Seafood Recipes

By Kristne McDaniel

Do you love seafood? It is very easy to create new meals at home following simple seafood recipes. You will the ease of preparing the foods as well as save money by eating at home rather than going out for seafood. Seafood recipes include fish, appetizers, grilling, casseroles, dips, pasta, salads, and soups. Proper care of the seafood from purchase, to storage, to preparation will ensure your seafood is safe to eat.

To ease the preparation work with seafood, it is important that you have a good, sharp knife. Keep your fingers straight below the knuckles to prevent accidental cuts to them. Store knives properly when not using to prevent accidents from happening.

Safety while preparing seafood recipes is very important. Keeping seafood cold is the most important step in handling is safely. If you do not plan to cook seafood within 2 days of purchasing, you will want to freeze it to ensure quality. You can simply thaw it out within 24 hours of when you plan to use it.

If you plan to grill or marinate seafood, do not store the bowl you are using to hold the ingredients on the counter. It is important that you keep it as cold as the seafood. It is important that you do not prepare seafood around other foods you are making. You may cross contaminate the foods, leading to severe illness after eating the foods. Make sure you thoroughly clean knives, counters, and cutting boards for the same reason. An important safety tip most people don’t think about is making sure the cooler you are using to transport seafood is thoroughly cleaned as well.

Cook all seafood completely. It is recommended you use a food thermometer to check that the internal temperature is 145 degrees or hotter. If you choose to eat raw seafood, it is best to eat the kind that has previously been frozen. This is because some types of seafood have parasites. Freezing will kill any such parasites. However, there are some microorganisms that survive the freezing process, so cooking all seafood is still recommended by the USDA.