imagination, I recommend using them raw for decorating your final dishes. You can add them to any recipe where you would otherwise use dill or fennel seeds.

    edible flowers Agastache

    Where can you buy edible flowers?

    Unfortunately, edible flowers are not yet available in all supermarkets and mostly you find them in shops that serve professionals chefs, like Metro in France and Italy. Unfortunately, you can only buy in these shops if you have a business licence.

    Although edible flowers are slowly appearing in Supermarkets, they are still a novelty. In France, you might find them in some Grand Frais supermarket and I was told that Whole Foods Market has them in the USA.

    I am looking for more information, so if you know where to find edible flowers near you, please share the information with a comment below. Thank you for helping!

    NT: Only use edible flowers that are grown to be eaten. Flowers grown for decoration may have been treated with dangerous chemicals

    Here are the edible flowers I am featuring in my posts:

    1. Nasturtium Capucines: papery taste
    2. Begonia: bitter taste
    3. Agastache: aniseed taste
    4. Tulbaghia: garlicky taste
    Edible flowers: capucines, begonia, agastache, tulbaghia

    More recipes with edible flowers

    If you are interested in edible flower recipes, I have many here for you. You can find sweet as well as savoury recipes. Make sure you pick flowers that are safe to eat. Even if they are edible, they should not have been treated with chemicals.

    Savoury recipes:

    • Fried zucchini flowers
    • Italian zucchini frittata with flowers
    • Roast Pumpkin Soup With Edible Flowers Capucines
    • Fresh Tomato Soup Salmorejo With Edible Flowers Tulbaghia
    • Chayote Squash Mousse with Mussels With Edible Flowers Begonia

    Sweet recipes:

    • Homemade crystallized violets
    • Swiss roll with crystallized violets
    • Beignet d'Acacia

    If you are making the Seafood Chowder Recipe Served In A Bread Bowl, leave your comment below I would like to hear from you. You can find more delicious ideas if you FOLLOW ME on Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram or sign up to my newsletter.

    seafood chowder recipe served in a bread bowl

    📋Seafood Chowder Bread Bowl

    5 from 6 votes
    Laura Tobin
    Servings 4 people
    Prep Time 30 minutes mins
    Cook Time 44 minutes mins
    Total Time 1 hour hr 14 minutes mins
    Print Recipe Save Saved! Pin Recipe
    This seafood chowder recipe is a reproduction of the chowder I discovered on my first trip to Ireland, creamy and packed with large chunks of seafood. Mussels, cod and salmon chowder to eat in a bread bowl or with a nice slice of Irish brown bread.
    Prevent your screen from going dark

    Equipment

    • Cutting board set
    • Measuring mugs
    • Mini Measuring Set
    • Soap Stone Semi Pressure Cooker
    • Wooden Turner Set

    Ingredients
     

    • 1 lb mussels
    • 2 tablespoon olive oil
    • 2 tablespoon butter
    • 1 ¼ cup milk
    • ½ cup cream
    • 3.5 oz fresh cod
    • 3.5 oz fresh salmon
    • 1 onion diced
    • 2 chopped carrots
    • 2 stalks celery stalk diced
    • 5 oz bacon
    • 1 bay leave
    • 4 sourdough bread
    • salt & pepper

    Instructions
     

    Prepare the mussels

    • In a frying pan, stir fry 1 sliced clove of garlic.
    • Put in the mussels and stir fry covered until they are all open.
    • Stir from time to times
    • Add 1 cup of white wine and let it simmer for 1 minute until it evaporates
    • When they are ready, remove the mussel but keep the water.
    • Strain the water through a paper cloth and let it rest so that any residual sand will fall at the bottom. The water from the mussels is naturally salted and will be used instead of salt to season the Chayote mousse.
    • Clean the mussels and put them aside.

    Boil the potatoes

    • Peel and chop the potatoes and put them in a casserole
    • Add the milk, the cream and the bay leaf
    • Bring to boil, then simmer for 20 minutes

    Preparing the seafood chowder

    • In another casserole stir fry with butter the chopped onion, carrots and celery stalks
    • Once the onion is translucent, add the bacon
    • Let the bacon crisp a little then pour in the casserole the boiled potatoes with the milk
    • Add 1 cup of the filtered mussels juices
    • Simmer for another 5 minutes
    • Add the chunks of cod and salmon, stir but make sure you don't break the chunks
    • Once the cod and the salmon are cooked add the mussels and stir
    • The chowder is ready to be served, taste and adjust for salt if necessary

    Serving the chowder in a bread bowl

    • Cut the top of the bread loaf, and remove the inside leaving the crust
    • Fill in the bread with the chowder
    • Decorate with edible flowers Agastache

    Video

    Notes

    • Make sure the fish you buy is fresh
    • Use large chunks of cod and/or salmon
    • For shellfish you can use clams, razor clams or mussels, make sure they are fresh
    • Never overcook seafood, always add at the end
    • Add the juices of the shellfish but make sure it is filter and sand is removed
    • To make the chowder creamier boil the potatoes for 10 minutes longer

    Tips for the mussels (or clams)

    • Mussels can be a dangerous source of seafood poisoning if not chosen correctly.
    • Buy them only at your trusted fishmonger and ask them to clean them
    • Try to avoid them during the hot season
    • Fresh mussels should be cooked alive, once dead they will be infected.
    Here is how to make sure fresh mussels are alive:
        • Fresh mussels should always be closed and cannot be open no matter how hard you try
        • Discharge any open or broken mussels
        • Rinse them under running water one by one and throw away any open or broken mussels
        • If they are open but when you touch them they close and will not open if you try, they are fine to eat.
    • Fresh mussels are naturally salted, you do not need to add any salt
    • When cooking the mussels, keep the pan covered and turn them every once in a while to make sure they will all open
    • Once open the mussels are cooked
    • Do not overcook the mussels, 2 to 3 minutes are enough. If some mussels are still not open remove the opened one and cook only the closed ones.
    • Any mussels that remain closed even after cooking it should be discharged
    • Remove any broken open mussels after you have cooked them, but do not worry if you find some once you finished cooking them. The rest of the mussels will not be infected.

    Tips for the bread bowl

    • For a bread bowl use sourdough or rustic bread
    • Make sure the bread has a crunchy thick crust so it can hold the food and will not get too soggy once you fill in with the chowder.
    • I would always prefer to serve it in a large bowl to avoid any possible spilling on the table.
    • Normally you can use the top of the bread to dip it into the soup, and that would be already quite filling.

    Nutrition

    Calories: 538kcalCarbohydrates: 13gProtein: 24gFat: 43gSaturated Fat: 18gCholesterol: 127mgSodium: 541mgPotassium: 740mgFiber: 1gSugar: 7gVitamin A: 5937IUVitamin C: 9mgCalcium: 144mgIron: 3mg
    Tried this recipe?Please consider Leaving a Review!
    important notes on ingredients

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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Anita

      November 17, 2019 at 12:24 am

      5 stars
      The seafood chowder is super delicious. I didn't have sourdough bread bowl, so using baguette to mop up the soup. Delicious. 🙂

      Reply
      • Laura

        November 17, 2019 at 5:17 am

        Absolutely, I would too

        Reply
    2. Andrea Metlika

      November 17, 2019 at 12:35 am

      5 stars
      My favorite fish and muscles are in this incredible chowder. I cannot wait to make this.

      Reply
      • Laura

        November 17, 2019 at 5:17 am

        Thank you, they are glorious

        Reply
    3. Jen

      November 17, 2019 at 2:05 am

      5 stars
      This was a labor of love for me to make!! But totally worth it!!

      Reply
      • Laura

        November 17, 2019 at 5:16 am

        It is a labour of love, LOL

        Reply
    4. Anjali

      November 17, 2019 at 2:14 am

      5 stars
      What a perfect, hearty recipe for the cooler fall/winter months! Love the edible flowers tip too - I've never tried that before but definitely will next time!

      Reply
      • Laura

        November 17, 2019 at 5:16 am

        Thank you for your comment, yes edible flowers make everything prettier

        Reply
    5. Danielle

      November 17, 2019 at 2:33 am

      5 stars
      I think this seafood chowder is by far the most amazing chowder I have seen this season. I literally can't wait to get everything I need to make it, and I better do it soon. Great tip on to be careful with salt - so important when cooking mussels.

      Reply
      • Laura

        November 17, 2019 at 5:16 am

        Thank you Danielle, I am sure you will like it

        Reply
    5 from 6 votes (1 rating without comment)

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