Easy Cioppino Seafood Stew

Loaded with fresh seafood and swimming in a mildly spicy tomato broth, this Easy Cioppino Recipe is a rustic stew that’s easy to prepare. A perfect alternative to a calorie laden chowder and ready in under 30 minutes.

I love seafood, especially that of the shellfish variety. If it has a shell and comes from the sea, chances are I’ll eat it. We kinda live on it during the summer months with frequent trips to the Jersey shore where shellfish is a staple but if you’ve ever been to San Francisco, that’s really the shellfish capital in my opinion.

A quick trip to San Francisco and I was immediately smitten by the outdoor restaurants bursting at the seams with fresh seafood. Everything you can imagine like freshly steamed Dungeness Crab legs and Cioppino (Fisherman’s stew) at just about every eatery served with sourdough bread. It was so fresh and flavorful, hard to beat coming back to the east coast unless you make it yourself.

Ingredients for Cioppino

• Seafood – Because this is a use what you have recipe, any combination of seafood and shellfish can be used. I, personally, like littleneck clams, shrimp, sea scallops, mussels, lobster tails and crab meat. To keep it more budget friendly, add white fish, like sea bass or flounder, as a substitute for the shellfish.
• Stock – Homemade Seafood Stock, fish stock or clam juice are the base for the broth-y stew.
• Wine – Also, your personal preference, you can use red wine or white wine for this recipe. I lean toward a dry white wine like chardonnay or Pinot Grigio.
• Tomatoes – Tomato paste and canned tomatoes add depth to the broth.
• Herbs – For fresh flavor, I add chopped basil, fresh parsley, fresh tarragon and oregano. You can add a fresh bay leaf with the stock for extra flavor.
• Seasonings– Red pepper flakes add a little heat along with kosher salt and black pepper.

For the full ingredient list, see the recipe card below.

How to Make Cioppino

This easy Cioppino stew recipe is so simple you can have it on the table in just one hour.

1. In a large pot or dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium high heat.
2. Cook the onion until softened and stir in the garlic, crushed red pepper, oregano and tomato paste. Cook until the paste is a deep red color.
3. Deglaze the pot with the wine and scrape up the brown bits with a wooden spoon. Cook the wine over medium heat until reduced by half.
4. Stir in the tomatoes, fish stock and bring to a boil.
5. Add the seafood to the pot. Cook until the clams open and the shrimp is cooked.
6. Top with the fresh herbs and serve with crusty bread.

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What is Cioppino?

Wondering what Cioppino is? Well, Cioppino, pronounced “Chu – Pe – No”, is an Italian-American seafood stew that’s made up, primarily, of the catch of the day and fresh produce like farm-fresh tomatoes. Created in the late 1800’s by Italian immigrant fishermen who settled in the San Francisco Bay Area and threw in anything they had from their day’s catch, mainly Dungeness Crab, clams, shrimp, scallops, mussels, squid and fish.

It’s really up to you what you want to include in this recipe, for mine, I used what I could easily find at the fish market that day. I, usually, add mussels and dungeness crab but they didn’t have it the day I shot the photos so for this recipe I used jumbo lump crab, clams, shrimp and scallops.

I’ve also made my classic Cioppino recipe with fresh fish, mussels and calamari when the budget was a little tighter. That’s a great way to stretch it out, too, if you’re feeding a crowd.

You can also tailor the recipe to feed as little or as many people as you like. The broth is easily doubled or tripled to make enough for entertaining. To punch up the flavor a bit, I like to use Fire-Roasted crushed tomatoes. If you can’t find fire-roasted tomatoes, regular crushed tomatoes will work also.

I like to serve it at the table right in the pot, this is my favorite one and I use it several times a week because it’s a real workhorse in the kitchen!

Cioppino vs. Bouillabaisse

If you’ve made my French Bouillabaisse recipe already, then you may think this is the same thing. While Cioppino and Bouillabaisse are very similar, they are different in that Cioppino is more tomato based while traditional Bouillabaisse has more of a fish stock base with very few tomatoes in the stew.

Pro Tips

• If using clams, be sure to clean the clams by soaking the clams in cold water for one hour. Clams will filter the sand out themselves if soaked in water. I place the clams in a fine mesh sieve and place the sieve in a bowl filled with water. After one out, lift the strainer with the clams out of the water and rinse. Sand free clams!
• Cook the clams first….just until they open before adding the other seafood.
• Shrimp cooks quickly so add the shrimp and crab to the soup last.
• You can make the wine broth and cioppino base in advance and freeze it. Do not add the seafood until just before serving. To reheat, simply bring to a boil and then add the seafood as instructed below in the recipe card.
• If you don’t want to use wine in your Cioppino, you can skip it or replace it with apple juice. The sweetness is lovely with the acidity of the tomatoes.

What To Serve With Cioppino

This easy seafood stew is a one pot dinner that I usually just serve with a crisp white wine and But if you want to add some additional freshness, we love to serve a light green salad with a homemade Thousand Island dressing. 

Or you could serve your Cioppino alongside this epic Wedge Salad or this easy Pear Salad.

Ready in under 30 minutes, Easy Seafood Cioppino is a healthy stew perfect for an easy, and pretty high brow, weeknight dinner. 

If you’re looking for a few more easy soup recipes, this Easy Seafood Gumbo is on repeat pretty much weekly. Also, this simple and quick Gazpacho is a summertime dream. 

More Easy Seafood Recipes

• Seafood Bouillabaisse
• Maryland Crab Soup
• Grilled Seafood Paella
• Easy Lobster Bisque
• Mussels Marinara

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