How to Prepare Fresh Mussels

Ever have that seafood craving but not the budget to spend the crazy amount for it?

Where I am currently located, a bag of crab legs would be 17.99 with only 3 to 4 clusters and a few broken legs. To feed 3 people that love seafood just as much as I do, that could easily bring my total for one item 53.97 plus tax/surcharge.

Luckily for us, we were able to find some fresh mussels for cheap :)

Now trust me, mussels can taste very bad if not properly handled or cooked, so if you want to skip this whole process and move on to adding favor, buy the frozen already cooked bigger size mussels. We normally do that, but this time, the store was out, so we went for the fresh mussels - they aren't really that much harder!

What you will need:

Mussels about 2 to 3 lbs (1 lb per person)
Butter (Great excuse to use my homemade butter)
1/2 teaspoon Garlic Salt or Garlic Powder
Medium Onion
3 Tablespoons Dried Parsley Flakes
1/2 teaspoon Seasoning Salt
1/2 Tablespoon Old Bay
4 cups Water*

Preparing the pot:

Cut up one medium size yellow onion. With the heat on mid-high, place your cut onions in a stock pot, sweating them down for 2 minutes before adding the 3 tablespoons of butter.  Add the remaining ingredients, except the mussels, to the pot.

*NOTE: These are smaller mussels that I am working with. If you have the larger, frozen mussels you would do 2 cups of water due to the liquid inside the mussels. Also, you would double the garlic salt and Old Bay if you are using the frozen mussels.

Bring the pot to a boil.

***WHILE WATER IS COMING TO A BOIL***
While the pot is coming to a boil, you need to thoroughly rinse the mussels to get rid of any sand.

Wash/Rinse the mussels about 5 times.

DO NOT LEAVE SOAKING IN WATER - This will kill them.  At this point, they are still alive*


This is open to opinion, but I have found that two test need to happen before you place the live mussels in the pot:

1st - any mussels that have their mouth open (the shell) and when you tap it, it does not close: those go in the trash.

2nd - (I have used this method several times and it seems to work without failure)
Place the mussels in water and the ones that float to the top place in the pot. The ones that do not are normally dead.

Place the mussels into boiling water and let cooked, covered, for 8 minutes.Then stir, and you should see some of the shells opening at this point. Give it 2 more minutes to cook completely.

This is optional:
Melt 4 tablespoons of butter for dipping.

Serve immediately!

If you don't plan to serve now, you can drain juices and freeze for up to 3 months

ENJOY!!