A seafood boil can be a crab boil, shrimp boil, or mix of things for a Cajun seafood boil for a casual seafood boil party at home or a beach picnic food for a beach party bonfire.
This easy one pot recipe for crab boil with potatoes, corn, shrimp, and sausage (if you want) includes my easy boil seasoning.
How To Host a Seafood Boil Party
A perfect seafood boil recipe is based on your own tastes, which means you can test out this recipe with your different favorite shelled seafoods.
We often like a more southern-style Cajun boil recipe using Old Bay and also andouille sausage, but you can make a regular East coast seafood boil recipe with crab, shrimp, lobster, mussels, clams, crawfish and vegetables using this seasoning.
What are the ingredients in a seafood boil?
The basic ingredients for a seafood boil are:
- Crab legs
- Shrimp
- Potatoes
- Corn
- Seasonings for boiled broth
- Butter
*Please take a moment to read through all the recipe tips before getting to the free printable recipe card. If this is your first time, these are important tips so you don’t ruin all that expensive seafood and sides!
Seafood Boil Recipe FAQs and Tips
What is the secret to a good seafood boil?
The secret to a good seafood boil or crab boil is starting with a good broth.
Many people just add the seafood and vegetables to plain water, but creating a broth with water, broth seasoning, and even beer makes a flavorful based to add your ingredients to for a boil.
There are many different ways to make a seafood boil sauce recipe, but I add in garlic, lemons, and onions to the water base and bring that to a boil before I even add any other seafood boil ingredients.
The last part is the seasoning. I lived for quite a while on the East coast, so our go-to seafood seasoning is always Old Bay seasoning.
You can also use this Zatarain’s seasoning too, which makes a really good Southern style seafood boil for Cajun seasonings.
What’s a good side for a seafood boil?
Honestly, I rarely serve extra sides with a seafood boil because it ends up being so much between the crab legs, shrimp, corn, and potatoes, which is the whole meal in a pot.
I’ve been to crab boils where garlic bread, hush puppies, or a thick, crusty bread is served to sop up the butter sauce with spices.
How do you make classic drawn butter for crab legs or seafood boils?
Drawn clarified butter, or the butter that doesn’t melt, is the traditional butter for crab legs and seafood dip.
Some people make it as garlic butter or seasoned butter with Cajun seasoning or Old Bay, but I serve the drawn butter plain.
We serve our seafood boil with a lot of seasoning, so I don’t think the butter needs seasonings.
GET THE RECIPE FOR DRAWN BUTTER FOR SEAFOOD HERE
What are common mistakes in a seafood boil?
Not layering the ingredients!
The biggest mistake I made when first doing a seafood crab boil was to throw everything in the pot at once and cook it until the longest cooking thing was done (the potatoes, btw).
This made the shrimp rubbery and overcooked (along with other things being overcooked).
Be sure to layer your ingredients so everything comes out cooked the right way. (See the seafood boil layering below.)
How do you serve a seafood boil?
My favorite way to serve a seafood boil dinner is to cover a table with craft paper and then spread the cooked seafood boil ingredients in the middle of the table for everyone to grab what they want. (This works really well for an outdoor party and fun to cook your seafood over a campfire.)
If we’re doing a seafood dinner party indoors, I just spread all the ingredients on a big food platter and let guests serve themselves from the platter.
A seafood party is pretty casual, so no need to make it fancy.
You will also use a lot of paper towels and hand wipes, so don’t skip those!
What supplies do you need for a seafood boil?
You need a large tall pot for this so that you can stack and layer the ingredients.
I use this seafood boil pot (but note you can’t use it on ceramic stovetops or induction stoves).
You will also need:
- Rolls of sturdy paper towels (I just sit them at different spots on the table)
- Hand wipes like this
- Crab crackers and mallets
- Crab buckets for shells (optional)
Since seafood boils can be messy finger foods, you may also want to provide guests with seafood bibs like these to keep clothes clean.
Order To Layer Seafood Boil
The order that you add things to a seafood boil pot is probably one of the most important things that you can do in order to avoid overcooking ingredients and prevent rubbery overcooked shrimp (especially).
Do not add all the seafood boil ingredients in one pot! Instead, layer, cook, layer, cook using this seafood cooking guide…
In what order do you add things to a seafood boil?
- First Layer (bottom of pot): Potatoes – cook 10-12 minutes
- Second Layer: Corn and Sausage (if using) – cook 5-7 minutes
- Third Layer: Crab legs – cook 5-10 minutes
- Fourth Layer (top layer, top of pot, but in the sauce): shrimp – cook 3-5 minutes
Shrimp cook really fast, so be sure to add those last and just for a few minutes. The shrimp are done when they are slightly pink and start to form a slight curve or “C” shrimp shape (and not completely curled in on each other).
When to add potatoes and corn to a seafood boil?
Potatoes should always be added to a seafood boil pot first, in the bottom of the pot, because they take longest to cook.
These will cook around 10-12 minutes before you add in the second layer from the bottom, which is the corn.
The corn will then cook for around 5-7 minutes before adding the next layers.
When to add crab legs to a seafood boil?
You add the crab legs to a crab boil as the second to the last layer because they cook pretty quickly.
Crab legs in a seafood boil will cook in about 5-10 minutes.
After that, you add the shrimp layer for just a few minutes.
Free Printable Recipe for How To Cook a Seafood Boil (Crab Boil)
This crab boil serves 4-6 people.
This is an easy recipe to double or triple for party foods to scale up based on number of guests.
You can use a larger pot or make several pots of boil at the same time.
IMPORTANT: You need a large tall pot for this so that you can stack and layer the ingredients. I use this seafood boil pot (but note you can’t use it on ceramic stovetops or induction stoves).
Seafood Boil Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 quarts water
- 1/2 cup Old Bay seasoning (plus more for topping)
- 1 medium yellow onion peeled, quartered, and slices separated
- 4 cloves garlic peeled
- 2 large lemons quartered
- 1 pound baby potatoes red or gold (or both), washed
- 6 small ears sweet corn (I usually break regular ears of corn in half for this)
- 8-12 clusters snow crab precooked, fresh or frozen (this is about 3-6 pounds, depending on size)*
- 2 pounds jumbo shrimp peeled or in shell, deveined
Instructions
- In an oversized stock pot, combine water, Old Bay seasoning, onions, and garlic. Squeeze half of the lemons into the water and add the lemons (with peel) you just squeezed. (Reserved the other half of lemons for serving.) Stir. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir.
- Carefully add baby potatoes to the water mixture, stir, and let cook for 10-12 minutes, or until you can just pierce the potatoes with a fork.
- Add the corn into the liquid on top of the potatoes and cook for around 5-7 minutes. Make sure everything is covered by the liquid. (This is also the step you would add sausage, if using.)
- On top of the corn, add in crab legs. Cook for 5-10 minutes. In this last 5 minutes, add shrimp into the liquid and cook for 5 minutes. Shrimp are done when slightly start to turn into a C-shape.
TO SERVE:
- Line a platter or table with newspaper or craft paper. Carefully strain ingredients from liquid and place on platter or table while hot. Top lightly with additional Old Bay seasoning.
- Serve with fresh lemon quarters, extra old bay, and sides of drawn butter. (SEE POST FOR DRAWN BUTTER RECIPE.)
Notes
Nutrition Note
Nutrition calculations are approximate. If you're following a special diet, please calculate your own nutrition values.
I hope you enjoy your seafood boil!
