This is our typical Feast of Seven Fishes Menu for Christmas Eve with some honorable mentions. It's so fun to prepare this meal despite being chaotic and a lot of work. I'm going to give you some tips and tricks to make it doable!
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The Feast of Seven Fishes
Why is it 7? We don't know. There is no mention of "7" anywhere in the history of the feast that originated in Sicily, also known as La Vigilia. This feast of seafood comes from abstaining from meat until Christmas Day.
The seven happened somewhere in America. The Feasty of "Seven" Fishes is an Italian-American tradition. Between appetizers and dinner we try to get 7 different seafood dishes on the table from baccala to branzino.
Our Seafood Menu for Christmas Eve
Our Feast of Seven Fishes changes every year but we always manage to get Seven fish on the table somehow. Here are the recipes we'll be serving this year!
Appetizers
The Best Homemade Shrimp Cocktail is one of my favorites to have on the table because I can make the entire dish a day in advance! Plus homemade shrimp cocktail is a million times better than store-bought.
Garlic Sage Seared Scallops is another one of my favorites. I love to put them out as an appetizer or serve them right before I get dinner on the table. These are gone in seconds and only take a few minutes to make!
Mussels Fra Diavolo is a must-have appetizer. The sauce alone is to die for and this spicy dish is worth its wait in gold. It's so cheap and easy to make and will serve a bunch of people!
Italian Stuffed Baked Clams are another one I like to make because I can stuff them in the morning and bake them later in the day. It makes for easy prep work!
Main Course
Fried Flounder Oreganata is one of my favorite filets to have on the table. I serve it with a lemon garlic butter sauce and it is a mild fish that the whole family loves! If you don't want fried flounder, you could make Lemon Garlic Broiled Flounder also.
Pistachio Crusted Sea Bass is delicious and this recipe makes for a moist and tender sea bass with a flavorful pistachio and basil-flavored crust.
Linguine with Clams is a classic and we always have it on the table. You have to serve pasta somewhere along the line and usually, we go with linguine with clams. We already have clams from the baked clams so it's just an obvious choice that doesn't take too long to make!
Linguine with Red Clam Sauce is what I serve if I don't want to serve classic linguine with clams. It is a little bolder and heavier and topped with toasted breadcrumbs. This is the 8th recipe technically, but I would only serve one of these pasta and clams recipes!
Honorable Mentions
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Top Tips and Tricks for Feast of Seven Fishes
- Prepare as much as you can the day before. Recipes like shrimp cocktail can be prepared a day in advance. Anything you can't do the day before, start in the morning. Clams can be stuffed in the morning, scallops can be cleaned and the muscle removed. All your breadcrumb mixtures can be combined.
- Have plenty of Italian Bread. The best part of a lot of these dishes is soaking up the juices with a piece of Italian bread or crostini.
- Know how to keep the seafood fresh. Filets can be kept in the fridge for a day in advance but live shellfish need to be able to breathe so they shouldn't be kept in closed plastic bags. They can be kept on ice overnight.
- Purge shellfish in the morning. Start purging the shellfish first thing in the morning because if you get behind on this it can push dinner back an hour.
- Shuck your clams. If you're not great at shucking clams just have the fishmonger at the seafood counter do it for you.
Other Vegetable Dishes and Appetizers for Christmas Eve
You may want to add some other little vegetable appetizers along the line on Christmas Eve. I suggest putting out some assortment of the following:
- Eggplant Caponata
- Easy Italian Stuffed Artichokes or Easy Steamed Artichokes
- Veggie Stromboli
- Marinated Eggplant and Onion
Although we love seafood, sometimes it's good to have options for everyone to have if they don't love all the seafood dishes!
FAQs
The seafood feast originated in Sicily as a celebration the night before Christmas while abstaining from meat. The seven part was added somewhere along the line in the Italian Diaspora here in America.
Some classic seafood dishes are baccala, cioppino, frutti di mare, branzino, linguine with clams, and mussels.
Comment below and let us know what your favorite seafood dish to serve on Christmas Eve is!
Cath
All look so delicious looking forward to the mussels fra Diablo!!!