I’ve made this Diver Scallop and Shrimp Puttanesca twice in the past week. It’s a little salty, a bit spicy, and super-savory. Made with simple and fresh ingredients, it’s a great weeknight meal. Even though this dish takes a little longer than 30 minutes to prepare (breaking my rule of calling it a weeknight meal), a good portion of the time is spent simmering away unattended.
This is a wonderful dish for those of us who have set resolutions to eat healthier this year. Butternut squash is packed with Vitamin A, great for your skin and eyes. Plus, with lots of dessert recipes coming up, I needed to make sure that my dinners are a little lighter for a while.
In the midst of being sick and busy during the holidays, our dishwasher suddenly decided to stop working. Our dishwasher is less than a year old, so I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of having problems this early. Elliott and I spent an evening scooping out dirty dishwater, disconnecting and reconnecting hoses, cleaning filters, and a myriad of other things.
After a few hours, we found the culprit: two small butternut squash seeds stuck in the air gap.
I have no idea how the seeds could have gotten through the filter, but I bet you can guess which recipe I had just finished working on.
Oops.
This seafood puttanesca is lightened up by using butternut squash noodles instead of pasta. My spiralizer has become one of my most-used kitchen tools and I’ve been busy turning anything I can get my hands on into noodles.
If you don’t have a spiralizer, you may use a julienne peeler or even regular spaghetti noodles. The flavors in this puttanesca are quite bold, so you can pair it with lots of different types of noodles. Speaking of bold flavors, you may leave out the anchovies if they gross you out. However, by sautéing the anchovies in oil, they completely disintegrate and just leave behind their salty flavor. That’s my favorite part.
Honestly, I doubt many people would realize that you used anchovies unless you told them!
Diver Scallop And Shrimp Puttanesca With Butternut Squash Noodles
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil, divided
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 4 to 5 anchovy filets
- 2 (15 oz) cans diced tomatoes*
- 2 tbsp capers
- ¼ cup kalamata olives, chopped
- ½ tsp red pepper flakes (more to taste)
- salt and pepper, to taste
- ½ lb diver scallops
- ½ lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1 butternut squash, peeled and spiralized
- ¼ cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
Instructions
- Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and anchovy filets and sauté until the anchovies have dissolved.
- Add the diced tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Add the capers, olives, and red pepper flakes to the skillet and reduce the heat to medium-low. Season with salt and pepper and let simmer for about 10 minutes, adding the spiralized butternut squash noodles about halfway through.
- While the sauce is simmering, heat the remaining oil in a large heavy-bottomed skillet over high heat. Once hot, add the shrimp and cook until the shrimp turn pink and are almost cooked through, about 3 minutes. Transfer the shrimp to the tomato sauce to finish cooking and return the skillet to the heat. Add the scallops and sear for about 1½ minutes per side, then remove from heat.
- Add the chopped parsley to the tomato sauce and stir. Once the butternut squash noodles have become al dente, serve the puttanesca in individual serving bowls and top with a few seared diver scallops. Serve immediately.
