If you love seafood and pasta, you’re going to love my Seafood Riviera.
During my career as a restaurant chef, this was one of my more popular seafood and pasta dishes.
The sweet sundried tomatoes, earthy mushrooms and tangy artichokes blended together with the pesto and seafood to build a flavorful dish that will bring moans to your dinner table.
What ingredients are needed to make Seafood Riviera over Linguine
Let’s start by gathering the ingredients we need to make Seafood Riviera. In Chef Speak this is called the Mise en Place which translates into Everything in its Place.
Not only does setting your ingredients up ahead of time speed the cooking process, but it also helps ensure you have everything you need to make the dish.
How do I make Pesto?
If you’ve never made pesto before, there is really nothing to it. Although you will need a food processor or powerful blender to make pesto.
All you need is fresh basil, garlic cloves, grated Romano cheese, pine nuts or walnuts and olive oil.
One of my favorite ways to save pesto is to freeze it in an ice cube tray. I pop out the frozen pesto cubes and save them in a ziplock bag for when I need them.
Let’s start making the Seafood Riviera. The first step is to saute the scallops and mushrooms in olive oil. Cook the scallops for two minutes then add the shrimp to the pan.
Continue cooking the ingredients until the shrimp are barely cooked.
**If you have a bottle of white wine open you can add a splash of wine to deglaze the pan and stop the cooking process.
Add the stock, heavy cream, pesto and seasonings to the pan and mix the sauce together off the heat.
**This is about the time you should start cooking your pasta
Add the sun-dried tomatoes, sliced artichoke hearts and grated Romano cheese to the pan and allow to cook for 1 minute.
Add the butter rolled in flour to thicken the sauce. Reduce the heat to medium and allow the sauce to reduce and thicken slightly.
Do I have to use Mushrooms, Artichokes and Sun-Dried Tomatoes in my Seafood Riviera?
No you don’t, that’s the way I make this dish, but it doesn’t mean you can’t adapt it to use ingredients you enjoy eating.
I do always recommend trying recipes the way they were meant to be made, but if you’ve got an allergy or serious aversion to an ingredient it can be left out. Here are some of my replacement ideas.
- grape tomatoes cut in half instead of sun-dried tomatoes.
- zucchini (half circle cut) instead of artichokes
- small broccoli florets instead of mushrooms
Other additions or replacement ingredients are roasted red peppers, spinach and sliced kalamata or black olives.
If you timed the cooking process right the pasta should be done about the time the Seafood Riviera is finished.
If you haven’t timed things perfectly don’t worry, you can always precook the pasta, or remove the Riviera from the heat until the pasta is finished cooking.
What other pastas can I use for Seafood Riviera?
I like wider noodles for this dish but that doesn’t mean you can’t use your favorite pasta shapes. These are some of the types of pasta shapes that I recommend.
- Pappardelle
- Tagliatelle
- Fettuccine
- Bucatini
- Penne
Recipe FAQ’s:
Seafood riviera is a combination of seafood, in a light pesto sauce with mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts and sometimes olives. It’s served over linguine, pappardelle, tagliatelle, fettuccine, or bucatini.
Shrimp, scallops, calamari, clams or mussels (out of the shell) and your favorite fish can be used to make seafood riviera.
No, you don’t. You can leave it out altogether or use Greek yogurt, light cream, half and half, or your favorite non-dairy milk as a substitute.
More Seafood Recipes You’ll Love!
Seafood Riviera
Ingredients
- ½ lb linguine
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- ½ lb scallops
- ½ lb shrimp
- ½ cup sundried tomatoes 12-16 halves
- 8 ounces mushrooms sliced
- ½ cup artichoke hearts 6-8 small hearts
- 2 tablespoon pesto
- ¼ cup Romano cheese
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ¾ cup chicken stock or vegetabke stock
- 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
- 1 teaspoon granulated onion
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon flour
Pesto
- 2 bunches basil use basil leaves only, no large stems
- ½ bunch Italian parsley use parsley leaves only, no large stems
- 2 clove garlic
- ¼ cup pine nuts or walnuts toasted
- ¼ cup Romano cheese grated
- ¼ cup olive oil
Instructions
Pesto
- Remove the leaves from the basil and parsley, do not use the stems
- To toast your pine nuts get a pan sauté pan very hot, then turn off the heat, and add the pine nuts. Keep the pine nuts moving around so they toast without burning.
- Place the basil into your food processor, Pulse it's until it's minced very well.
- Add garlic, toasted pine nuts, and grated Romano cheese, pulse to combine.
- Drizzle in the Olive Oil until it has a nice smooth consistency without looking oily
Seafood Riviera
- Get pasta water ready. You will cook the pasta once you begin to make the sauce for the seafood riviera.
- Add olive oil to a large hot saute pan. Place the scallops on one side of the pan and the mushrooms on the other side of the pan. Cook for 2 minutes, moving the mushrooms around as they cook.
- After two minutes flip the scallops and add the shrimp to the pan. Move the shrimp around and cook until they are almost finished.
- Add the stock, heavy cream, pesto and seasonings to the pan and mix the sauce together off the heat.**This is about the time you should start cooking your pasta
- Add the sun-dried tomatoes, sliced artichoke hearts and grated Romano cheese to the pan and bring the sauce to a light boil. Add the butter rolled in flour to thicken the sauce. Reduce the heat to medium and allow the sauce to reduce and thicken slightly. (about 2 minutes)
- Serve the finished dish over linguine or the pasta of your choice.**Mix a little of the sauce with the pasta before adding the other ingredients. It will make the dish look better when you serve it
Debbie
Such a wonderful seafood dish! I loved the flavor the fresh pesto gave this pasta. The combination of scallops, shrimp and mushrooms was the best ever. This made me feel like I was at an elegant restaurant.