Seafood Paella

Having guests over for Christmas dinner that don’t eat turkey or meat but love seafood? A seafood paella is a great choice! It’s easy, quick to make, colorful and absolutely delicious!

This Christmas we will be celebrating at my parents’ house, we’re a huge group of 11 and as you can imagine, we all have different tastes when it comes to food. Most of us do eat turkey, but 2 people do not eat any poultry or meat, only seafood and vegetarian options.

As it’s my Mum and me who will be cooking this year (and every year!), we had to sit down and plan the menu. We thought about a few seafood options and seafood paella was the winner. So I thought I’d share this recipe with my readers, as this is what will be on the menu in our house in less than 2 weeks time.

Paella is a traditional Spanish rice dish, and there are many different variations. There is a vegetarian paella, a seafood paella, chicken paella and a meat paella. I also really like mixed paella which means that you can add anything that you like to it, for example, chicken, chorizo, beans, or whatever your heart desires!

I love how easy is this dish to make, but the result looks like you put a lot of effort into this. It only takes me 20 minutes to whip this up! One more reason why we chose a seafood paella, is because of how colourful this dish is, just perfect for the festive season!

One thing I always like to do is have a good store of frozen food. It means that I can just throw things together, whenever I need to. Frozen food is much fresher than “fresh” food – having been frozen fast, rather than sitting for ages till I get round to using it.

I often shop at Iceland Foods, and luckily they stock a wide range of great quality frozen products. To make this Seafood Paella I always get this Frutti De Mare; which is a great selection of cooked mussels, squid, clams, and shrimps prepared in a lovely tomato and herb sauce. This sauce is also perfect for the paella as when I add this to the rice, I don’t need to add any tomato paste or herbs, see how this makes life so easy?

Another great product that we love buying at Iceland Foods, is the frozen steamed rice. After trying this rice, you will always make sure that your freezer is stocked up with it. It’s a package of 6 portions and it costs £1.69 which works out at £0.28 per portion. This is very easy, all you have to do is put the rice in a bowl, and microwave it for 3 minutes!

To make this paella, start by chopping up a yellow onion, and saute in a paella pan on medium heat (if you don’t have a paella pan, use a wok or a frying pan). When the onion is tender and translucent, add peas, the seafood with the sauce, and let it cook on medium heat for a few minutes. Add water, 1 tsp of saffron, 1 tsp of smoked paprika and let it simmer until reduced. Meanwhile, microwave the steamed rice then add it to pan to simmer for about 5 more minutes. You can add thin slices of red bell pepper at the end to make it more colourful and festive, salt to taste and garnish with chopped fresh parsley.

To make things even more interesting, we will be serving this with cranberry sauce on the side. Makes an interesting combination doesn’t it?

Butter herb carrot baubles!

Iceland Foods also sell a great range of Christmas trimmings, this herb butter carrot baubles side is probably my favourite. It’s also frozen, you just need to stir-fry the contents of the package and it’s ready in under 15 minutes. Everyone will love this, it’s guaranteed!

Make sure to check out Iceland’s Christmas range. Thanks to #PowerOfFrozen they have everything that you might need to cook up a conventional Christmas dinner or a not so conventional Christmas dinner, you know what I mean!

If you make this seafood paella, please don’t forget to rate this recipe and share a picture on social media. Tag #LittleSunnyKitchen in your posts as I would really love to see what you make! Thank you for supporting Little Sunny Kitchen, so I can keep sharing my tasty recipes with you for free.

Seafood Paella

5 from 4 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Spanish

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Servings: 4 servings

Calories: 308kcal

Author: Diana @ LittleSunnyKitchen

Ingredients

• 1 yellow onion chopped
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil for frying
• 40 grams peas frozen or fresh
• 450 grams mixed seafood Mussels, Squid, Clams & Shrimp
• Tomato and herb sauce
• 250 ml water
• 1 tsp saffron
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 450 grams steamed rice
• red bell pepper optional
• salt to taste
• chopped fresh parsley leaves to garnish
• lemon wedges to serve

Instructions

• In a pan saute the onion.
• When the onion is tender and translucent, add peas, the seafood with the sauce and let it cook on medium heat for a few minutes.
• Add water, saffron, smoked paprika and let it simmer until reduced.
• Microwave the steamed rice then add it to pan to simmer for 5 more minutes. You can add thin slices of red bell pepper at the end.
• Salt to taste and garnish with chopped fresh parsley. Serve with lemon wedges.

Nutrition

Calories: 308kcal | Carbohydrates: 36g | Protein: 26g | Fat: 5g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 283mg | Sodium: 880mg | Potassium: 205mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 325IU | Vitamin C: 10.6mg | Calcium: 181mg | Iron: 2.9mg

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This post is in collaboration with Iceland Foods. Thank you for supporting the brands that make Little Sunny Kitchen happen. All opinions are my own.