The ultimate spaghetti Frutti di Mare recipe, made with baby clams, mussels, squid and shrimp in a thick red homemade Arrabiata sauce. Fra Diavolo style seafood spaghetti, better than your favorite Italian restaurant.
Frutti di Mare
A very popular Italian pasta dish meaning “fruit of the sea” made with the freshest seafood you can get your hands on and a thick homemade arrabiata sauce. Perfection!
This fancy looking dinner is one of the most impressive meals usually served during the Feast of Seven Fishes, but it’s also so easy to make that you can have it on the table in 30 minutes on a Tuesday. I swear on my saffron!
I chose wild shrimp, baby manilla clams, mussels and squid tentacles, but you can pretty much make it with whatever shellfish you like.
You can use all clams or just shrimp, add lobster tails even; whatever rocks your tastebuds and looks fresh at the market that day. Baby sea scallops would also make a pretty fabulous addition to the mix.
The real secret here is to not overcook the seafood! Because nobody likes rubbery shrimp or squid or scallops, right?! So keep a close eye on it at all times, this is not the time to watch a movie.
After you make this dish a couple of times it will come naturally to you and you’ll be ready to bring it to that Italian Christmas Eve Feast of the Fishes like a real boss!
How to Make Frutti di Mare Seafood Spaghetti
- Quickly sauté some garlic and red pepper flakes in olive oil, about 20 seconds.
- Add clams and mussels and hit it with a good splash of dry white wine. Insane!
- Stir in your shrimp and squid tentacles, then add some good homemade arrabiata sauce. Don’t be stingy!
- Toss some spaghetti or linguine with the seafood and the sauce and dive in!
Favorite Italian Recipes:
- Capellini Pomodoro
- Bruschetta Pasta Salad
- Aglio e Olio
- Pasta Puttanesca
- Focaccia Bread
- Shrimp Pomodoro.
Frutti di Mare Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lb clams & mussels (mixed) cleaned well
- 1 lb wild shrimp peeled
- 1/2 lb squid tentacles
- 1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic grated
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes + more to taste
- 1/2 c white wine
- 1 lemon for serving
- 1/3 c fresh basil leaves or chopped Italian parsley
- 3/4 lb spaghetti
- 1 batch arrabiata tomato sauce made advance
- sea salt to taste
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the spaghetti according to the package directions until Al Dente. Drain and reserve 1 cup of the salty pasta water.
- Meanwhile heat up your largest skillet on medium low flame.
- Add a lug of olive oil, the garlic and red pepper flakes. Stir quickly making sure not to burn the garlic. Add in the clams and mussels and toss them around.
- Pour in the white wine and cover with a lid. Cook for about a minute or so until the clams start to open.
- Add the shrimp to the skillet with clams and give it a stir. Cover and cook for another minute or so.
- Once all the clams and mussels have opened and the shrimp is almost cooked, add the squid tentacles. Cook another 30 seconds or so until they curl up.
- Taste for seasonings and add more sea salt if needed. ( Remember that shellfish will spit out a lot of sea water during cooking, so wait till the end to season)
- Meanwhile warm up the sauce in a saucepan. Pour the sauce over the seafood and toss to coat well.
- Add the cooked spaghetti pasta to the skillet with the seafood and toss to coat in the sauce. Add a little bit of the reserved pasta water if needed to stretch out the sauce.
- Transfer your seafood spaghetti to a serving platter, drizzle with a lug of olive oil and sprinkle with the basil and parsley.
- Serve with lemon wedges on the side.
Notes
- The Seafood - You can use all clams or just shrimp, add lobster tails even, whatever rocks your boat and looks fresh at the market that day! Baby sea scallops would also make a fabulous addition to the mix.
- Recipe Tip - The real secret here is to not overcook the seafood! Because nobody likes rubbery shrimp or squid or scallops, right? So keep an eye on it at all times.
Nutrition
You’ll Also Love:
Seafood Risotto
Cioppino
Garlic Scallops
Italian Beef Stew
Your recipe looks amazing Beautiful site.
ohmygoodness this looks AMAZING!
Wow, this dish looks fantastic. I am a huge fan of all the clams, mussels and other sea creatures, so I am surely bookmarking this one!
This is gorgeous, Florentina. Frutti di mare is one of my all-time favorites. I wish I could dive right into that platter with my fork!
Thank you Amanda! It was gone in no time! hehe!
Oh my goodness this looks soooooo good! I bet the Hubby would fall over if he saw this on our dinner table! Absolutely delicious!
Always a winner for us, and really so easy to throw together, hope you make it soon!
Seafood + pasta is everything I need. That’s how the perfect dinner looks like. Thanks for the recipe!
I could eat a big dish of this now. It looks so healthy and tasty with the seafood and tomato sauce.
Looks absolutely amazing! Next company I have, who is not vegetarian, I will make and Kick it up a notch with squid ink pasta!!!
Awesome, I love squid ink, I brought a few packages from Sicily last year, I always make it for company 🙂
Thanks so much for all the AMAZING recipes Florentina! I`ve made this dish a few times now changing up the seafood mix to what was the freshest. A total winner every time. Hope you don`t mind but I included it in a blog post, 16 Seafood Recipes You Need Now, (of course giving you credit & linking back here) If you`d like you can see it at http://www.chileandsalt.com/16-seafood-recipes-you-need-now/. Thanks again for all your great posts! Keep them coming!
Hi. I want to make this recipe, but I’m a novice when it comes to cooking seafood. But, the recipe looks great and I’m feeling adventurous, but I have some questions…Is it 1lb clams and 1lb mussels each or a total of 1lb between the combination of the two? And, what exactly is a “lug” of olive oil?
Hi! The 1 lb of clams and mussels refers to a mix of both totaling 1 lb. You can however substitute one for the other If you prefer. A lug of olive is when you pour directly from a bottle, so the first little wave of oil is considered a lug. Pretty much enough to lightly coat the bottom of your pan. Hope that helps 🙂 ~ Florentina
Is recipe: Frutti di Mare Recipe ( Seafood Spaghetti) use: 1 lb. EACH of clams & mussels or 1/2 lb. of each,
to total 1 lb. of shell fish ???
Squid Tentacles, is it 1/2 lb. or 1/2 cup ???
When is the lemon used, I do not see used in recipe – only in ingredients..
Need the above info, to buy the correct amount of ingredients, before cooking..
Olga
Hi Olga, there is 1 pound total (clams + mussels mix), or you can just go for your favorites. Also 1/2 pound squid tentacles. The lemon is to serve on the side 🙂 Enjoy! ~Florentina
I really enjoy your recipes and I always seem to pick yours when repining from Pinterest group boards. Keep up the wonderful work!
Thank you so much Heather, you are so sweet, Happy Holidays Xo’s ~Florentina
I just made this and it is delicious ! I did put only 1 tsp of the red pepper flakes and that is plenty for us ! LOL I made it ahead to see if I liked it and now I will let it cool and freeze for this weekend. I will make the Frutti di Mare that you have here. I am sure we will love it ! Thanks so much !!
I made your fruti di mare with Arrabiata sauce for Thanksgiving 2018 and it was awesome! I cooked it with shrimp, squid tentacles, and clams. Best Thanksgiving dinner ever!
This is my all-time favorite pasta recipe. So delicious. @cantstopcooking
WOW!! I made it for my family and it was absolutely DELICIOUS!! Thank you
This was amazing. Absolutely restaurant quality. First we made the Arrabiata, which was fresh and simple and beautiful. Then the slightly more complicated Frutti di Mare. I appreciated the comment about rubbery scallops and shrimp, and the only slight change i would make is to delay adding those two until the latest possible time. We added the scallops with the pasta and served about 2 minutes later once the scallops were warmed thru. We went to a local hi-end fishmarket rather than the grocery store, and i think the final product was better as a result. So good!!! Go make this today!
We made this the other week and OMG it was AMAZING. we absolutely LOVED it and have shared the recipe with our family (they were very jealous of our photos!). What a gorgeous recipe and so easy to follow!
Ever since we’ve tried this we’ve been visit the website regularly to try other recipe! Doing the Bruchetta and Burrata recipe tonight and we can’t wait.
Love the website and the story behind it!
Going to be making this tonight with some vegan scallops…I know you do vegan recipes I would love a full vegan version of this one…it’s my husband and kids favorite but I am allergic to shellfish and can’t eat it.. unless it’s vegan shellfish hoping for good things!
Hi Janet, I have posted a fabulous recipe for vegan scallops that you can simply make and serve on top of this spaghetti ( https://veggiesociety.com/vegan-scallops-recipe/ ). You can also combine them with some small enoki mushrooms caps in place of the clams. There is plant based shrimp made from seaweed that is pretty amazing but I have not seen it in the stores yet, only restaurants. The Vegan Kitchen chain has a few dishes that feature it and it is really really good! Hope you get to try it! ~ Florentina Xo’s