Easy Gluten-Free Cioppino

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Easy Gluten-Free Cioppino

Delicious, fresh, and fast! This EASY gluten-free Cioppino Seafood Stew is a favorite when we are camping or staying at the coast…or on a cold winter day at home! With virtually NO prep time, this is a simple one-pot dump, boil, and done recipe!

You gotta admit, Cioppino Seafood Stew sounds like an extravagant meal with fresh fish, large sea scallops, steamer clams, shrimp, crab and whatever other fresh seafood you can find! It sounds complicated right? Believe me, it’s not! I was first introduced to this on a scout campout on the Oregon coast. Scouts are efficient, simple and quick… at least our troop was. The hardest part was waiting for the soup base to boil on the open flame in the Oregon coast winds!!

Gluten-Free Ingredients

I find it’s easier for me when I’m grocery shopping if I have a picture of what I’m looking for in my head. A few of the ingredients in this recipe could NOT be gluten-free if you get the wrong ones – pasta sauces, broths and stocks, and salad kits…so here are the specific brands that ARE gluten-free and taste great! Remember, it’s all about living gluten-free without tasting gluten-free and the only way to do that is to use the right ingredients!

Equipment

I also like it when I can quickly decide what equipment to use and not have to switch out my pot because it’s too small or too heavy! For this recipe I use my 6 quart Lodge Enameled Dutch Oven when I am at home. However, when we go camping, I don’t bring my enameled Dutch Oven, it’s too heavy and not versatile enough for camping. I usually bring my large Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven with feet for the open fire but I also bring a large stainless steel stock pot as it is much lighter, easy to clean and can double as your dishwashing station. You don’t want to use the non-enameled cast iron for this recipe for multiple reasons. For one, it’s best to keep tomato based ingredients to a minimum in a non-enameled cast iron but, more importantly, you do NOT want to cook seafood in it…EVER!!!

Fresh Catch!

Fresh seafood options are going to be different based on where you are at on the coast. Here are a few of our favorite coastal hangouts with some notes about what we could find and where:

Long Beach, WA: white fish, bay scallops (small), steamer clams, razor clams, shrimp – not easy to find!  The fish and shrimp we found at Tre-Fin Day Boat Seafood Market on the south end of the peninsula.  The bay scallops we found at Okie’s Thriftway in Ocean Park.  The steamer clams we found at Willapa-Oysters, a small “garage shop” on the northern bay side in Ocean Park.

Pacific City, OR: white fish, sea scallops, steamer clams, shrimp, crab – all readily available at Cape Kiwanda Marketplace

Gold Beach, OR: white fish, sea scallops, shrimp – we struggled to find fresh seafood here!!  We ended up driving to Brookings, about 30 minutes south, and getting it all at Fred Meyer!  Let me know if you know of a secret seafood place closer!

At Home: check out the fresh seafood counter at your local grocery store.  We were pleasantly surprised when we saw that Fred Meyer has Sea Scallops!  They didn’t have clams but we had some razor clams in our freezer from a previous Long Beach clamming trip.  We added some Rockfish (also from Freddy’s) and it was a delicious meal!

Alternatives: most people, my husband included, would love to add shrimp and crab but unfortunately I am allergic to both.  He will often add some cooked shrimp to his after it has been served. When adding different seafoods just be sure to check the cooking time for each to make sure you add it at the correct time so you don’t over or under cook any of the seafoods.  Get creative and use whatever is fresh and readily available where you are. 

Complete Meal

Not only is this easy gluten-free Cioppino quick and easy to prepare, it’s also easy to make this a complete meal by serving with white wine and adding some garlic bread and a bag salad.

White Wine: Simple enough…you’ve already opened a bottle of white wine for the recipe so just grab some glasses and pour the rest of the bottle. Any white wine will do but we really enjoyed the Chateau St. Michelle Pinot Gris in this recipe and it paired nicely with the meal.

Gluten-Free Garlic Bread: Franz Gluten-Free Sourdough is delicious and at the time of this post they sell it in a 2 pack at Costco. While you are waiting for the soup base to come to a boil simply dice several cloves of garlic, mix with softened butter and some dried parsley, then toast in a toaster oven for 7 minutes, or carefully over your campfire with a roasting stick.

Gluten-Free Bag Salad: Not all bag salads are gluten-free! In fact, I find that most of them are not. Sometimes it’s as easy as leaving out the croutons or wontons that are bagged separately, so that’s not a big deal. However, you have to be really careful with salad dressings!! It’s best to stick to bags labeled as gluten-free but if you can read through the ingredients and know what to look out for you can broaden your bag salad horizons 🙂 Taylor Farms Apple Feta Salad Kit, typically found at Fred Meyer, is gluten-free and is as simple as tossing in a bowl! I usually add extra spinach depending on how many people will be eating. If you’ve got a ripe avocado on hand throw that in too!