My husband and I have *tried* to keep date nights a priority over the years. It definitely isn’t easy and we don’t schedule them nearly as often as we’d like (though we do plan some fun at-home ones pretty often). Frequently, we bring a nursing baby with us and a date gets cut short by bedtime or a diaper explosion, but we try.
There is only one restaurant in our town that we really enjoy and it has been our go-to date place for years. Unfortunately, it recently came under new management, is temporarily closed, and is re-opening under a new name and with a new menu.
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
This wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for one thing: Their delicious seafood bisque.
This restaurant had an amazing seafood bisque and it was often the only thing I’d order for a meal because it was so incredibly good. I’m not optimistic that it will be on the new menu when it re-opens so before I forgot the taste of that delicious soup, I decided to try to recreate it.
We have limited access to quality seafood where we are, so I decided to use shrimp as the base in place of more expensive and harder to find seafood like crab or lobster.
I actually can’t believe I didn’t try to recreate this recipe sooner, as it was relatively expensive at the restaurant and probably had some questionable ingredients anyway. Now, we can enjoy this favorite soup at home even when we can’t make it out for a date night!
What is a Bisque?
A little slice of heaven. Ok, so technically it is a creamy, broth-based, flavored French soup. It is often made with a seafood broth as a base and may also contain sauted and pureed vegetables to thicken and flavor it. Though the term “bisque” can now often refer to any type of creamy soup, the original and authentic bisque contains broth and seafood.
This is the most budget-friendly authentic bisque I’ve been able to make, since it contains shrimp, which is often easy to find and inexpensive (even wild caught). It does contain dairy, so as it is written it wouldn’t be good for anyone with a dairy allergy. You can substitute thick coconut milk for the cream in this recipe. It will change the taste and texture slightly but will still create a good finished product.

Simple Shrimp Bisque Recipe
Servings
Nutrition
Notes
Have a favorite soup recipe? Care to share?
Made this today, and although it tastes fine, it is a thin soup and I think this will barely serve four people, and more likely three.
I made this over the weekend and it did not disappoint! I made one change to the recipe to accommodate my likes more than anything. Instead of paprika, i use a pinch of cayenne to give it a touch of heat. Excellent and easy recipe.
Hello. I tried this recipe and it was awesome. But it was also watery. We tried to thicken it up to no avail. Any thoughts on what I may have done wrong?
Any chance you can freeze the leftover shrimp bisque?
Delicious!! Loved it. Though personally I would say it feeds 4 ppl, not 6. Maybe we just eat a lot lol I will definitely be making this again!