Ingredients Seafood 25 Italian Seafood Recipes to Transport You to Italy By Food & Wine Editors Updated on September 9, 2022 Share Tweet Pin Email Trending Videos Photo: © John Kernick Italy boasts nearly 5,000 miles of beautiful coastline, a fact certainly reflected in the bright, fresh flavors of its Mediterranean cuisine. For this recipe collection, we've gathered our best Italian seafood dishes to take your palate to the water's edge, from garlicky shrimp with polenta to summery crab carbonara and creamy, indulgent lobster risotto. Choose your favorite, feel the sea breeze, and get cooking. Buon appetito! 01 of 25 Ligurian Seafood Stew © Tina Rupp After blanching peas, snap peas, and fingerling potatoes, chef Andrew Carmellini adds them to a homemade mussel broth along with sea bass, clams, an herb pesto, and little seafood meatballs made with shrimp, chorizo, and scallops. Here, we've narrowed the ingredient list to the delicious basics — shrimp, sea bass, and clams. Use bottled clam broth as a stand-in for mussel broth and flavor it with spicy chorizo. Get the Recipe 02 of 25 Venetian Shrimp with Polenta Victor Protasio "All you need to do is make a batch of polenta, which isn't hard at all; it just requires some stirring," says food writer David McCann. "And while the polenta simmers away, all you'll need to do is cook some garlic and white wine and stock, add butter, and, literally two minutes (at most) before you want to serve, toss in the shrimp." Get the Recipe 03 of 25 Cioppino with Fennel and Saffron Photo by Andrew Bui / Food Styling by Max Rappaport An abundance of seafood and three types of fennel (bulb, seed, and pollen) infuse chef Brandon Boudet's version of this Italian-American fish stew with remarkable flavor, while Calabrian chile paste and crushed red pepper add a subtle layer of heat. Because the West Coast is famous for its Dungeness crab, a large orange crab with meaty claws, it makes a dramatic showing in this seafood-packed dish. Get the Recipe 04 of 25 Lobster Risotto Photo by Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Lydia Pursell A small pinch of saffron goes a long way in imparting a vibrant golden hue and floral fragrance to this creamy, indulgent lobster risotto. Precooked lobster and bottled clam juice deliver robust layers of flavor with a minimum amount of effort, making this a perfect weeknight supper. Get the Recipe 05 of 25 Spaghetti with Clams and Garlic © SIMON WATSON This exquisite, super-simple version of spaghetti con vongole from the chef-owners of Brooklyn's Frankies 457 Spuntino, Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli, is packed with garlic and a judicious amount of crushed red pepper. If you prefer, shell the clams before tossing them with their juices in the pasta. Get the Recipe 06 of 25 Langoustines alla Busara © Con Poulos Venice- and London-based blogger Skye McAlpine loves the delicate flavor of langoustines, but to her the real magic of the dish is the super-flavorful tomato sauce in which they simmer. Be sure to have plenty of crusty bread on hand to soak up the sauce. Get the Recipe 07 of 25 All'Amatriciana with Extra Umami © Christina Holmes Anchovies please! Top Chef finalist Sarah Grueneberg makes her amatriciana sauce with anchovies, so it's extra savory. Get the Recipe 08 of 25 Grilled Shrimp with Oregano and Lemon © John Kernick The sauce for this shrimp is a simple version of Italy's salmoriglio, typically made with lemon and herbs in a mortar. The sauce is also delicious spooned over grilled swordfish or any other meaty fish. Get the Recipe 09 of 25 Risotto-Style Ditalini with Mussels, Clams and Saffron © Fredrika Stjärne For this creamy dish, chefs Tyler Rodde and Curtis Di Fede use a fish stock to cook pasta slowly, risotto-style. If you can't find ditalini, look for another small pasta shape or pearl couscous. Get the Recipe 10 of 25 Linguine Piccole with Grilled Swordfish and Parsley Anchovy Sauce © Ben Dearnley In this delicious dish, the anchovies provide a roundness and depth of flavor rather than a strong hit of anchovy. If you like, you can swap tuna for the swordfish. Get the Recipe 11 of 25 Sardinian-Style Paella © Frances Janisch Fregola, the pearl-size Sardinian pasta that is quite similar to couscous, makes a terrific substitute for rice in this paella-style dish; it soaks up a lot of the cooking liquid from the seafood, tomato, and chorizo stew and still stays nicely chewy. For such an impressive main course, it can be prepared surprisingly quickly. Get the Recipe 12 of 25 Rigatoni with Sea Bass and Tomatoes © John Kernick Chef Marc Vetri uses oversized paccheri for this seafood pasta, but rigatoni works just as well with the juicy tomato sauce and fish. Get the Recipe 13 of 25 Clam Risotto with Bacon and Chives © David Malosh If you buy just-shucked whole clams rather than already chopped clams in a container, use their liquid instead of the bottled clam juice; just be sure to strain it first through a paper towel to remove any grit. Get the Recipe 14 of 25 Squid Pizza with Saffron Aioli © James Baigrie Chef Michael Emanuel, an alumnus of Berkeley's Chez Panisse, tops this pizza with an irresistible mix of Provençal flavors: salty-sweet roasted squid, creamy aioli, and crushed red pepper (French piment d'Espelette would also work well). The remaining aioli can be used as a dip for vegetables or a spread for sandwiches. Get the Recipe 15 of 25 Italian Seafood Stew © John Kernick In this luscious tomato-rich stew, chef Marco Canora cooks calamari slowly until it becomes super tender. He says calamari is absolutely essential to the success of the dish, because it releases its liquid as it simmers, which adds a huge amount of flavor to the sauce. Get the Recipe 16 of 25 Spaghetti with Anchovy Carbonara © TINA RUPP Chef Chris Cosentino adds briny flavor to his pasta with cured tuna heart, which he shaves on right before serving. This recipe calls for anchovies rather than the tuna heart Cosentino uses. Egg yolks form a silky sauce. Get the Recipe 17 of 25 Saffron Spaghetti with Santa Barbara Spot Prawns Aubrie Pick Spot prawns are incredibly sweet, with plump, tender tails reminscent of lobster. Be sure to remove the prawns from the pan before finishing the sauce to keep them from overcooking. Get the Recipe 18 of 25 Monkfish Piccata Greg DuPree Monkfish, with its tender, springy bite reminiscent of lobster, is firm and sweet enough to stand up to this lemony butter sauce enriched with white miso. Plenty of briny capers and caperberries help balance the richness. Get the Recipe 19 of 25 Summer Crab Carbonara with Lemons and Capers Michael Piazza 2020 F&W Best New Chef Douglass Williams' method for carbonara allows you to hold the cooked pasta before adding it to the garlic–oil–pasta cooking liquid emulsion. It makes for a simple, creamy carbonara without the stress. Get the Recipe 20 of 25 Seafood Stew with Saffron Zabaglione © Quentin Bacon For this brothy stew full of wonderfully moist snapper, tender squid, and plump mussels and clams, prepare the ingredients separately so nothing becomes over- or undercooked. To make the lush saffron zabaglione, which gets stirred into the stew, egg yolks are cooked slowly in wine over the gentle heat of simmering water. Get the Recipe 21 of 25 Spaghetti with Shrimp, Lemon, Mint, and Pecorino © Con Poulos Roman chef Angelo Troiani riffs on the classic spaghetti ajo, ojo, e peperoncino (garlic, oil, and chile), embellishing it with shrimp, lemon, pecorino, almond, and mint. It's simple, delicious, and crowd-pleasing. Get the Recipe 22 of 25 Judith's Dungeness Crab Cioppino © Frances Janisch For Christmas Eve dinner, Judith Tirado, chef Michael Mina's late mother-in-law, always prepared cioppino — the San Francisco seafood stew that owes its origins to fishermen from Italy's Ligurian coast. "She'd spend a whole day infusing the broth with basil and tomatoes," Mina recalls. Now he carries on the tradition by making her hearty, briny recipe full of crab, shrimp, and clams. Get the Recipe 23 of 25 Sea Bass with Sicilian Cherry Tomato Sauce Abby Hocking Extra Virgin hosts Debi Mazar and Gabriele Corcos riff on classic Southern Italian puttanesca with their Sicilian Cherry Tomato Sauce, here made with fresh tomatoes. The recipe calls for wild sea bass, but Mazar and Corcos like to make it with almost any fish, especially rich and oily ones like mackerel or bluefish. Get the Recipe 24 of 25 Marinated Fish with Salmoriglio Sauce © Yunhee Kim This tangy, buttery salmoriglio sauce — a Sicilian classic — is spectacularly delicious with many kinds of fish, not just those specified here; it's always best to simply trust your eyes and nose and buy what's freshest at the fish market. Get the Recipe 25 of 25 Creamy Seafood Risotto © Frances Janisch For this risotto, arborio rice is cooked with onion, saffron, wine, and clam juice. Once the rice is done, shrimp and crab are sautéed with butter and shallot and stirred into the rice with mascarpone cheese to elevate the dish's creaminess factor. Fragrant, substantial Soave is a great complement here. Get the Recipe Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit