CrockPot Seafood Alfredo Recipe


Day 69.

While I'm typing this up, I can overhear my six-year-old telling my three-year-old, "you have to try this. It tastes like restaurant food."

I think that is the highest honor ever bestowed upon me.

I have so many people to thank, where should I begin...?


Actually, I got this idea from my friend Svetlana while watching a fifth grade championship basketball game. Thanks, Svetlana!


The Ingredients.
--1 stick butter
--2 cups whole milk
--1 t herbs de provence
--3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
--3/4 cup shredded parmesan
--3 smashed and chopped garlic cloves
--1/2 t kosher salt
--1/4 t black pepper
--2 T flour (not pictured)
--1 bag Trader Joe's Seafood Medley (or 1 lb frozen, cooked shrimp or chicken. chicken would work.)


The Directions.

--put milk in crockpot.
--stir in the flour ( I used Pamela's Baking Mix)
--add the herbs and garlic, stir again
--put in the stick of butter and all the cheese
--cook on low for 4-6 hours


The butter will separate from the milk and cheese. It will look weird. You will be tempted to email me hysterical because it won't look pretty.

You can. I'll talk you through it.

Take some deep breaths. Drink some wine. It will be okay.

Stir the mixture thoroughly and add your seafood blend or frozen shrimp. If you're doing frozen chicken, you're out of luck. You really should have put that in a long time ago. You could stir in cooked chicken, though.
* THIS HAS BEEN UPDATED 3/24/08 DOWN BELOW *

Boil pasta according to package directions.

When done, toss the alfredo sauce with your hot, drained pasta.

I wish I had made it to Whole Foods for the Tinkyada brown rice fettuccine, but I didn't. We had it over Trader Joe's brown rice spaghetti.



The Verdict.

It tasted spectacular.
It did look a bit weird though.

There were some white specks where the flour bunched together in spots. It was not Food Network worthy, but it was definitely worthy for our family.

And for our friend, Dave, who came over for dinner.
* UPDATED 3/24/08 (which happens to be my mom and dad's 35 year anniversary)... *
ok. I've now learned that in order to make a proper roux, you need to melt the butter first, then slowly add your flour. So, in a small microwaveable bowl, melt your butter, and slowly wisk in the flour. It will mix into a thin paste-like consistency, and then won't be so lumpy in your dish.
At the very end, when you stir in your frozen seafood, you really only need to cook it on high for another 20-30 minutes. All you want is for the seafood to warm up and not have icicles all over it. It's already cooked, so you won't get a freaky disease.

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Posted by: Stephanie O'Dea | A Year of Slow Cooking at March 09, 2008

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What they say about this article

  1. Anonymous3/09/2008

    This looks and sounds wonderful! LOL on not being up to par for Food Network!

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  2. I would suggest next time you make it, use 2 T. of the butter (or just go ahead and use it all lol), softened, and blend it with the flour before adding to the milk.

    If I made/When I make the recipe, I would probably let the milk mixture get hot in the crockpot before I add the cheeses, and then stand and stir it til it has melted in and is creamy.

    Those two things might be why it looked weird n funky, because that is what causes problems in alfredo sauce made on the stove.

    My stomach is growling thinking about it...or maybe it is because it is 2:11 and I have not eaten today LOL

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  3. hi ginny, thanks!

    divine diva, those are great suggestions, thank you! it really was quite tasty and kind of wish that we didn't eat it all last night because I could totally go for some leftovers right about now.

    xox
    steph

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  4. Anything with seafood sounds great to me!

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  5. Wow! A whole year of cockpotting, that's great. I for one love my crockpot. I got mine as a weeding present and I just celebrated my 32nd wedding anniversary! Maybe it's time for an upgrade.

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  6. What is in the Trader Joe Seafood mix?

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  7. Hi Ginger! I threw the bag away and can't check for sure, but it has shrimp, calamari rings and scallops in it.

    I probably should have writtn that down, huh?

    xxo
    steph

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  8. Guess what I'm making right now? I've been needing to use up the 3 bags of "not enough left to take the time to defrost" bags of shrimp in my freezer. Oh, and a tip for keeping the flour from clumping is to melt some of the butter,mix the flour with the butter till there are no more clumps, and then add it to the milk.

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  9. oh duh! I didn't see that divine diva had already given you that tip.

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  10. Ok, I know I'm commenting a lot but I just finished eating and had to come back to say that that was SOOOOO good. I used large shrimp and pre cooked chicken. I had a hard time stopping eating it was so yummy. I can't wait to eat the left overs tomorrow. Thanks for the recipe!

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  11. IceCreamDiary, thank you so much for testing this out and letting me know that it worked for you and your family! I greatly appreciate the tip about putting the flour in with the butter. I haven't made white sauces much, and they always come out lumpy. I will remember that trick for the next time.

    xoxo
    steph

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  12. Anonymous3/24/2008

    OK, talk to me like I'm 4, please. How long do I let it cook once I've added my frozen seafood blend to the crock pot?

    Also, being the lazy girl that I am, I'd love an update on your original post telling the trick about when to add the butter or flour or whatever it was. See? I'm too lazy to read that even!

    You have a great site!

    One Lazy Chef

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  13. okay, one lazy chef---I updated it, just for you.

    and I totally get the "talk to me like I'm 4 thing."
    I need that. I get confused rather easily.

    xoxo
    steph

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  14. Anonymous3/25/2008

    Wow, you're good. And fast! Thanks so much for the updated info. YOU ROCK! I will try this recipe this weekend. I can't wait. :)

    One Lazy Chef

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  15. Anonymous8/08/2008

    For a proper roux it is equal parts by weight clarified butter and flour. It might make it better if you do it again to make it this way. Really cool blog I love it lots!!!

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  16. Anonymous8/22/2008

    Steph,

    Thank you soooo much for putting your "Year of CrockPotting" on the web for all of us! I'm sorry your house needs to be gluten-free, but it's helpful to me because my doctor told me I need to be glueten-free about two months ago. I sat in her office and cried. No corn, no salicylates, no benzoates, and now, no gluten. All my wonderful recipes and cookbooks are all but useless.

    Anyway, I don't know anything about blogs. When your year is up, will this site dissapear? should I start printing all the recipes so I'll have them?

    Also, I made the Seafood Alfredo today. Melted the butter, stired in the flour, then stired it into the milk. Everything looked good until 5 hours later. It had the white lumps. I think "divine diva" is right, get the milk hot before adding the butter/flour mix and cheese.

    This is the first time I've used Tinkyada Fettucini. I cooked it according to the package directions, but there were a lot of noodles that stuck together and were hard. I had to throw them out. Then, because I rinsed them in cold water like the package said to, they were cold. Do you ever have these problems? What do you do?

    I understand if you don't have time to be my "food therapist", but I could really use some help.

    Thanks.

    Oh! All that and I forgot to tell you...it tasted REALLY good!

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  17. Hi Anon,

    I'm happy to be of any help I can. GF noodles are weird. The tinkyada and the Trader Joe's brown rice pasta are the best. They really are.

    Heavily salt your water, and add some olive oil. Do not over cook, and err on the side of undercooking.

    I don't rinse. I know you're supposed to, but I don't. The spaghetti always sticks, and bums me out, but it tastes okay.

    we have the best luck with fusilli or penne.

    xox
    steph

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  18. Anonymous9/02/2008

    This was so yummy!!! This is definitly a keeper!!

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  19. Anonymous9/22/2008

    Hey there. My little sister just turned me on to this site. My old crock pot (finally!) died and I have been exulting because my DH said I could get the fancy-schmancy Deluxe All-Clad version if he can call it my Christmas present. Done deal! I love seafood and alfredo, so I can't wait to try this recipe.

    I just thought I'd let you know that the flour/fat (could be butter, pan drippings, whatever) mixture that thickens a sauce is called a "roux" not a "rue". Both words are French. One is your thickener, the other (rue) means street. Although "roux" is PRONOUNCED "rue", if you Google "rue" you will not get what you are looking for. Generally with a roux you want equal parts fat and flour. And I find that I get fewer lumps if I use Wondra flour because it is milled finer in order to dissolve easier. Although I just noticed that you're gluten-free so that probably doesn't help you. Maybe some of your readers, though. Maybe a finely milled rice flour would work for you?

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  20. Poohzcrew, thank you so much for alerting me to that typo. I thought I had fixed it already. You are absolutely right about the equal parts of flour to fat. I have learned a lot since I posted that recipe! This year has been the fastest learning curve, ever!
    xoxo
    steph

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  21. Hi, Steph, I am totally addicted to your site (and more and more so to my crockpot!!).

    I was wondering if one could use a jarred Alfredo sauce (with seafood, chicken, veggies, whatever) the same way you use jarred pasta sauce for Lazy Crockpotting?

    It does seem like more and more jarred Alfredo-style sauces are being made gluten-free these days. I know they don't taste as good as fresh, but maybe they could be doctored up with a little wine, extra butter, garlic, Parm,etc. Oh, wait, those are pretty much the ingredients for Alfredo anyway, aren't they?

    Maybe you can go back on Rachael Ray and the two of you can plan a whole season of Lazy Crockpots (5 minutes or less from opening the fridge til you turn the crockpot on and walk away)!!!!

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  22. Anonymous11/10/2008

    Hey just wanted to let you know I'm also gluten free and eat the rice pastas from Trader Joe's and the only time I've had any problem with the pasta sticking together or being hard after cooking was when I didn't stir the pasta enough. It's kind of a pain but if you stir it every couple of minutes it definitely will not clump! Oh and I always rinse it. And yes, it's cold.. But you can put it in the microwave, use warm water to rinse it, or just make sure your pasta sauce is extra hot.
    Anyways, I LOVE YOUR BLOG! And I literally check it every day. My boyfriend and I choose a few recipes from it every week. And what's funny is I've never cooked before I found your site. Now I spend hours (when I'm not using one of your recipes, of course, haha) in the kitchen cooking. I actually love to cook now! :)
    Anyways, thanks for all the great ideas! I can't wait to try this recipe out!

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  23. I wound up tripling this recipe. The people I served it to LOVED it though the consistency was lumpy (and I rue-d the butter/flour). I did not have the herbs de provence, but will have to try those sometime. I think I let it cook way too long, but the browning around the edges added to the depth of flavor. Anyway, I gave the ladies a copy of the recipe with your blog entry, so you will be having more people checking out your blog. Thank you for sharing your crockpot adventures with us!

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  24. I am so loving using your recipes! Just thought I'd add my two cents and let you know I too was confused about the whole Seafood medley, Seafood Blend thing.. until I took a look at your handy dandy picture! Apparently you used the Seafood Blend, which is great because the Trader Joe guy was as confused as I was about a Seafood medley.. (although your name for it is much more romantic!) Anyway! Thanks for all of your work,, it's been a great excuse to get a new crock and my family LOVES everything I make!

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  25. I am so glad I got on here to read the comments! I have the cookbook (and LOVE it), but sometimes when it goes wrong I don't know what to do! My alfredo turned out lumpy and gross. I will try getting my milk hot first. Thank you for your fabulous recipes-I now enjoy my evenings with my family instead of stressing over how to get dinner on the table while my toddler follows me around whining and moaning! I have my turkey meatballs in the slow cooker as we speak:)

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  26. what is herbs de provence and where can I get it, what grocery store?

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  27. Hi Penny, herbes de provence is a fancyish herb blend that has a blend of basil, thyme, and rosemary. If you can't find it at your regular grocery store you can make your own.
    hope this helps, steph

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  28. This sounds like a great recipe - although I'm not sure why I would spend 4-6 hours letting roux and cheese melt in the crockpot. It would be super quick to do on top of the stove! It really just needs enough time to heat the seafood through and melt the cheese. But, of course, this is a blog about the crockpot so..... Also - I don't see anywhere in the original recipe where it says to add the cheese.

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