This classic Bouillabaisse recipe is packed with flavor! The combination of herb, spice, orange peel, and fennel is divine. The saffron, gives the soup its deep golden color. You have to give it a try, it’s delicious!
Why this Bouillabaisse Recipe is so Good
- A popular French classic.
- It creates a rich and delicious fish stew.
- 3 types of seafood create a range of wonderful flavors.
- A must for seafood lovers.
Ingredients for this Bouillabaisse Recipe
- Olive oil
- Leek, onion, tomatoes, orange peel
- Garlic, fennel, saffron, fresh herbs
- Fish trimmings
- Assorted fish
- Dry white wine
- Sea salt
How to Cook this Bouillabaisse Recipe – Step by Step
You start with leek, onion and garlic – and saute in olive oil.
Just a few minutes over medium heat is all you need.
The next step is to add in the herbs. Fennel is essential, but you can also add in other fresh herbs like parsley, oregano and thyme. I only use the green fronds of the fennel (save the white bulb to use in another recipe, like a salad)
Use a vegetable peeler to peel strips off the orange.
This is saffron that I’ve gently crushed with my fingers – I want to get the saffron threads into smaller pieces, almost in a powder form.
Chop up 3 tomatoes.
Throw everything into the same pot that has the leek/onion/garlic, water, wine along with the fish trimmings. I’ll spare you the photo of the fish trimmings.
After simmering for 30 minutes, strain the bouillabaisse into another pot.
Add your seafood
Ladle into bowls, garnish with fennel and serve.
What Kind Of Seafood Should I Use For Bouillabaisse?
Now let’s talk about seafood in this Bouillabaisse recipe. You can use whatever you want, though traditional Bouillabaisse recipes will call for 3 different kinds of fish along with shellfish. I used Amberjack and Grouper (from our fishing trip), salmon, shrimp, scallops, clams and mussels. Okay, I went a little overboard 🙂 Bring the strained Bouillabaisse soup back to a simmer and cook the seafood for just a few minutes.
Can I Freeze Bouillabaisse?
Cooking one big batch if this Bouillabaisse recipe and freezing some for another time lets you cook once while feasting at least twice!
Unless you want to end up with frosty bouillabaisse, you need to allow it to completely cool before freezing it. Once the fish is completely cooked, take the bouillabaisse off the heat. Remove any skin or bones that might still be in the mixture. Allow the mixture to cool completely before dividing it into freezer-safe containers. Label the containers with the date and seal them shut. Bouillabaisse can be frozen for as long as six months.
I’m part of the McCormick Gourmet team, bringing you in-depth information about everyday spices. From McCormick Gourmet’s Enspicelopedia:
What Is Saffron?
Observe the stigma, the tiny strands at the flower’s center, of any crocus in your garden, and you’ll begin to understand why saffron is so expensive. It takes 220,000 dried stigmas from a specific variety of crocus, Crocus sativus, to make one pound of saffron. The flowers appear over a two-week period only, usually in October. Saffron is available as strands and also ground.
The deep orange red color and unique flavor of the famous Spanish rice dish paella, the Indian dessert kheer and French seafood soup bouillabaisse are the work of tiny saffron threads steeped in liquid during cooking. Used both for color and flavor, saffron is a prized spice in Mediterranean, North African and Asian cuisines and in bread and pastries around the world.
Originating in the Middle East, this spice is planted, harvested, dried and packaged by hand. Today, Iran is the largest producer, while India and Spain are much smaller growers, Spain holds the honor of producing the highest quality saffron.
Cultivated in Southern Europe since the 3rd century or before, saffron has found use in medicine, religious offerings, perfume, make-up, potpourri and, of course, cooking. Its vivid orange red color gives it great use as a fabric dye, which makes it humorous to imagine what Greeks and Romans must have looked like after using it perfume luxurious baths.
Top Tips for this Bouillabaisse Recipe
- Using a variety of fish (mostly finfish) and fewer shellfish is truer to the original spirit of bouillabaisse.
- Using a blender instead of the more traditional food mill helps to break down the solids enough so they can pass through a strainer (though you can use a food mill if you have a good one).
- You can gently crush the saffron in your fingers, to create a powder that will absorb into the Bouillabaisse recipe.
- I only use the green fronds of the fennel (save the white bulb to use in another recipe, like a salad)
- Serve with crusty bread!
Check Out These Other Delicious Seafood Dishes
Have you tried this Bouillabaisse recipe? Feel free to leave a star rating and I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
Bouillabaisse Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 leek white part only, chopped
- 1 onion chopped
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- peel of 1 orange orange part only (use vegetable peeler)
- 3 to matoes chopped
- 1/3 cup chopped fennel fronds
- fresh herbs in any combination: thyme, parsley, oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads crushed
- 3-4 pounds of fish trimmings heads, bones, tail, shrimp shells
- 10 cups water
- 1 cup dry white wine
- 1 tablespoon sea salt
- 3 pounds of assorted fish and shellfish clams and mussels should be scrubbed clean
Instructions
- In a large stockpot, heat the olive oil on medium heat. When hot, add in the leek, onion and garlic. Saute for 5 minutes until softened but not brown.
- Add in the orange peel, tomatoes, fennel, fresh herbs, saffron, fish trimmings, water, wine, salt turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. Then turn the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain the soup into another large pot.
- Bring the strained soup to a boil over medium high heat. Taste and adjust with additional salt if needed. The soup should be slightly salty (remember we still have unseasoned seafood to add into the soup). Now we'll cook the seafood, adding in the items that require the most cooking time first. If you have whole lobster tails or large crab claws, add them in first and give them a 2-minute head start. Clams next, then the mussels and extra-large shrimp, lastly the fish, scallops and any smaller shrimp. You want to be careful not to overcook the seafood, so 4-5 minutes max then turn off the heat.
- Ladle bouillabaisse into each bowl with the seafood and garnish with fresh fennel fronds.
Did you try this recipe? Please leave a star rating in the recipe card below and leave a review in the comment section! I always appreciate your feedback and I know other readers do, too!
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very yummy  i added a couple Ts pernod and some white pepper…great kick!  hubby loved it with sourdough bread
You can use Annato powder by McCormick to achieve a similar color to that of saffron
Hey there, I tried today the Bouillabaisse and it was exzellent !!!
Thank you so much!
Looks so yummy and mouth watering. I’ll try making this ^_^
I appreciate the straightforward instructions. I’ve been making this recipe so long now I wanted to try how others do it. Learned some good stuff here. My cooking turned out a lot better than I anticipated.Great stuff here!
I love the bouillabaisse!
Fabulous Jaden! I emailed this one to myself as I love Bouillabaisse and honestly have never tried to make it. I hope you are having a good summer!
*waving hi* miss ya!
omg, that looks soooo good! great recipe, thanks!!
Thank you so much for this brilliant recipe. I tried it last night together with the Roasted Cauliflower with Bacon and Garlic recipe. Both turned out really well. In fact, I was so inspired by my success, I wrote a post about it called the Project Domestication. I mentioned your site, and gave the URL links to both recipes. If you have time, I would love for your to read my post at http://www.xiaobonestler.com It is a brand new blog!
I am looking forward to try more excellent recipes from your site!
Xiaobo
Thank you so much!
I had some great bouillabasse when I was just on vacation in South Carolina! I’m going to have to try and make a this! Love trying to replicate some of my favorite “vacation foods”.
What a great seafood dish- can’t wait to try this one out!
For me it’s a must to have some sort of soup at the dinning table. I would love to give this a try, though I’ve never heard of this one before. I do love some seafood now and then! Thanks! 🙂
P.S.: The cupcake pops video were really helpful! Hopefully you’ll make more of those?? Especially for cooks like me who love visual and audio instructions. Thank YOU! 😀
Thanks so much! I love doing the video instruction, just a little time consuming putting it all together (the editing is my least favorite part). Check out my friend John’s site: foodwishes.com
How season-appropriate. 🙂 Bouillabaisse is one of the few stews I have no qualms eating in the summer, probably because it’s seafood galore. May have to make a trip to my fishmonger this weekend…
This looks delicious! I can’t wait to try the recipe.
I think I will use this, I am planning to have a special section as there is definately the demand.
That looks and sounds absolutely delicious.
Sometimes, I dream of spending my Saturdays on a fishing boat, eating fresh seafood as they come out of the sea…
Jaden, I love the color but how can I make it like that with out the saffron?
This looks delicious! I’m just now starting to get into seafood and I’ve been looking for some good recipes; this is perfect!
No, I’m fortunate that my Dad built a house at the beach many years ago and it’s been passed on to my brother and I. We all share it, but this has been a busy year for me so it’s our first trip down.
This looks wonderful. I’ve always been put off making Bouillabaisse because it thought it would be too complicated but now I’m going to give it a try (perhaps without the saffron!). Thanks.
This takes me straight to Marseilles, sitting by the quayside of the old harbour! Delicious!
Woo…all the seafood look so fresh. I love seafood so much. Guess the soup must be very nice. I like the color of the soup. But if I don’t have saffron, can I substitute it with any other ingredient?
Just leave it out! Saffron can be pretty expensive.
Bouillabaisse is so good ! I never tried to cook it myself. Thanks for the recipe !
so when does the wine go in?
Hi Karen – sorry about that – I fixed recipe!
This looks luscious. Wish I had access to all that fresh seafood. A trip to the beach is planned, so maybe I can make this while we’re there!
I want to go to the beach! Are you renting beach house?
I know bouillabaisse is a French dish but shhh please pass the rice haha.. but really I want to ladle it up in a heaping mound of rice. It’s a little chilly here tonight and a bowl of this would be perfect!
malou
Beautiful recipe! Your blog looks excellent and all your recipes are wonderful.
Grouper is my favorite. just seeing them makes me hungry.
I’ve never had this dish (and in Utah it would be super expensive to buy enough fish to make it.) But your photos are definitely making me drool!
LOL true!
btw SO happy to have hung out with you at IACP! xo jaden
You look tiny next to that guy standing behind you! Fresh caught Amberjack is so delicious!
I think I need to have that guy travel with me everywhere. He makes me look tiny! LOL
That first photo is stunning – what a delicious dish and an amazing fishing trip!
This looks beautiful! I’m sure you guys had a lot of fun too!
I grew up in Serbia, where almost all the fish that we ate was caught that morning, but I have never caught a fish myself:) I am a bit jealous of you:) That is a nice haul you got!
I make fish stews often, especially in the summer, but I am still to make a traditional Bouillabaisse. For this, I am willing to spring some denaro for the expensive saffron!
Ooooh to have fresh caught fish every morning….that’s my dream.
This dish has my mouth watering. I love that you caught the fish! It was also fabulous meeting you this weekend Jaden!