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8 Seafood Recipes for Sun-Soaked Entertaining
From kingfish tostadas and spicy salmon crispy rice to glossy vongole and chilli-butter fish, these seafood recipes are fresh, fast and made for sharing.
Summer seafood deserves more than another round of prawns on ice. Give us silky tuna under good olive oil, kingfish on shatter-crisp tostadas, anchovy toast at aperitivo hour, a bowl of glossy vongole and a whole fish arriving at the table under chilli butter. These eight recipes run from clever little snacks to big, pass-it-around dinners, with citrus, herbs, heat and plenty of cold-wine potential along the way. Open the windows. Dinner is looking very good.
Coconut Fish Curry
This coconut fish curry is basically spring dinner in a bowl: bright tomatoes, coriander, plenty of lime and just enough coconut milk to keep things silky. The fish cooks gently in the sauce, soaking up all that savoury spice before landing over hot rice. Fresh, fragrant, a little indulgent and exactly the sort of thing we want on repeat right now.
Kingfish Tostadas
There are few better ways to announce summer than raw kingfish on something fried. These tostadas pile silky fish over shatter-crisp shells with chilli, citrus and herbs, delivering that excellent hot-cold, soft-crunchy thing in every bite. They’re bright, salty, a little messy and far too easy to demolish standing around the kitchen bench. Put out a plate, pour spicy margaritas and accept that no good tostada gets left behind.
Anchovy Toast With Whipped Ricotta & Green Olive Salsa
Anchovy girls, this is your summer snack. Golden sourdough gets a thick swipe of lemony whipped ricotta, a salty anchovy fillet and a sharp little salsa of green olives, capers, shallot and parsley. It takes all of 10 minutes, looks wildly more impressive than the effort involved and hits every creamy, briny, crunchy note you want with an aperitivo. The sort of snack that makes a 5pm glass of wine feel like a very good idea.
Paprika & Lime Salmon Kebabs With Herby Coconut Yoghurt
Salmon gets barbecue treatment here, threaded onto skewers with ribbons of zucchini after a paprika, lime and olive oil marinade. The brilliant bit is the cool coconut yoghurt alongside, sharpened with lemon and coriander. They cook quickly, look fabulous piled onto a platter and leave plenty of room on the table for salads, flatbread and another jug of whatever everyone is drinking.
Spaghetti Alle Vongole
Few things say summer dinner quite like a bowl of spaghetti tangled with clams. Valentina Harris keeps this one beautifully stripped back, letting fresh baby clams do the work alongside garlic, rosemary, parsley, dry white wine and plenty of good olive oil. The clam liquor folds straight through the pasta, making the whole thing briny, glossy and deeply savoury without a heavy sauce in sight. Serve immediately, preferably with the rest of that white wine poured into glasses.
Sophie Fisher’s Spicy Salmon Crispy Rice
Leave it to Sophie Fisher of @coconutandbliss to make a supermarket sushi tray look ready for Friday-night drinks. She lifts the salmon from store-bought nigiri, chops it with Kewpie, sriracha, soy and sesame oil, then air-fries the rice until deeply golden. Avocado, spicy salmon and a slice of jalapeño go on top. Minimal effort, maximum crisp-edged satisfaction, and a pretty stellar argument for always taking the shortcut.
Easy Cioppino (Seafood Stew)
Cioppino is the dinner-party flex that looks far more involved than it is. This San Francisco-born Italian-American stew piles clams, mussels, white fish, prawns and scallops into a garlicky tomato broth sharpened with fennel, chilli and white wine, and it all comes together in under an hour. Tear up a baguette, open something cold and let everyone lean in over the pot. The only real rule is to serve it while the seafood is just cooked and the bread is still crisp enough for serious dunking.
Crispy Ikan Bakar-Inspired Fish With Chilli Butter
This gorgeous recipe by Chloe Skipp earns the finale spot. Crisp-skinned barramundi or snapper is hit with ginger, turmeric and sweet soy before meeting a glossy chilli-butter sauce sharpened with lime. A fresh tumble of tomato, coriander, shallot and chilli goes over the top, keeping everything bright against that rich, fiery sauce. It has centre-of-the-table drama without requiring restaurant-level stamina, which is precisely the energy summer entertaining needs.
Seafood this good does not need much ceremony. Start with something raw, follow it with something crisp or charred, keep the citrus close and pour whatever you’re drinking cold. The rest can sort itself out around the table. For more things worth cooking, work your way through our favourite salads and date-night recipes next.
