Spanish seafood paella recipe

Seafood paella, paella de marisco, paella marinera, spanish seafood rice… all these terms refers to the same Spanish seafood rice dish. Seafood paella if one of the most traditional and typical Spanish dishes and the most known in the world. It is ideal to face the heat and enjoy seafood, a refreshing product with which you will be able to transfer the flavors from the sea to your plate.

Learn how we cook this seafood rice dish, the traditional easy way.

Spanish Seafood Paella Recipe

In order to make great Spanish seafood paella, you may want to consider a couple of concepts:

• To have delicious seafood that gives flavor to the recipe.
• To choose the right rice type that absorbs all this flavor

And now that you’ve got the keys to nailing seafood paella, it’s time for you to get down to work – show that you’re a real cook!

Seafood Paella Ingredients

The base of this version of traditional seafood paella recipe, contains the fish broth (fumé, in Spanish), usually made with:

• Fish (rockfish, heads, fish bones…)
• Some vegetables (carrots, celery stalk, potato…)
• The parts of seafood we don’t use as a solid ingredient, such as heads or skins.

Another main part of this seafood paella is the sautéed sauce base (sofrito, in Spanish), that is usually made soft-frying

• fresh parsley
• garlic
• onion
• tomato puree
• dried pepper or paprika.

Either the fish broth and the vegetables will make you reach the perfect seafood paella.

As you can see, we add vegetables, but in a smaller proportion than in other paella types like the meat ones, or the mixed.

🥘 Difficulty: Average
🥘 Serves: 4
🥘 Nutrition: 410 Kcal

• 400g (2 1/4 cups) medium-grain rice (paella rice)
• 200g (0.45 lbs) sliced calamari or squid
• 12 raw shell-on king prawns
• 400g (0.9 lbs) mussels and/or clams
• 200g (0.45 lbs) monkfish, tuna or kingfish, cut into chunks
• 1 small onion (chopped)
• 1 medium-size ripe tomato (or 200g of tomato puree)
• 1 small red pepper
• 2 garlic cloves (chopped)
• half a handful fresh parsley leaves (finely chopped)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• salt
• black pepper
• pinch of saffron
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 950g (2 pints) seafood/fish stock

How to make seafood paella?

🥘 Total time: 55′
🥘 Prep time: 30′ Including a quick fish broth
🥘 Cooking time: 25′

Making seafood paella is not very different than cooking the other ones as the steps only vary slightly. This is an easy but incredibly tasty recipe that you will enjoy not only when you eat, but also when you smell the fish and seafood fragrant. For me, this is the best seafood paella recipe.

The method

1. Clean and peel the prawns. Its skins and heads will be very valuable for the stock
2. Smash the skins and heads or even crush them to extract all the flavor
3. Add it to boiling water. You may want to add fish bones and heads, too. Let it cook for 30 min. Learn here how to prepare a proper fish stock
4. Clean the squid and slice it forming small rings
5. Cut some strips of red pepper or small dices, as you prefer
6. Clean the shells with a lot of water to remove any piece of sand
7. In a paella, or a very large pan, set medium heat and warm the olive oil
8. Add the red pepper and soft fry it until soften and reserve
9. Sauté the onion, garlic, and parsley. Stir
10. Add later the tomato and stir. Wait until its color becomes darker
11. Add a very little bit of pepper and salt to taste. Stir for a moment.
12. Add the rice and stir to mix. We also have to saute the rice
13. Pour the stock previously warmed. Add the saffron. Stir and try the salt
14. 10 min later, add the fresh peas, the red pepper, the seashells, the squid, and some prawns. Optionally, add a little bit of parsley previously chopped
15. Let it cook until the rice has absorbed almost all the stock. Almost
16. Let it cook for 15 minutes (minimum heat). Then, taste the grain. If it is ready, remove it from the heat
17. Serve it and enjoy it!

So, now you know you like seafood paella, you probably will enjoy prawn paella or paella negra too.

How to accompany seafood paella?

For paella seafood, you can opt for the mussels, clams, prawns, and cuttlefish that we propose on this occasion. But shrimps or squid are also valid. With all of them, we will have a very tasty recipe and full of aroma thanks to the fish broth or fumet that we will prepare before cooking the rice. There will be all the sea concentrate that will give personality to our recipe for seafood paella. And, remember, everything starts with a good sofrito!

What wine goes with seafood paella?

Rice is a good dish for pairing and depending on the ingredients that accompany it you can choose any style of wine, even go further, depending on the wine you want to drink you can choose the rice that suits the wine, either white, red, rosé or sparkling. We will propose you different wines depending on the raw material that prevails in the rice and its different cooking. So, nothing goes best with Spanish Seafood Paella than a Spanish white wine.

For these rice dishes we need wines with structure and length, of medium aromas and above all of the long passage to be able to withstand the delicious aroma of rice.

Wines with seafood paella

Seafood and fish rice can have different variants depending on the way they are made. If it is a dry rice, we can opt for more fluid white wines with a not very aromatic profile, or also dry sparkling wines with notes of aging, such as:

• Verdejo Butón de Gallo: is a great option to enjoy these rice dishes on the seashore. An elegant Rice of various shades by the quantity of seafood and fish that is added to it, to enjoy and to suck the fingers. Literally.
• Valdespino Ojo de Gallo 2017: Made from the Palomino grape on Albariza soils, it achieves the perfect balance between the sapidity of the wine and the rice.
• Monte Pío Albariño 2017: This Rías Baixas gives us a slightly more fruity sensation in the aromatic part and with a fresh, saline and dry mouth.
• Recaredo Terrers Gran Reserva Brut Nature 2013: Very dry classic cava that will give us these aromas of aging and the ideal freshness for this rice.