Seafood
Clams in White Wine & Garlic
Twelve minutes, one pan, and an alarming amount of bread. Looks like a restaurant, costs like a Tuesday.
Prep
10 min
Cook
12 min
Serves
2
Level
Easy
Ingredients
1kg — littleneck clams (scrubbed, any open ones discarded)
60ml — olive oil
6 — garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 tsp — chilli flakes
200ml — dry white wine
30g — cold butter, cubed
1 handful — flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 — lemon
Clams are the most impressive-to-effort ratio in all of cooking and I will die on this hill. You put them in a hot pan, they open, you are done.
The broth at the bottom is the actual point. Do not let anyone leave until the bread has done its job.
Method
Soak the clams in cold salted water for 20 minutes so they spit out their sand. Lift them out rather than pouring — the grit stays at the bottom.
Warm the oil in a wide pan with a lid. Add the garlic and chilli and cook gently for two minutes, until fragrant but not coloured.
Turn the heat to high, add the wine and let it bubble hard for one minute to cook off the sharpness.
Add the clams, clamp the lid on, and leave them for 5 to 7 minutes. Shake the pan once. They are done when they have opened.
Throw out any that stayed shut. Off the heat, swirl in the cold butter until the broth turns glossy.
Parsley, a hard squeeze of lemon, and bread. That is the whole thing.
A note
Toss the whole pan with a half pound of linguine and a splash of pasta water and you have vongole instead. Same recipe, different night.
Good to know
More About This Recipe
Nutrition
Calories
340 kcal
Protein
22g
Carbs
9g
Fat
20g
Tips & tricks
Soak the clams in cold salted water for a full twenty minutes — this is what gets the sand out, and skipping it is the most common reason clams taste gritty.
Lift the clams out of the soaking water rather than pouring the bowl through a colander — the sand settles at the bottom, and pouring just puts it back on the shells.
Any clam that hasn’t opened after seven minutes with the lid on should be thrown out, not forced — it was dead before it went in the pan.
Substitutions
Littleneck clams
Mussels work with the same method and timing — check for open ones the same way.
Dry white wine
A dry vermouth in a pinch — it's more concentrated, so use about a third less.
Chilli flakes
Leave them out entirely if you'd rather it not be spicy — nothing else in the recipe depends on them.
Pairs well with
Bright and bitter enough to hold its own against the garlic and butter.
Storage & leftovers
These are best eaten fresh, the day they're made — clams don't reheat well and the texture turns rubbery. If there's extra, pick the meat from the shells, store it in the broth in a sealed container in the fridge for up to a day, and warm it gently on the stove rather than in the microwave.
Questions people ask
How do I know if a clam is bad before cooking?
Can I make this ahead of guests arriving?
What if I can't find fresh clams?
Postcards from my kitchen
Made this one?
Tell me how it went, or what you did differently. The best changes to these recipes have come from readers.