Cooking with clams is a great way to add a distinctive taste of the sea to your next dish. They are rich and briny and packed with flavor inside those tiny shells. Even canned clams are simple and amazing with pasta, as you can just pour them right into a cream sauce and call it a day. Still, these delicate mollusks can be very difficult to cook. Whether you’re mixing them into clam chowder or baking the clams directly in the shell, it’s essential you don’t overcook them. So how can you get baked clams to be tender?
First of all, we’re talking about baking clams in the oven, not a “clambake.” That’s the New England-style where clams are steamed in a pot with a variety of seafood and vegetable ingredients. What we’re concerned with here is baking them in the oven, usually to prep them for another dish, but also as a stand-alone delicious meal. You can cook fresh clams in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 3 to 10 minutes and remove each as it opens, then squeeze some lemon juice, add a melted garlic butter, or just enjoy them as they are. Once they open, they’re done — no need to keep them roasting. If you want to pop them straight in the oven from frozen, you’ll need to heat them at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes or so, until the shells brown.
Tips for baking with clams
When planning to bake clams, fresh, live ones will offer the most flavor. If working with fresh, you’ll want to learn how to clean the clams for a grit-free dish. One great method is to soak them in salt water, rinse, scrub the shells, then soak them in water and cornmeal. This will purge them of extra sand and ensure there aren’t any unwanted crunchy bits inside. If you’re using frozen clams, they can still be completely respectable, just look for something quality that was, ideally, frozen when still alive, and thaw them before baking. Frozen clams will sometimes open when thawing, but it’s nothing to worry about if you make sure they’re completely cooked before consuming.
If you’re baking raw clams in a sauce rather than on their own, they should be added to an already hot sauce in the oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit and roasted for 10 to 15 minutes until they all open. If not opened, discard them. If you’re using frozen clams, they should still all open but they’re safe to eat if the shell was closed before they were frozen. For baked and stuffed clams — usually entailing a mix of breadcrumbs, shallots, garlic, and other aromatics — the clams should be baked first at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for a few minutes. Once they open, they can be removed and chopped or simply stuffed with other ingredients. No matter what, if it’s an open-faced stuffed clam, the shell should be covered to the edges with stuffing to ensure the clam won’t dry out.
