A Creamy Seafood Lasagna Recipe You'll Love

Lasagna's roots may date back over 1,000 years, so it's not surprising that there are so many variant versions. Seafood lasagna is a specialty in Genoa, but it doesn't come with a creamy sauce. Although we don't know for sure, cream-sauced pasta may be a more modern invention since creamy concoctions such as Alfredo and vodka sauce became popular in the 20^th century. Developer Patterson Watkins says she got the inspiration for this creamy seafood lasagna recipe from a creamy seafood manicotti she was served in a Philadelphia restaurant. She describes the entree as a "rich, creamy, tomatoey sensation of seafood and pasta that's pure magic," but admits that manicotti is tricky to make, so she transformed the dish into a simpler lasagna.

When it came to creating her take on the restaurant dish, Watkins says, "I didn't skimp on the sauce," which she describes as a balanced blend of garlic, shallots, white wine, heavy cream, and tomato. It pairs well, she tells us, with the crab, scallops, and shrimp, as well as the standard lasagna tri-cheese mixture of mozzarella, Parmesan, and ricotta that she says "adds to the hale and heartiness."

A good lasagna begins with a good sauce, and for this one you'll need butter, garlic cloves, shallots, white wine, tomato puree, heavy cream, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. For the filling, you'll also need ricotta, an egg, and basil, while the seafood component consists of crab meat, shrimp, and scallops dressed with olive oil and lemon juice. You're going to need cooked lasagna noodles too, of course, while mozzarella and Parmesan round out the cheese trifecta.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Begin the sauce: Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.

Once melted, add the garlic and shallot, and saute for 2 minutes.

Deglaze with white wine, bring to a simmer, and saute for 2 minutes more.

Add the tomato puree, cream, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper to the saucepan, whisk to combine, and bring to a simmer. Simmer, whisking frequently, for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the ricotta mix by placing the ricotta, egg, basil, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl, whisking to combine.

Make the seafood mix by placing the crab meat, shrimp, and scallops in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice, and gently toss to coat and combine.

Lightly spritz a 13x9-inch casserole dish with cooking spray.

Ladle about 1 cup of sauce into the bottom of the casserole dish.

Lay 4 lasagna noodles on top of the sauce, overlapping slightly.

Dollop about ⅔ cup of the ricotta mixture over the noodles and spread out evenly.

Top the ricotta with ⅓ of the seafood mix.

Generously sprinkle with mozzarella and Parmesan (about a heaping cup of mozzarella and ¼ cup of grated Parmesan) on top of the seafood.

Ladle another 1 cup of sauce and repeat the process with another 2 layers (noodles, ricotta, seafood, cheese, sauce, and repeat).

For the final layer, cap with the remaining noodles, sauce, and cheeses.

Cover the casserole dish with aluminum foil and place in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes.

Remove the foil from the casserole dish, return to the oven, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the lasagna is bubbly and lightly golden around the edges. Set aside to rest for 15 minutes.

Once rested, garnish with parsley and basil before slicing and serving.

This lasagna recipe calls for three types of seafood, but none of them is particularly difficult to prep. As you can see from the ingredients photo, this lasagna was made with canned crab, and the only thing you need to do is drain it and check for any stray bits of shell. You can also use frozen crab, although if you buy the kind of frozen crab legs that come with their shells still on, you'll need to remove the shells and chop up the crab meat.

As for the scallops, you only need to cut them up if they're the larger sea scallops. Should you opt for smaller bay scallops, these are already the right size. If you buy shell-on shrimp, you'll need to remove the shells along with the tails. You can always buy pre-shelled shrimp for easier prep or even go with pre-cooked shrimp. If your shrimp are raw, though, you can toss them, along with the scallops, into the same pan of boiling water in which you're cooking the lasagna noodles. Add the seafood three or four minutes before the noodles are done, then drain everything together. Do this before you cut up the shrimp and scallops, however, since the larger the pieces, the easier they'll be to pick out of the drained noodles.

As this creamy, cheesy dish is quite rich, you will definitely want some type of vegetable component to balance out your meal. A green salad with an all-purpose vinaigrette will do nicely, as will one with a creamy lemon tahini dressing. If you prefer a cooked vegetable, you could opt for garlic-sautéed spinach or roasted broccoli rabe, as both have some bitterness to them that can counteract some of the lasagna's heaviness.

As this is an Italian-inspired meal, you may want some garlic bread to accompany it, or perhaps some shortcut garlic knots made with canned biscuits. If you're in a baking mood, you could even make a batch of homemade focaccia bread and use it to soak up any leftover sauce on your plate.

Should you still have room for dessert, think light, not rich. You can make banana-watermelon sorbet if the latter fruit is in season, or turn any kind of canned fruit in heavy syrup into a simple one-ingredient sorbet. A selection of Italian cookies would also make for a delightful meal-ender — try our homemade biscotti or classic vanilla pizzelles.