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This Marinara Seafood Spaghetti is an Italian classic that can only taste better with plenty of fresh seafood and a gorgeous rich marinara tomato sauce. In Italy, with my Italian partner and his family where we spent some of our summer days, we used to visit the fresh seafood market in big town Catania or small little fishing village Brucoli and buy kilogrammes of mussels, sole fishes and calamari to cook pasta for lunch.
The marinara seafood spaghetti is quick to make. I cooked the seafood tomato sauce separately while boiling the pasta, then combine both together in a pot, garnish with some fresh parsley and then serve it immediately. The pasta dish can be ready in about 30 minutes.
Seafood pasta in marinara sauce is made with a tomato based sauce. Cooking it with the seafood gives it a unique umami flavour of the sea and that’s what make this dish so yummilicious. In this recipe, I used mussles, tiger prawns and squid, all fresh seafood. It might sound very daunting to handle fresh seafood, but it’s actually very easy to clean and handle them. The taste of the sea is so prominently delicious in this dish you will come asking for more, like my mummy and nephew did when I served this dish for dinner.
What kind of pasta should I use for Marinara Seafood Pasta?
The type of pasta you can use in this classic marinara seafood spaghetti can range from spaghetti, fettuccine (a flat, long pasta), quadrato spaghetti (a square shaped, long pasta), or bucatini (a thick spaghetti-like pasta with a hole running through the centre). These types of pasta are thick enough to hold the pasta sauces well.
What are the other classic Italian pasta dishes?
- Pasta Recipe | Spaghetti with Pumpkin Cream, Pecorino & Crispy Guanciale
- Spaghetti all’Amatriciana
- Spaghetti Carbonara, or Pasta alla Carbonara
Or the not so Italian version here:
- Sardines pasta with a little spicy kick
- Cold Truffle Capellini with Abalone and Black Roe
- Kale Pesto Spaghetti
Watch how to cook Marinara Seafood Spaghetti on YouTube
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Classic Marinara Seafood Spaghetti (Spaghetti alla Pescatora)
Ingredients
- 250-350 g spaghetti
- 25-30 fresh mussels about 400g
- 2 fresh squid about 300g
- 15 tiger prawns about 400g
- 300 g cherry tomatoes
- 1 sprig parsley chopped
- ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
- 2 cloves garlic peeled
- ⅛ tsp salt season to taste
- ⅛ tsp black pepper season to taste
- 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 380 g canned tomato puree
- 1 tbsp rock salt
Instructions
Prepare the ingredients
- Peel and crush 2 cloves garlic.2 cloves garlic
- Wash and cut 300 g cherry tomatoes into half.300 g cherry tomatoes
- Wash and chop 1 sprig parsley into small pieces.1 sprig parsley
- Wash 15 tiger prawns . Remove the head and shell, and keep for other uses. Optional to leave the tail intact. Then remove the veins.15 tiger prawns
- Remove the head of 2 fresh squid and innards from the body by firmly pulling apart with a slight twisting motion.Remove the tail tube and the cartilage, which looks like a thin clear piece of glass, from the body.Wash the inside of the body tube, using your finger to pull out any residual innards.Peel off the spotty dark skin (optional).2 fresh squid
- Trim off the tentacles by cutting off from just above the eyes. Remove the beak from the squid tentacles (a soft bony piece). The tentacles and body tube are edible, but the head above the tentacles and the innards are not.Slice the squid into 1cm thickness.2 fresh squid
- Wash 25-30 fresh mussels in the bowl of water and clean them thoroughly, removing any dirt and debris stuck on the shell, and “beard” inside the shell. Rinse the inside of the mussel a couple of times. Then drain well.25-30 fresh mussels
- Optional: if fresh seafood is not available, you can also use pre-packaged seafood.
Cook the marinara sauce and seafood
- Warm 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oilin a non-stick pan over medium heat.Add crushed garlic cloves, and sauté for one minute.4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- Add the cherry tomatoes and the squid and continue to cook. Stirring continuously.
- Once tomatoes softened, press on the tomatoes to release the juice.
- Once the calamari are soft, add the prawns, and mussels. Stir to mix well. Then cover and cook for 2 minutes, stirring in between. This has a steaming effect to cook the seafood.
- Mussels should be open and prawns are red. Juice will be released. Add the 380 g canned tomato puree and 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes, 1/8 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp black pepper, parsley. Mix the seafood mixture well. Cover and let it simmer on reduced heat for 10 minute.1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes, 1/8 tsp salt, 380 g canned tomato puree, 1/8 tsp black pepper
Cook the spaghetti
- Bring a pot of water to boil over high heat. Add 250-350 g spaghetti and 1 tbsp rock salt. Stir to dissolve. Stirring occasionally, cook the spaghetti until it’s al dente.250-350 g spaghetti, 1 tbsp rock salt
Assemble the dish
- Transfer the spaghetti to the seafood marinara sauce. Mix using a pair of tongs until the spaghetti is evenly coated with the sauce. Note: heat is turned off at this sage.
- Garnish with some parsley and serve. Enjoy the seafood marinara spaghetti while it’s still warm.
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5 December 2023 at 7:35 amIs it possible to also add clams and cockles in?
6 December 2023 at 7:58 amHi Juliana, clams yes it’ll be delicious. As for cockles, I’ve not tried it yet, it’s typically used for Chinese stir fry kway teow noodles instead of Italian pasta. I wouldn’t use it actually.
17 December 2023 at 11:50 pmDelicious
19 December 2023 at 10:03 amThank you Trini.