High-protein shrimp and calamari in tomato sauce

We shared this satisfying high-protein recipe for shrimp and calamari in tomato garlic sauce many years ago. Back in 2016 and it’s still one of our favorite, FAVORITE, protein-packed healthy dinner ideas using seafood. Recently we made it while it was still light out and took some new photos, so we're doing a little update here.

You can make this fast high-protein seafood recipe with shrimp only, as we did last time and use whatever fresh herbs/greens you have on hand. We hope you enjoy it when you do make it and now let’s see what we wrote in 2016.

the old photo with calamari

Last week we decided to buy lots and lots of seafood. We were craving it like never before. This is a little weird since we eat fish and seafood every week. But let’s not get into that – overanalyzing is never helpful. Long story short we went and bought about 4 kg of fish and seafood and ate it almost every day of the week. Mercury poisoning, here we come.

Don’t know about the guys in Dirty dancing, but we truly had the time of our life.

with just shrimp

You already saw the salmon with asparagus recipe and here comes another recipe from the sea for our clean eating challenge: Shrimp & calamari in tomato garlic sauce.

This is the one dish that can distract us from any goal or activity in our life. Seriously it’s that seductive. Our sister makes this low carb dish pretty often when we say we will go vegan for a week. We don’t know for sure if she’s trying to sabotage us, but it definitely seems like it. We always end up eating more than her. And we honestly never regret it.

But in our defense, can anybody resist seafood in tomato garlic sauce?

We mean who can resist anything drowned in sweet flavorful and garlicky tomato sauce? With some basil in it? Come on. Alright we will probably be able to resist a cheesecake or a cookie drown in that, but we're not even sure we can make that promise.

BEAUTY AND HEALTH BENEFITS

Luckily the biggest and tastiest distraction in our life is also healthy and helps us renew our beauty. Makes us feel like J.Lo.

This high-protein recipe for shrimp and calamari in tomato sauce is:

• anti-inflammatory (thank you, Garlic!)
• anti-cancer (thank you, again little stinker!)
• high-protein (thanks to calamari and shrimp)
• antioxidant (thanks to Lycopene from the tomatoes)
• gluten-free
• paleo

You see – you can’t go wrong with this simple healthy dinner idea. It’s satisfying and nutritious! So make sure you make it and enjoy it. It makes it totally worth it to not achieve a goal of being vegan for a week.

• Yield: 2
• Prep: 5 minutes
• Cook: 15 minutes
• Total: 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 250g/8oz shrimp (peeled)
• 1 calamari tube
• 3 tomatoes – cubed
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 10 leaves basil – chopped
• 2-3 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Method

1. Chop tomatoes, clean and cut calamari in strips.
2. Wash and chop basil, clean shrimp.
3. In a large non-stick skillet place chopped tomatoes and calamari and cover with a lid. Cook at medium high heat for 5 minutes, but be sure to look from time to time whether there is enough sauce in the pan. Depending on how much fluid the tomatoes have, the time can vary.
4. After 5 minutes, uncover, add tomato paste, stir it in well, until you see the sauce thicken up.
5. Add shrimp and garlic and stir. Let it to cook like this for 2-3 min.
6. If the sauce gets too runny – add again more tomato paste. We had used around 2 tbsp.
7. Then add basil, stir for 1 min. Turn off heat.
8. Add olive oil and serve with whole grain bread.
9. Enjoy