What's The Best Sauce For Seafood Pastas?

Seafood and pasta are strong on their own and even better together. Most sauces certainly won't taste terrible with these elements, but certain ingredients can take seafood pasta to the next level and bring together outstanding flavor. It's hard to claim a single sauce as the best, but certainly, it's a light sauce with fragrant, acidic ingredients. It might be wise to start by reaching for a bottle of white wine and some fresh tomatoes.

The Italian dish spaghetti ai frutti di mare literally translates to "seafood pasta," and there's a specific sauce associated with the dish. It's made of tomatoes (or tomato sauce) combined with dry white wine, olive oil, garlic, and pepper while the seafood simmers. This extra-light sauce elevates the various sea creatures of the dish — mussels, clams, shrimp, and sometimes squid. Frutti di mare sauce is able to complement several different kinds of seafood and pasta at once, and chefs like Giada de Laurentiis, Lidia Bastianich, and Rachel Ray have used this type of sauce in their recipes.

Some people might be aghast at suggesting tomato sauce over creamy white sauces. Dairy sauces are no doubt wonderful — there's a reason shrimp fettuccine Alfredo is popular in many U.S. restaurants. However, a common mistake with heavy cream sauces is that they overshadow the seafood and pasta itself, getting quite literally lost in the sauce. A light white sauce and tomato sauce, gently applied, can enhance lobster, shrimp, squid, and fish by balancing their richness with acidic ingredients.

A simple beurre blanc works wonders for seafood by itself. For pasta alone, a good olive oil and seasoning can be enough. Combining these two foods takes a little finesse, and tomato-based sauces just work. If using a cream sauce for seafood pasta, adding lemon and white wine to the recipe can improve the taste and make the dairy feel less heavy with the other ingredients. The best sauce for seafood pasta may also change based on the dish and cooking technique, but when in doubt, a little bit of white wine and tomatoes can go a long way.