Whether you’re a master chef, a serious at-home cook, or someone who only cooks on special occasions, there are a lot of ways to dress up a recipe to make it really pop. One of the best ways to do that is to use a base in your recipes. A base, like a stock, is a great way to enhance the flavor of the meats or vegetables in your recipe to make them really stand out and provide a depth of flavor you wouldn’t otherwise get.

Another great use of bases is in seafood recipes. Heritage seafood bases are a seafood stock that can be made out of any type of fish or shellfish, and your base will vary depending on what you’re using it for. When you buy seafood base, you’re ensuring that you add another level of flavor to a seafood dish that could be bland without the addition of the base to the recipe, as fish and shellfish don’t always have much flavor on their own. Here are some great seafood bases you can use in your recipes to add more flavor.

Crab Base

While many people love the flavor of crab, the fact is that without a lot of seasoning, they don’t have much flavor. That’s why the addition of a crab base to your crab bisque or cream of crab soup can really bring out the crab flavor. And the great news about adding it to a soup is that you can add it right to the broth, which makes the flavor even richer. Your guests will be raving about your soup for days after you serve them.

Shrimp Base

Heritage seafood bases are something you should buy only after you consider what you’ll be making and how that specific base  will enhance the flavor of your dish. Shrimp dishes are a great example of this. When you’re making something like shrimp gumbo, you want the shrimp flavor to soak into all parts of the meal, including the rice. Because you want that shrimp flavor, you know you’ll have to really make it stand out on its own as gumbo has so many flavor profiles in it. The shrimp base can be the perfect addition to a dish like this to give the shrimp enough of a robust flavor to stand out. Heritage seafood bases are a way for your dishes to add the flavor of the seafood you want to highlight, no matter what you’re making.