Linguine with clam sauce is one of those classic Italian dishes that every home chef should have in regular rotation. Not only is it super easy to make with fairly simple ingredients, but it’s incredibly light and flavorful for a pasta dish. And it’s not fishy at all, like you might suspect, but sweet and garlicky, with plenty of chopped parsley adding a fresh, earthy touch.
My husband had been clamoring for me to make it for weeks, after seeing a video of an Italian chef whipping it up on Instagram. It’s the one seafood he can safely eat, and after watching him pull up and repair a section of kitchen floor that had been ruined by a leaky dishwasher, I had to agree he deserved the treat of homemade pasta with his choice of topping.
All in all, it took about 10 minutes, if you don’t count the time spent scrubbing the clams with a brush under cold water or the 15 minutes or so it took to run fresh pasta dough through my noodle roller.
You can find live hardshell littleneck clams — a super sweet and tender variety — in many larger groceries and also in seafood markets That can of chopped canned clams tucked on a shelf, forgotten, in your pantry makes a fine substitute for fresh in a pinch (not to mention cheaper), and will eliminate the worry of clam shells stinking up your garbage until trash day.