Family Style Seafood Boil

Seafood boils are the ULTIMATE one pot cooking! With tons of fresh seafood, vegetables, and sausage this southern meal is meant to be enjoyed with lots of family or friends. The best part for me, is sitting around the pot with everyone outside while the food cooks, then dumping the huge basket of deliciousness onto the table. It’s always an awwww moment when all the food is piled up and people grab their spots to eat around the table together. We like to dump the seafood on a newspaper or plastic table cloth lined table for an easy clean up. Get out your calendars and schedule your next family event and make it a seafood boil!! Believe me, no one will leave disappointed!

We use a seafood boiling pot that is basically a large stockpot with a basket insert, handle, and hook so you easily drain the liquid before dumping the goods on the table. We place the stockpot on a heavy duty propane burner and cook it outside. There are lots of seafood boiling kits you can buy that have everything already packaged together, they usually double as turkey fryers too.

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Family Style Seafood Boil

Ingredients

• 1 lb king crab legs

• 3 lbs snow crab legs

• 12 lobster tails or 8 whole lobsters

• 5 lbs fresh live littleneck clams

• 5 lbs fresh live mussels

• 6 lbs Louisiana crawfish

• 5 lbs wild caught gulf of Mexico brown shrimp, shells on and deveined

• 4 lbs wild caught Argentine red shrimp, shells on and deveined

• 2 lbs wild caught scallops

• 3 lbs andouille sausage, cut into 2-3 inch pieces

• 9 ears of corn, shucked and broken into 3rds

• 5 lbs small potatoes, rinsed and cleaned

• 1 bag of onions, quartered

• 1/2 bag of lemons, halved

• 1/2 bag of lemons, cut into wedges

• 1 garlic bulb, peeled

• 1 can of creole seasoning, such as Tony Chachere's

• 2 - 16 ounce crawfish, shrimp, & crab boil mix

• parsley

• 4 sticks of butter

• 3 - 4 newspapers

Instructions

• Prepare all the seafood and vegetables, making sure they are cleaned and ready to go. Place them in trays or bowls, layed out separately, do not mix them together, as they all have different cooking times. Sprinkle creole seasoning over the top

• In a large stockpot fill with water to the max line on your pot or about half way full. Boil the water and add seafood boil mix, halved lemons, garlic cloves. Place the basket into the pot. Depending on your pot size (we used a 32 quart stock pot and had to make 4 batches of the boil, so added in 1/4 of each ingredient every time) divide the below ingredients evenly into the amount of pots you will need to make since it won’t all fit in the first time

  • Add in divided amount of the sausage, potatoes, corn, and onions; boil for 3 minutes

  • Add in divided amount of king crab legs; boil for 3 minutes (if there is only 1 king crab leg, determine which round you’d like to cook it and add a few more minutes before proceeding without this step for the other rounds)

  • Add in divided amount of snow crab legs and lobster, boil for another 3 minutes

  • Add in divided amount of clams, mussels, and crawfish, boil for another 3 minutes

  • Add in divided amount of shrimp and scallops, boil for another 3 to 4 minutes

• Once the seafood in the pot is cooked and looks opaque, hook the basket and lift up until the basket is just out of the water but still over the pot, allow to drain the liquid for a moment before removing. Place the basket over another pan or tray to carry the food without dripping the juice all over. Dump all the contents in the basket onto a newspaper or plastic table clothe lined table. Repeat until everything is cooked

• Melt butter with chopped parsley in a pot, serve on the side in smaller bowls around the table for dipping. Place lemon wedges in a bowl on the table

NOTE:

• Suggested sides: french fries with cajun seasoning, hush puppies, salad, calamari, crab salad with crackers, fruit salad, and or clams casino

• Feel free to add or subtract different seafood to your liking, this is just a general guideline. If king crab is a ridiculous price, skip it! If you don’t care for clams, leave them out. If you’re a big shrimp lover, add more! Just make sure to do the right cook times so that nothing is over or undercooked

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