This creamy seafood pasta is a delicious combination of sauteed vegetables. shrimp, and lightly seasoned salmon served in a flavorful cream sauce over pasta. We love this dish for special occasions, but it’s also quick enough for a weeknight meal.
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Hello my friends!
How are you?
I’m doing great. And today I’m just dying to know, are you a seafood lover or a hater?
This is such a dividing question, isn’t it?
I’ll take a wild guess that most of the haters were scared off by the title of this post. I would be. Haha!
So the rest of you. Where do you fall? Kinda sorta likers? Or true and true seafood gurus?
I didn’t always like seafood.
There was a time I actually pretty much detested the idea of it. But looking back I really didn’t know what I was missing.
Now we probably eat seafood regularly at least once a week I’d say. These blackened fish tacos are a HUGE favorite around here and I could seriously eat them every day.
But even though we eat seafood weekly it absolutely has to be good seafood for me to touch it. No fishy tasting seafood for me, thank you very much. I don’t really care for slimy or uncooked seafood either. I blame it on #textureissues.
But today I’m going to introduce you to one of my favorite seafood dishes. This is like the dish we feed our favorite people, seriously. It is so good.
Before I get too far along, I need to give credit for the creation of this seafood pasta to my husband Brandon. He is the genius behind it, through and through. And he never uses a recipe. He’s one of those kind of cooks.
Just imagine me following along as he cooked, weighing and measuring ingredients, driving him crazy and ruining the creative genius in the process–haha. That’s pretty much what happened one day.
Then just to be sure I got the recipe perfect, I’ve recreated it several times tweaking and adjusting flavors until it passed the critique of the mastermind himself. And it did. So here we are.
To be clear this won’t be a recipe that Brandon will ever use again. He doesn’t need or care to have a recipe. But now we’ve documented at least one version of his creamy seafood pasta that the rest of us (you know us recipe followers) can enjoy too. 🙂
What kind of seafood is best to use?
Now that you are aware that I have strong opinions about the taste of seafood, it shouldn’t surprise you that I’m going to give you a few pointers on what kind of seafood to use.
If you can get your hands on fresh wild caught seafood (as in from the ocean not farm-raised), that will always be the tastiest. But if you’re like me and don’t have an ocean closer than 800 miles away, fresh seafood can get a little pricey. When we do go with fresh, we buy salmon from a meat department where they will skin it for us right there. Skinless will work the best and what a pain to have to skin it yourself.
Frozen seafood is much more convenient so you don’t have to made a trip to the store every time you want to make this dish, I usually buy the skinless salmon fillets from Costco and they are good quality. I normally don’t pay the extra for the wild-caught salmon because it’s quite pricey, but the farm-raised vacuum packed Atlantic Salmon fillets are reasonably priced and taste good.
My favorite shrimp to buy are the the raw shrimp, peeled, deveined shrimp. If you can find them with the tail-off that’s always nice, but tail-on will work too. The larger shrimp are tastier, in my opinion. I usually buy the larger shrimp (31 to 40 shrimp per pound) at Costco. We’ve also made this with the smaller ones and they are still good and you get more shrimp per plate which is nice. Keep in mind they will cook faster so watch them close. We have also made this with precooked shrimp and they will work too. Be careful not to overcook them because shrimp can get rubbery when overcooked.
Phew if you made it through all those seafood opinions, you’re amazing. And now we’re on to the recipe.
Feel free to exchange or add veggies or change up the seafood. We’ve made this with asparagus and it’s really good that way too. But with the garden still popping out zucchini and summer squash, well that’s the way to go. Enjoy, my friends!
Creamy Seafood Pasta
This creamy seafood pasta is a delicious combination of sauteed vegetables. shrimp, and lightly seasoned salmon served in a flavorful cream sauce over pasta. We love this dish for special occasions, but it's also quick enough for a weeknight meal.
Ingredients
For Cream Sauce:
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- ½ cup finely diced yellow onion
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- ½ cup diced fresh tomato about 1 Roma
- 1 ¼ teaspoon chicken bouillon see note
- ⅛ teaspoon chipotle powder optional
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream
- ¼ cup milk
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
For Seafood:
- 6 ounces skinless salmon fillet fresh or frozen
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- garlic salt to taste
- chipotle powder to taste
- ¾ pound raw shrimp peeled and deveined, see note
For Vegetables;
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- ½ pound zucchini 1 small/medium squash
- ½ pound yellow squash 1 small/medium squash
- ½ teaspoon salt
For Serving:
- 1 pound hot cooked bow ties or other pasta see note
- salt and pepper to taste
- freshly grated Parmesan cheese optional
Instructions
For Cream Sauce:
-
In a medium saucepan over medium heat add canola oil and heat until sizzling. Add finely diced onions and cook for 2 to 3 minutes until softened
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Add 2 cloves garlic and cook for a minute or until aromatic. Add diced tomatoes, chicken bouillon, chipotle, black pepper, and cream and stir well. Heat to a bubble.
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Whisk milk and cornstarch together in a small bowl and then add to simmering sauce. Stir and heat until thickened. Stir in fresh Parmesan cheese. Turn down temperature to low and continue heating at a low simmer.
For Seafood:
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While sauce is cooking, thoroughly dry salmon with paper towels and then lightly season with garlic salt and cajun seasoning.
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Heat 1 tablespoon canola oil in a medium dutch oven or cast iron skillet with a lid over medium high heat. When oil sizzles, add seasoned salmon and cover pot with lid.
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Cook salmon for 4 to 5 minutes on each side or until salmon starts to flake, is golden brown and crispy on the outside. Remove salmon to a plate and set aside.
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Add shrimp to the dutch oven on medium high and cover pan. Cook shrimp for 4 to 5 minutes, tossing every few minutes until shrimp is pink and cooked through. Remove from pan and drain shrimp, reserving the liquid. Add the reserved liquid to the cream sauce and set aside cooked shrimp on plate with the salmon.
For Vegetables:
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Add a tablespoon of oil to the dutch oven (still over medium high heat). When oil is hot, add cut up zucchini and yellow squash and cook for 3 to 5 minutes uncovered.
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Turn the squash a few times so that they are lightly blackened and squash is barely tender with a fork (it will continue to cook after you take it off the heat). After the first time turning add ½ teaspoon salt to the squash and stir well. When squash is finished cooking, remove from pan and put it on a plate to set it aside.
For Serving:
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Cut up salmon into 1 to 2-inch pieces for serving. Combine the seafood and veggies in cream sauce and reheat until warm (if needed). Serve creamy seafood sauce over hot pasta.
Recipe Notes
1. I use this homemade chicken bouillon for this recipe.
2. We’ve made this recipe with asparagus and it is good that way also.
3. Fresh seafood is the best. But the frozen farm-raised vacuum-packed Atlantic skinless salmon fillets from Costco too. We usually buy raw shrimp, peeled & deveined (fresh or frozen, tail on or off). I usually buy the larger shrimp (31 to 40 shrimp per pound) from Costco, but you can use the smaller shrimp too, just keep in mind that they will cook quicker.
4. We usually prefer bowties (farfalle), fettuccine or another flat pasta, but you can use any kind you prefer.
5. Note that for the photos I kept the veggies and seafood separate (because it looks a lot prettier), but we usually serve everything combined as described in the recipe.
Recipe Source: Brandon @ The Cook’s Treat, measurements, amounts and instructions by Heather @ The Cook’s Treat
All images and text ©The Cook’s Treat
Disclaimer: post contains affiliate links for items on Amazon.
