Why Seafood and Cheese Belong Together

It’s an oft-repeated prohibition: seafood (and fish) and cheese don’t mix. The internet is full of stories of waiters and food forums telling people that they can’t put parmesan on their linguine alle vongole. It’s even been a topic of conversation with celebrity chefs and food hosts, like Padma Lakshmi of Top Chef and Bobby Flay. But anyone who has had a toasted bagel with lox and cream cheese knows that it can be a perfect marriage of flavor and texture.

The Italian Myth

Some food experts and chefs attribute the prohibition to Italy, but Italian-born, Bay Area-based Viola Buitoni, cooking instructor and author of Italy by Ingredient, says that seafood and cheese do go together in Italian cooking. “It is also very much a traditional thing. It's not just a modern thing. In cooking traditions, especially in the south of Italy, you find a lot of cheese and fish,” she says. Other places in the Mediterranean like Croatia and Greece have several classic dishes combining seafood and cheese as well.

This “prohibition” may have come into being because a strong flavored cheese can overwhelm more delicately flavored seafood or fish, theorizes Virginia Willis, chef and James Beard award-winning cookbook author of Lighten Up, Y’all and other books. She explains that while cheese sauce on tuna steak may sound terrible, “a cheese sauce on lobster, shrimp, a flounder or a mild white fish, sounds lovely. It all depends on the combinations.”

Ultimately, you must be mindful of what you are pairing together, she explains. While hard cheeses like parmesan and pecorino may work well, other stronger-tasting cheeses like blue cheese and washed rinds, may not.

Here are a few ways to prepare seafood and cheese in delicious ways from chefs and cheesemongers.

Seafood and Cheese Dishes

Bagel, cream cheese and lox
Shrimp saganaki
Swordfish involtini
Tuna melt
Shrimp nachos
Oysters Rockefeller
Clams casino
Caesar salad
Šurlice with scampi
Croatian seafood ravioli
Governor's tacos

Italian Seafood & Cheese Dishes

She also shares that pairing raw fish and fresh cheese is popular in contemporary Italian cooking. She suggests burrata with sweet shrimp or bottarga, salted cured fish roe pouch, with ricotta.

Baked fish and shredded hard cheese is a common combination. “When I bake fish, here in California, these are all these flaky fish. I love to do a little breading that is mostly fresh breadcrumbs, and lots of herbs, lemon zest, and then just a little bit of cheese,” explains Buitoni. She uses mild-tasting white fish, like flounder, halibut, cod, and hard cheeses like pecorino.

One of her favorite dishes is involtini, a Sicilian swordfish roll. She recommends using swordfish or tuna and freezing it lightly so it can be sliced easily. Then add some fresh pecorino, shallots, garlic, some lemon, and some breadcrumbs, nuts and some currants. Put the mixture into the middle of the sliced fish, fold the bottom and sides, and cook it for 10-15 minutes at about 375 degrees. “All you do is want to get the fish just cooked and tender and have the cheese melt,” she explains. Recently she worked on an onion and anchovy casserole with pecorino, basil and tomatoes for a friend’s birthday party. Overall, “it's a very good way to dress up fish,” she notes. On theParmigiano Reggiano consortium’s website you'll find a recipe for scallops with pea panna cotta and Parmigiano Reggiano puree and on the Grana Padano website you'll find over two dozen recipes using fish or seafood and cheese.

She also shares that pairing raw fish and fresh cheese is popular in contemporary Italian cooking. She suggests burrata with sweet shrimp or bottarga, salted cured fish roe pouch, with ricotta.

American Seafood & Cheese Dishes

Several classic American dishes use both seafood and cheese. Willis finds that milder creamy or softer cheeses pair well with seafood dips. Willis notes that Southern cuisine use a lot of cream cheese. She developed a recipe for Creole Shrimp Nachos with Creamy Queso,“That's a glorious example of how pretty much anything tastes great with nachos,” she says. Using shrimp makes the nachos a bit lighter than using ground beef.

Willis also developed another spread, Shrimp Rillette, which is usually made from pulverized confit from pork or duck. In her recipe, she replaces the duck with shrimp and cream cheese, making it another lighter version of the original dish.

Willis also points out another example of seafood and cheese, the classic tuna melt. She suggests using a mild, low-fat mozzarella, not fresh mozzarella, when making the tuna melt, but cheddar and alpine-style cheeses are also classic tuna melt picks.

Other classic American dishes that include seafood and cheese include Oyster Rockefeller. Recipes vary but many consist of an oyster and spinach on the half shell, topped with bread crumbs and cheese, often romano or parmesan, or clams casino, which are breaded clams on the half-shell with bacon and parmesan cheese, notes Buitoni. And who doesn't love a caesar salad with anchovies?

Greek & Croatian Seafood & Cheese Dishes

Both Willis and Buitoni point out the widespread use of Feta cheese and seafood in Greece. Buitoni shares that one of the first dishes she had in Greece was a casserole with gigante beans, super ripe tomatoes, shrimp and a sprinkling of Feta cheese on top. Also, shrimp saganaki is a classic Greek dish. Like the other baked fish and seafood dishes, it’s a super easy recipe to make and needs just about 10 minutes of baking.

Croatian food also pairs seafood and cheese together like Šurlice with scampi with grated hard cheese on top or homemade ravioli stuffed with cheese and prawns and salmon.

Mexican Seafood & Cheese Dishes

Seafood and cheese are also found together in Mexican cuisine. The 90s-era recipe for Governor shrimp tacos combines shrimp cooked with chiles and tomatoes with gooey Chihuahua or Oaxaca cheese. Lobster is found in cheesy quesadillas and seafood enchiladas are garnished with crumbly queso anejo.

Tinned Fish & Cheese

Gueyu Mar sardines and Jasper Hill Harbison photo credit Kellie Freemire

In the past few years, tinned fish or “conservas” have become increasingly popular. Kellie Freemire, cheesemonger and general manager of Chicago-based Beautiful Rind, has had many customers asking about pairing tinned fish and cheeses, which has caused her to consider new pairings. She recommends using tinned mackerel or sardines on top of pasta with some grated parmesan on top.

Freemire also recommends pairing tuna and alpine cheeses. “You have a really rich buttery, kind fish and then kind of nutty gruyere or comté,” she shares. American alpine style cheeses like work too such as Pleasant Ridge Reserve. Those combinations could work in either a tuna melt, or another classic, the tuna noodle casserole. Other pairings she suggests are Gueyu Mar sardines alongside a Jasper Hill Harbison and pairing Manchego and tinned fish. She’s also seen cheese and seafood paired on charbroiled oysters with a mound of parmesan, or another hard cheese on top, which may be reminiscent of oysters rockefeller.

Even if you haven't considered pairing and cheese before, using tinned seafood is well worth trying. In Tin to Table, a cookbook devoted to modern ways to use tinned fish and seafood, you'll find recipes for smoked trout dip and baked clam dip made with cream cheese.

Remarks Freemire "I'm always for expanding your tastes and horizons. The more things you try, the more things you’ll find you like.”