Homemade Clam Chowder is a delicious gluten-free soup made with either freshly dug, canned or frozen clams. Make this for a light meal served with a salad and rolls. Fantastic flavor in this easy to make soup!

Lately I’ve been deep into my crock Pot. Making soups for winter. Nothing hits the spot quite like a bowl of homemade soup when it’s dreary and rainy outside.

And for those of you knee-deep in snow, you know nothing beats a warm cup of soup and some homemade dinner rolls after a day of freezing, wet yuck outside. I didn’t have time to make any homemade rolls today so we are having store-bought butter flakes.

Mom came over today and helped me recreate her old recipe for clam chowder. No crock pot for this recipe. You need and skillet and a large pot, and about an hour and a half.

This recipe goes back to when I was little (that’s a long ways). Our family used to do an annual clam digging event for the New Years Holiday week at Ocean Shores on the Washington coast. This was a big event including many extended relations. Aunts, uncles, cousins and friends all converged on the ocean shores cabins. Everyone brought motorcycles, clam shovels and buckets.

I ask you! Who had the bright idea of doing this very fun family reunion in JANUARY? At the BEACH? We huddled into our rubber boots and warm coats and froze our buns off in the sideways driving sleet. We dug lots of gooey ducks  and razor clams out of the sand. My brother and I HATE clam digging to this day! 

After a day of digging clams; we slowly made our frozen bodies walk back through the dunes to our cabins. We warmed ourselves with hot showers, fresh cloths and Mom’s homemade spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove in our little cabin; and lots of junk food. We discovered her spaghetti sauce made awesome chip dip!

Us kids played board games and read books; exhausted and content to be in a warm dry place. The grow-ups went across the street to the tavern for adult partying after we went to bed.

After several days of clam digging, hunting for agates, searching out Japanese glass balls for my auntie Joan (she collected these floating buoys for years) and riding motorcycles all over the beach and dunes; we traveled back home with our clam catch.

Mom would make homemade clam chowder when we returned home. Dad and mom teamed up and put the clam catch through the old hand cranked meat grinder. That was good soup! In fact It was the only part of clam digging I ever liked!

Homemade Clam Chowder Recipe:

Mom always peels her potatoes, so today I am too. You can leave the skins on if you have perfect skin on your red potatoes. I tried to get her to add seasonings to this other than salt and pepper. She insists salt and pepper are all I’d need. Everyone in our house agrees with her.

This simple recipe is perfect as is. And very easy to make; here’s how.

• Peel and cube your potatoes, and set them on to boil
  

  Cubed potatoes ready to boil

• Cut up your bacon and onion and place in a skillet on medium heat
  

  Slice your bacon into 1/2 inch sections

  and cook until done.

  

  My momma says “Cook your bacon until it looks like this”

• When the spuds are tender, (but not mushy!), drain enough water out of the boiled potatoes to expose the potatoes. Add the bacon and onions, clams, milk and stir. Simmer another 30 minutes until the soup is smelling up the house and making you hungry. Enjoy!
  

  Homemade Clam Chowder simmering on the stove

Today I’m using canned clams. I didn’t have to go shovel them out of a windy, cold beach. My sister, who lives in Westport, loves  clam digging! She thinks I’m lazy and a wuss; and she’s right!

This clam chowder is excellent with canned, store-bought clams but if you want to go get them fresh it might be even better! Susie made us clam fritters from fresh frozen clams and they were fantastic. If you’re looking for a way to clean a catch of clams; here are links to Susie’s you tube videos on cleaning fresh caught clams.

Clam cleaning part one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKoEGRWk4Ms

Clam Cleaning part two https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKyxTYPQhAs

Clam Cleaning part three https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTxuHNYIloM