Can You Really Cook Seafood Straight From Frozen?

Seafood makes an ideal weeknight dinner — not only is it tasty and nutritious, but it comes together quickly due to short cooking times. Perhaps you've been tempted to prepare some crispy battered fish (the key is getting the right flour) or pan-fried shrimp straight from frozen to make your meal an even speedier process. After all, the internet says that it's fine to pull seafood from the freezer and put it directly in the oven or on the stove. This "hack" has been repeated time and time again on credible websites, so it must be true, right? Well, maybe not.

Foodie spoke with Pierre Albaladejo, Executive Chef at Park Hyatt Aviara on the topic of frozen versus thawed seafood. His answer was clear. "I will not recommend cooking seafood from frozen," he says definitively. Delving a bit deeper into the matter, it becomes clear that chef Albaladejo is correct: heating frozen seafood can imbue too much moisture into the finished product, leading to limp, soggy fish filets and cooked scallops that taste like a mistake. There's only one answer: you need to defrost seafood before preparing it. Luckily, there are a few ways to do that which take only a little extra effort.

In an ideal world, says chef Albaladejo, you've already thought ahead about your frozen seafood and made some time to de-ice it. "[T]he best is to thaw them out in a fridge," he says. However, even the best of us sometimes fail at time management and need an ace up our sleeves. "If you need to speed up the process," Albaladejo divulges, "thaw them out under running water."

Don't lean too hard on the hot tap, as it's important that you thaw seafood in cool water for food safety (room temperature water isn't recommended for the same reasons). Make sure your protein is in a sealed plastic bag and use something heavy, like the bottom of a saucepan, to submerge the seafood as the running water flows over it, continually refreshing the thawing liquid. 

You can accommodate for longer thawing and prep time by choosing a cooking method that shaves a few precious minutes off your routine. The air fryer is almost always a great way to prepare seafood — just don't overcrowd it, which is a mistake that will cost you in both temperature and texture.