Help! Making a hot seafood dip in advance???!
Help! Making a hot seafood dip in advance???
I need expert advice here. I'm trying to create a recipe for a hot seafood dip. I plan on making a cream & cream cheese based sauce, adding in some spices and a little marinara, then I'll throw in some cooked shrimp and crawfish tails, finish it all off with some cheese and bake...
Here is my dilemma. Could I make the whole thing in advance and then bake it when we're ready to eat it? Would the seafood do anything weird to the sauce while it sits? Will the seafood get overcooked in the time that it takes to heat it from being refrigerated? Would it be better to make the sauce in advance and then just put the seafood in right before it goes in the oven?
Thanks!
Answers:
the only thing i can think of is that the seafood may make the dip runny as it sits, however once you bake it im sure any extra liquid will evaporate. good Luck it sounds great! save me some? lol
So long as the seafood does not drop above 40 degrees (which it won't in the fridge) you don't run any bacterial risks from putting the raw fish into the sauce.
Shrimps take about 30ish minutes to bake, and the only thing I'd worry about is burning the cheese (since you really should be baking it around 400 degrees or so). I would simply transfer the sauce directly to the oven, wait until the sauce starts to bubble, and apply the cheese at that point.