This quick recipe is so good it tastes like you toiled in the kitchen, with lemony, basil-crusted scallops tossed with bow tie pasta! It makes a great main dish, or you can convert it into a dinner by adding some spinach or asparagus. This recipe goes great with an antipasto of fire-roasted tomatoes, artichokes, and buffalo mozzarella.
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 30 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
Ingredients
- 1 (16 ounce) box farfalle (bow-tie) pasta
- 24 scallops, rinsed and drained
- ¾ cup olive oil, divided
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- 1 ½ teaspoons dried garlic flakes, divided
- 1 teaspoon salt, divided
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons dried basil, divided
- 1 tablespoon whipped butter
- ½ cup whipped butter
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook bow tie pasta at a boil, stirring occasionally, until tender yet firm to the bite, about 12 minutes.
- Meanwhile, place scallops into a large bowl.
- Mix 1/4 cup oil, lemon juice, 1 teaspoon garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper in a bowl until combined; pour mixture over scallops and stir to coat. Transfer seasoned scallops to a large baking dish or plate; arrange in a single layer. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon dried basil over top side of scallops.
- Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Place 1/2 of the scallops, basil-side down, into the melted butter; cook until dark golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate and cook remaining scallops in the skillet.
- Heat remaining 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup oil, 1 tablespoon basil, 1/2 teaspoon garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a small saucepan over medium heat until butter melts, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Drain pasta and return to the pot. Pour hot butter sauce over top and toss to combine. Divide pasta onto plates and top with scallops.
- You can use other pasta shapes such as rotini, shells, or penne.
- When purchasing scallops, be sure to look for those that are a subtle ink or cream color. If you see stark white scallops, avoid them; they’ve been soaked in water to add extra weight.
- Nutrition data for this recipe includes the full amount of oil used to season the scallops. The actual amount consumed will vary.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 522 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 46 g |
| Cholesterol | 38 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 16 g |
| Saturated Fat | 8 g |
| Sodium | 453 mg |
| Sugars | 1 g |
| Fat | 31 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Definitely will make it again. Added butter-sauteed asparagus. Substituted angel hair for the bowtie pasta (the COVID-19ers wiped out the store’s bowtie). Next time I’ll mince fresh garlic. The dried stuff didn’t have as much garlic flavor as I like.
Easy and delish. Used about half the amount of butter and still had sauce left over.
Very good and easy, I think next time I will cut back the oil/butter (although the oil on the dinner plates made a great dredge for our bread sticks) it was just to much. I also added the marinade to the pan and cooked it to pour over the pasta.
The family loved it.
I thought this was great! Light, and fairly quick and easy to make. I bought frozen scallops and had small issues defrosting. I will just pay a couple extra dollars and get them at the meat counter next time.
Made it by the recipe and added a bit more garlic. You can cut back on the butter and I added a little olive oil to sauté the scallops. Next time I’ll add a little lemon to the pasta drizzle along with fresh basil.
Used canola oil and parsley in stead of vegetable and basil, baby scallops in stead of jumbo and added uncooked shrimps to the scallops and fried them together. This is a really good recipe but next time I won’t use what they call for with lemon juice, 1/4 tsp. Is too much and is very over powering.
Super easy. I used minced garlic instead of dried, to give it more zip, and added asparagus tips to the boiling pasta for the last 3 minutes. I sprinkled Romana cheese on top… it was delicious! Will make again but add even more garlic and pepper.
Nothing special, far too much basil for my liking. Would be better with white wine sauce and Parmesan cheese. I was embarrassed to serve this.
Four stars as I followed other’s suggestions… – browned scallops only in butter and garlic – used chicken broth to deglaze pan – added 1T basil, salt, pepper, 1/4 cup lemon juice, dash cream, extra chicken broth, and more butter to make sauce. Let simmer down and thicken a bit – wilted two big handfuls if fresh spinach – added scallops back in – spooned all over pasta. Yum! Great starting point for the recipe, sooo yummy, going into the circulation for sure!
Excellent. Top quality taste!
Great recipe. I made some changes though. I sautéed some mushrooms and onions and added some steamed brocoli to the pasta. For the sauce, I took the left over marinade and added about a 1/2 cup of broth and creme and let it reduce a bit. Very yummy yet easy.
Added baby bellas, asparagus and red pepper strips. Delicious and simple.
This was wonderful! So easy. Restaurant quality! I
This recipe was really easy and delicious! I added quartered grape tomatoes in mine just to add a little more color. I also used large scallops because they tend to shrink about 50% after cooking. Hope this helps ^^
MMMMMMM! Good! 🙂
very very good. The pasta was excellent. I used ziti and would love to make this dressing with it every time! I did use 1/3 less butter and olive oil than it called for and a lot more garlic.
Kept recipe as is and this is very good. We’ve made it several times already.
My boyfriend and I tried this recipe for Sunday dinner. We actually added shrimp to this recipe as well and it was delicious.
I’m not great with measuring but I did make some changes. First I took out the oil, and did not place the scallops in a bowl with seasonings. Just cooked them in butter, extra garlic and browned them. Keep the lemon out – an earlier reviewer is correct, the scallops won’t brown. I added about a T of the basil. After cooking the scallops I put them aside and I added some wine (about 1/4 c) to deglaze. Then I added asparagus tips to the pan. After about 4-5 min, I added the scallops back to the pan. I melted the remaining butter (only used 7 Tlbs) and the lemon. Poured this over the bow tie pasta, added parmesan cheese, mixed, then added the scallops and more parmesan cheese. Chopped up some fresh parsley on top. Excellent!!
very easy taste like were in a restaurant