How to Make Crawfish/Shrimp Stock in the Instant Pot

How to make crawfish or shrimp stock in the Instant Pot || Pressure Cooking || Pressure Cooker || Broth || Homemade Soup

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What better day to share a recipe for crawfish stock than Fat Tuesday!

I’ve already shouted my love of the Instant Pot from the (virtual) rooftops with my Freezer Meal Boot Camp post. I have used it for the majority of my weekly cooking over the past two months…it has made life around here so much easier! The only warning I have for anyone buying one is that you’ll want to cook anything and everything in it.

Which brings me to today’s post. Normally, after the crawfish boil we had for Jackson’s first birthday party, we would have thrown the crawfish shells away. Well…never again. One thing I’ve learned since getting our Instant Pot is that shells/bones should never ever be thrown away without making a stock with them in the Instant Pot.

You will never want to buy prepackaged stock or broth again! The Instant Pot makes the richest, most flavorful stocks and broths by simply cooking the leftover bones/shells in water with a few simple ingredients. This particular recipe is for use with crawfish shells, but you could easily use shrimp shells in this too. And, this is the general idea for making ham stock, chicken stock, beef broth…it’s an incredibly versatile recipe. I’ve made stock from ham, turkey, and chicken using this method, and so far they have all been incredible (we used the ham stock to make split pea and ham soup for dinner last night, as a matter of fact!).

Enough rambling…here’s the recipe!

Ingredients

About 72oz of leftover crawfish/shrimp shells (I used enough to fill up one of my Instant Pot freezer meal containers)
3 liters water (enough to cover the shells)
1 onion, unpeeled and cut into quarters
2-3 bay leaves
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar (this helps draw nutrients and collagen out of the shells/bones to make really thick, rich stock)

(Note: more spices might be required if your crawfish didn’t cook in spices. Mine had plenty, so I didn’t add anything else!)

Directions

Combine all ingredients in your Instant Pot. Give it a quick stir, then seal the lid and set your pot to Manual, High Pressure, 120 minutes.

Once the cook cycle is up, let the pressure release for about 10 minutes before turning the nozzle to release the remaining pressure.

Strain solids in the stock out using a pasta strainer with a bowl underneath. Use within 1-2 days or freeze for later use.

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Comments

1

Monica Istvan says

August 12, 2018 at 7:49 pm

Question… it says 120 minutes on high pressure, is that supposed to say 10 or 20 minutes perhaps? Don’t think my instant pot can set for that much time. 🙂

- 2
  
  Leslie says
  
  August 12, 2018 at 8:37 pm
  
  Nope! Not a typo – 120 minutes. Set the maximum you can if you can’t go to 120 minutes (but I believe they all go that high)…it really needs that to deepen the flavor. Also make sure to do a NPR if you can’t set it that high.
  
3

Gwen says

November 22, 2018 at 2:05 pm

Thanks so much for the recipe! We went non-traditional for Thanksgiving and did a huge Country Boil. I have shells running out of my ears. Guess I’ll be doing this tomorrow 🙂
Gwen recently posted…Crock Pot Chicken and Rice

4

Hungryheath says

December 26, 2018 at 12:57 am

Great recipe. We used it to make gumbo.

http://www.hungryheath.com/2018/12/sensational-shellys-gumbo.html

5

Joel says

February 16, 2019 at 5:54 pm

Should i remove the fat … or is that ok?

- 6
  
  Leslie says
  
  February 25, 2019 at 10:36 am
  
  Totally up to you – it’s definitely going to add more flavor, but if you’re watching calories I’d recommend it.
  
7

Jena says

March 18, 2019 at 1:12 pm

How long should I boil it if I don’t have an instant pot

- 8
  
  Leslie says
  
  March 21, 2019 at 8:05 pm
  
  I’d recommend bringing it to a boil, then turning to a low simmer for 2-3 hours. The longer it simmers the better your flavor will be!

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