Fish Chowder is such a great easy fish recipe that’s can’t-stop-eating-it good! A thick and hearty creamy white fish soup, I adore this combination of tender potatoes, carrots, sweet corn and peas with big flakes of fish.
A wonderful fish recipe for Easter – or anytime! Just imagine that moment when you dunk in a hunk of warm crusty bread…..
Fish Chowder Soup
This is really just a Fish Soup but I like to call it a “chowder” because the immature child within believes it sounds a heck of a lot more interesting to say “we’re having Fish Chowder for dinner tonight” rather than just “fish soup”.
Who’s with me on this? 😂
Well, whatever we think this should be called, it doesn’t matter! What matters is that it’s utterly delicious, and I think it’s a great easy fish recipe that’s a little different to the usual pan frying or baked fish recipes that can be made with many types of fish.
Best fish for fish chowder
“Meaty” firm types of fish are ideal for fish chowder, such as: Snapper, barramundi, tilapia, basa*, cod, ling, monkfish, marlin, latchet (gurnard), leatherjacket, Spanish mackerel, shark (flake), salmon.
Avoid delicate fish such as whiting, garfish, John Dory, flat fish (flounder, sole) and flathead as they tend to fall apart in soup.
Avoid lean fish like Swordfish, tuna, kingfish, normal mackerel. These tend to be a bit dry unless cooked with care if it’s not the super fatty bit like the belly which is hard to get outside of Japan! So best not used in soup.
* Popular economical fish in Australia, this is actually a type of catfish found in South East Asia.
I’m using Barramundi fillets, a popular fish here in Australia. I like how big and meaty the fillets are – 1 fillet usually weighs around 300 – 400g (10 – 14 oz).
What goes in Fish Chowder
Pretty straight forward list of ingredients (notes below):
Just some notes on a few of the items:
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Wine – optional, but it does add that little extra something something to the soup broth. It’s pretty traditional to use white wine in a seafood broth base. Can be skipped.
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Vegetables – feel free to switch with vegetables of choice, just add them according to the cook time. Potato and broccoli is great (it basically ends up looking like Potato Broccoli Soup with fish in it), or try Corn Chowder type soup with fish added. Anything goes here!
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Best broth for fish chowder – in order of preference:
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homemade fish stock – reserved for special occasions around these parts!
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high quality store bought fish stock ie not standard supermarket brands like Campbells. Read: pricey!
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clam juice – US product, not sold in Australia, hope it comes to our shores!
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chicken broth /stock – yes really, try it and be amazed how good it is in this recipe. This is what I use for everyday purposes – and it’s how this recipe is made.
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Just to be clear, there is no denying that the best seafood soups are made with homemade seafood broths and any respectable seafood restaurant will use house-made broths. But there’s also no denying that it’s not practical for most people to manhandle giant cauldrons of fish heads on any given night, and that’s the basis on which I give my recommendations!
How to make it
Chowder is a great straightforward recipe – sauté onion and garlic, deglaze the pot with white wine, add flour to make a sludge then basically tip everything else in.
The broth for Fish Chowder is thickened with the flour – no need for cream unless you want to add richness (I do not miss it).
I used to sear the fish first before making the broth, believing that this gave an overall better flavour. But actually, for fish soups, I think it’s best to just plonk the uncooked fish straight into the broth so all the fish juices leech into the soup as it poaches.
If you’ve been around since Easter of last year, you’d be forgiven for thinking the ingredients in this recipe are somewhat familiar. In fact kudos to you for picking it up! Because this Fish Chowder is in fact pretty much my favourite Easter Fish Pie – in soup form. 🙂
Try this soup with Quick Cheesy Garlic Bread…. wait until you SEE it in the video below. Makes my knees weak every single time!! Otherwise, try one of these:
Soup Dunkers
– Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Fish Chowder Soup
Ingredients
- 40g / 3 tbsp butter , unsalted
- 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 small onion , finely chopped
- 2 small carrots , halved, cut into 0.5cm / 1/5" slices
- 1/2 cup (125ml) dry white wine (can skip)
- 1/4 cup (35g) flour (plain / all purpose)
- 3 cups (750 ml) milk , any fat %
- 2 cups (500 ml) fish stock, clam juice OR chicken stock, preferably low sodium (Note 1)
- 2 cups potato , 1.5 cm/ 0.5" cubes (~1 large potato)
- 1 cup corn , frozen or canned (drained)
- 0.5 tsp salt , plus more to taste
- Finely ground black pepper
- 600 g/1.2 lb white fish fillets , skinless, cut into 2cm / 4/5" pieces (Note 2)
- 1 cup peas , frozen
Garnish/serving (optional):
- 1/4 cup green onions , halved and finely sliced (garnish)
- Crusty bread for dunking
Instructions
- Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat.
- Add garlic and onion, cook for 5 minutes until translucent but not golden.
- Add carrots and stir through.
- Turn heat up to high and add wine. Stir then let it simmer rapidly until it's mostly evaporated.
- Add flour and stir for 30 seconds - it will become sludgy!
- Slow pour in broth while stirring to dissolve paste, then stir in milk.
- Add potato, corn, salt and pepper. Bring to simmer then turn heat down so it's simmering gently.
- Cook, stirring every now and then, for 8 minutes or until potato is almost cooked.
- Add fish and peas, simmer for 3 minutes or until fish is just cooked (should flake easily).
- Adjust salt and pepper to taste. If soup is too thick, add a touch of water or milk.
- Serve, garnished with green onions and crusty bread on the side for dunking!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
More hearty soups
Life of Dozer
Dozer! I said FISH chowder, not PELICAN chowder!!!
I couldn’t get high quality fish stock so, unfortunately, I had to substitute it with Campbells fish stock. Still turned out delicious and I can’t wait to try it again when I can get the good stuff.
Yum! Made this for Good Friday dinner. Needed to cook the carrots and potatoes for twice as long but otherwise perfect. I used a combination of verjuice and water instead of wine and it worked well. Didn’t have fish stock either so used chicken stock. Great recipe. Will make again.
This was very good! For the fish, I used cod, a can of chopped clams (undrained) and some shrimp. I’ll definitely be making this again!
I really loved this recipe. I left out 1 cup of milk and that was exactly the thickness I wanted. Also, I used homemade salmon broth and once it was done simmering I added full haddock filled and left them sit until cooked. Full confession, I dint add the corn or peas, but added some celery instead. I’ll be using this recipe as a staple.
Just pushed back from the table after eating a second hearty bowl of this delicious fish chowder. Tasted very rich and extravagant … much more so than the sum of its parts. I followed the recipe quite closely. I did add another half cup of white wine, and diluted half-n-half with water, instead of using milk. Homemade chicken stock. I used halibut, which seemed too pricey to throw in soup … but, it was thawed and needed using. It was so very good, and I realized that adding it to soup made it stretch more than twice as far as pan fried portions.
Very tasty! I love that it has a different flavor profile than clam chowder, despite being another creamy seafood soup. We had clam chowder the night before, but this was different enough that we were very happy! I added about 1/4 c more wine because the wine flavor went away by the end. You’ll have to post Dozer’s recipe for pelican chowder next 😉
This was delicious! I had no wine so omitted and it was still so flavorful. Perfect for the first real NYC snow in over 2 years. Thank you for a yummy, comforting, and tasty recipe.
Is it freeze able
Great recipe! I modified it to use up a passel of leftover baked fish – just folded the fish in when the rest was done. Since a reviewer said it wasn’t thick enough, I cut back milk by 1 c. and then added a little at the end for the right consistency. Also a squirt of fish sauce. Easy and tasty! Glad to find a a flavorful recipe without bacon/pork!
I made this last night for lunch today and it was fabulous! I am not a cod fan but I had one fillet and needed a flavorful recipe. I ad-libbed the amounts due to having only one fillet, but I used most of the ingredients. I also only had cream, no milk. I didn’t have corn or carrots but I added the can of clams and a little extra white wine. The broth is simply delicious. This is maybe my second or third review/comment ever – but I like this so much I wanted to! Also, it’s going in the recipe book for repeat performances. Thanks for this, so good!
Wow! So easy. So good.
Ahhhh…this was good an easy….Threw in some shrimp plus all the rest of it…..Great dish with sour dough….yum 😉
I used this recipe to make an easy Seafood Chowder and my husband only likes Seafood Chowder once a Winter but gave high praise for my efforts. I used half a kilo of Seafood Marinara plus 300 gms of Green Prawns. I can only get Campbell’s Fish stock but boiled up the Prawn heads and shells in the Fish Stock. What we liked about the particular recipe is that you can easily taste each ingredient and it wasn’t dominated by Cream. Another winner.
Forgot to leave stars
Delicious!!!! Used snapper that I caught and added a few drops of fish sauce because I didn’t have quite enough fish. Used home made fish stock from the snapper. Also added a touch of chick stick powder. Beautiful with Tabasco and crusty bread. Another fabulous recipe thanks Nagi.
This was a winner for us tonight. But with only 2 of us I always have leftovers. This time it will be lunch tomorrow, but does it freeze ok?
sorry missed it in the instructions, Not sure how I did That
you never say when to add milk! Do I add At same time as broth?
My daughter and I made your delicious Fish Chowder tonight for dinner. So easy and tasty – we WILL be making this recipe again!! Thanks Nagi.
Loved this chowder, but was a little disappointed that there was too much liquid (mind didn’t seem to thicken up). I even added extra fish but soup remained watery instead of creamy. Any ideas on what I did wrong ?