America's Test Kitchen LogoCook's Country LogoCook's Illustrated Logo
Ingredients

Clam Juice Is the All-Purpose Seafood Broth You Didn’t Know You Needed

If you keep store-bought chicken or vegetable broth on hand, you should consider using clam juice too. 
By

Published Sept. 30, 2022.

Clam Juice Is the All-Purpose Seafood Broth You Didn’t Know You Needed

Clam juice is easy to make at home: Open a can of clams, dump them into your juicer, hit go, and—voilà!—chug it down! 

Um, no. Bottled clam juice is made by briefly steaming fresh, in-the-shell clams in salted water and then straining and bottling the clam-infused liquid. Clam juice is a relatively mild, yet flavorful, ingredient that can enrich many a seafood dish.

Sign up for the Cook's Country Dinner Tonight newsletter

10 ingredients. 45 minutes. Quick, easy, and fresh weeknight recipes.

We consider clam juice such an important ingredient, in fact, that our ATK Reviews team conducted a full-fledged taste test of different brands. (Spoiler alert: Bar Harbor Clam Juice was the winner.)

IACP Award Winner

Foolproof Fish

Want to broaden your seafood scope? No matter what you buy from the fish counter, this award-winning book will teach you how to cook it.
Save 57%

Here at Cook’s Country, we use clam juice as an all-purpose seafood stock in recipes like our Lobster Spaghetti with Orange and Fennel, Shrimp Bisque, Monterey Bay Cioppino, South Carolina Shrimp Boil, and Seafood Fra Diavolo. Clam juice doesn’t taste overtly of clams, but rather it lends a slightly salty ocean flavor to whatever you add it to. 

If you are the kind of cook who keeps chicken, beef, or vegetable broth in your pantry, we recommend keeping clam juice on hand too; it’s a surprisingly versatile ingredient that can add extra depth and seasoning to all manner of seafood dishes. 

And no, you don’t have to put clams in your juicer.

This is a members' feature.