Description
Baked seafood stuffed shells with golden breadcrumb topping in casserole dish. Looks impressive but easy to make with basic ingredients.
Ingredients
Pasta & Seafood
- 6 oz dry jumbo pasta shells (~25 shells)
- 8 oz peeled & deveined shrimp
- 1 lb lump crabmeat, checked for shells
- 8 oz dry-packed sea scallops, cut into small pieces
Flavorings
- 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- Dash of Old Bay seasoning
- 1 medium shallot, minced
- Small handful flat-leaf parsley, plus more for garnish
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Kosher salt
Sauce & Topping
- Extra-virgin olive oil (for drizzling and greasing dish)
- 3½ tbsp unsalted butter (divided)
- 1½ tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1½ cups milk
- 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
Instructions
Crank your oven to 325. Cook the shells in salted water but pull them out early – like 3 minutes before the box says. They’re going back in the oven so you don’t want them mushy.
Dump them in cold water right away so they stop cooking. Toss with some oil or they’ll stick together and you’ll be prying them apart with a fork.
Melt some butter in a pan. Don’t burn it or it tastes weird. Dump in the flour and stir it around for a minute until it stops smelling like flour.
Pour the milk in slowly while you whisk. If you dump it all at once you get lumps and lumpy sauce sucks. Let it bubble for a few minutes until it’s thick enough to coat your spoon. Salt, pepper, done.
Mix your seafood with the mustard, mayo, Old Bay, shallot, and parsley. Go through that crab meat and pick out any shells because there’s always at least one and biting into a shell ruins everything.
Should stick together but not be paste-like. Taste it and add salt and pepper. Don’t be shy with the seasoning.
Grease your pan and put some of that white sauce on the bottom so nothing sticks. Stuff each shell with as much filling as you can fit. I use a small spoon but your hands work too if they’re clean.
Line them up in the pan and pour the rest of the sauce over everything. Make sure it gets in all the gaps.
Melt the rest of your butter and mix it with the breadcrumbs. Add some salt because everything needs salt. Sprinkle it over the shells. This is what makes it look fancy.
Stick it in the oven for 25 minutes until everything’s hot and bubbling. Want it browner? Turn on the broiler for a couple minutes but don’t leave the kitchen or you’ll burn it.
Let it sit for 5 minutes before you eat it or you’ll burn your tongue.
Notes
Let the seafood sit out for 20 minutes before mixing so it’s not ice cold going into the oven. Pack that filling tight into the shells – more filling is better.
If your white sauce gets thick, add more milk. If it gets lumpy, just start over. Takes 5 minutes and lumpy sauce tastes like cafeteria food.
Taste your filling before you stuff the shells. Need more salt? More pepper? Fix it now because you can’t fix it later.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Italian-American