Soup, cream of shrimp is easier to cook with than it looks. Here's how to choose, use, and store it, what to substitute, and 9 recipes to get you started.

What is soup, cream of shrimp?

Cream of shrimp soup is a condensed canned soup in the same family as cream of mushroom or cream of chicken. It is a thick, pale pink paste of shrimp stock and cream thickened with flour, with little flecks of shrimp and a gentle shellfish sweetness running through it.

Like its cousins, it is rarely eaten straight from the bowl. Cooks keep a can on hand because it is a ready-made seafood sauce: an instant bisque base and a binder that brings shrimp flavor to a dish without picking and peeling a single shell.

It is the least common of the canned cream soups, so a can is worth grabbing when you spot one.

How to Use It

Condensed means concentrated, so the can expects liquid. Thin it with a canful of milk or seafood stock and you have a quick shrimp bisque in minutes.

In cooking, its main job is the sauce for other seafood. It becomes the creamy base in Easy Shrimp Newburg and the rich blanket over fish in Flounder with Cream of Shrimp Soup, and it deepens the seafood flavor in Seafood Thermidor and Lobster-Shrimp Chowder.

It also works cold. Chilled and folded with cream cheese and seasonings, it sets up into a seafood spread, the trick behind a classic Shrimp Mold with Cream of Shrimp Soup.

A splash of sherry or a squeeze of lemon wakes the can up and covers the slightly tinny edge canned shellfish can carry.

Flavor and Pairings

The soup is mild and buttery, more a backdrop than a star. That makes it a friend to other shellfish rather than a competitor: shrimp, crab, lobster, crawfish, and scallops all sit happily in it, as Novel Crab Newburg and Sister Sarah's Magic Crawfish show.

Lean white fish, rice, pasta, and puff pastry round out the plate, soaking up the sauce. Sherry with a little cayenne or paprika is the classic seasoning that turns it from bland to restaurant-ish.

Watch the salt and the heat. Canned shellfish soup carries plenty of sodium, so taste before salting.

And keep the burner gentle, because the flour-thick base scorches and the dairy curdles over hard heat.

Substitutes

The cleanest stand-in is cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup with seafood added: stir in a small can of tiny shrimp, a splash of clam juice, or a little fish stock to push the flavor toward the sea. It swaps one for one in most casseroles.

To build one from scratch, make a roux of 3 tablespoons butter and 3 tablespoons flour, whisk in 1 cup seafood stock and ½ cup cream, simmer until thick, then fold in chopped cooked shrimp and season with white pepper and a splash of sherry.

A jarred shrimp or lobster bisque, reduced down until thick, also fills in when the dish wants real shellfish depth.

Buying and Storing

Cans run about 10.5 ounces (roughly 298 grams), the size a recipe means by "one can." It is a specialty item that comes and goes from shelves, so it is often easiest to find online or in larger stores. Many cooks stock up when they see it.

Pass on any can that bulges or leaks or is badly dented along a seam, since damaged seafood cans are not worth the risk.

Unopened, it keeps in the pantry a year or more, usually well past the printed date.

Once opened, move leftovers into a sealed container and refrigerate, then use within two days, sooner than other cream soups because cooked shellfish spoils fast.

Quick facts

In Chinese

汤，奶油虾

British (UK) term

Soup, cream of shrimp

en français

soupe, crème de crevettes

en español

sopa, crema de camarones

Recipes using soup, cream of shrimp

There are 9 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 9 recipes