Authentic Linguine with Mussels Marinara | Feast of the Seven Fishes Christmas Eve

Celebrate Christmas Eve the Italian-American way with Chef Frank’s Authentic Linguine with Mussels Marinara, a highlight of the Feast of the Seven Fishes (La Vigilia). 🍝🦪

This traditional dish combines plump, sweet mussels with perfectly al dente linguine tossed in a slow-simmered tomato, onion, garlic, and basil sauce with a hint of red pepper flakes. Every bite embodies holiday tradition, Italian-American heritage, and festive joy.

Whether you’re hosting a Christmas Eve dinner or just love seafood pasta, this recipe is perfect for sharing with family and friends. Chef Frank walks you step by step, making it easy to recreate this holiday masterpiece at home.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
4 lg cloves garlic
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 small onion
1 (6-oz.) can tomato paste
1 cup dry white wine
2 (28-oz.) cans San Marzano tomatoes
1/2 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp fresh Italian parsley
Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
2 lb frozen mussels, drained
1/3 cup fresh basil
1 lb linguine pasta

LET’S COOK TOGETHER 😁✨

Do you have a family seafood recipe for Christmas Eve? Share it in the comments!

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Linguini with muscles marinara. This dish is a classic in my family, especially on Christmas Eve. This is part of the seven fishes, and it’s absolutely delicious. I make it every single year, and I just look forward to this dish every single year. Let’s go over the ingredients, and let’s get cooking. Before we do that, I need you guys to subscribe, hit that like button, ring that dinner bell, and let’s start sharing my content. Linguini with muscles marinara. This dish is absolutely delicious and it’s a classic in my family on Christmas Eve. No Christmas Eve in my family goes without this dish and it’s just absolutely delicious. To start here, I have two lbs of muscles. These are black muscles. Now, these were frozen. I’m not using fresh over a food poisoning issue I had many years ago on Christmas. So, at Christmas, I only used the frozen tomato paste. Here we have crushed tomatoes, two 28 oz cans, dried white wine, parsley, oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, onion. Here we have anchovies, garlic. We have olive oil, sea salt, and black pepper. Usually when I do seafood dishes, I only use sea salt. So that’s just my thing. You want to have kosher salt, go ahead and use kosher salt. Here I have a pot of water coming up to a boil. It is not salted yet. And we’re going to be serving this overlanding greeny. So to start, let’s get this pan on a medium heat. And I get asked all the time, should I add the garlic in cold pan or should I add it after the pan’s heated up? Per manufacturer instructions, all pots and pans should be heated up first. So, we’re going to heat this up. Now, what we’re going to do is go in with the anchovies, the garlic, and the red pepper flakes. We’re going to wait a second, maybe 30 seconds after we add the garlic to add the red pepper flakes because I don’t want the red pepper flakes to burn. The garlic is sliced. So, when I use sliced garlic, the garlic goes in first. If this garlic had been chopped, my onion would go first. Okay? So, we’re going to put a decent amount of olive oil. This is a good extra virgin olive oil. I would say about a/4 cup. And here I have anchovies. I have a few left in there. There’s about four or five of them. And the oil. So, that’s going in. And the garlic. And we’re going to sauté this just until the gold becomes lightly golden and the anchovies melt. And that’s only going to take about a minute. The anchovies are just starting to melt. The garlic is getting lightly golden. Now we’re going to go in with the red pepper flakes. Make sure you get all that red pepper flakes. We don’t waste nothing in this kitchen. And we’re going to wait until I can smell that. And that’s only going to be a few minutes. Okay. So, I want to wish all you guys a merry Christmas, a happy new year, and I wish you a lot of presents, and this is smelling good. We’re going to go in Oh, I almost forgot the onion. Look at that. So, we’re going to go in with the onion. And when the onion, this is on a quarter inch dice. This is only going to take not even a minute. And we’re going to sauté this just until that onion becomes soft and translucent. The onion is just becoming soft and translucent. And this is smelling fantastic. Now, what we’re going to do is we’re going to go in with the white wine. And we’re going to delaze this pan. So, delaze, delaze, delaze. And we’re doing that by scraping the bottom of the pan. So, this is looking fantastic. We’re going to bring this up to a simmer. And we’re just going to reduce it slightly. I want to burn off the alcohol in here. So, bring this up to a simmer. And just let it reduce slightly. This wine has reduced just slightly and this whole studio is smelling fantastic. What we’re going to do is go in with the tomato paste and we’re going to just mix this until it’s all incorporated into that wine. And look at this. This is just smelling fantastic. Okay, so let me get rid of this. And we’re gonna just mix this in until it’s fully incorporated. The tomato paste is incorporated very nicely. We’re going to go in with the tomato sauce. Both cans. And this is just looking fantastic. Make sure you get everything in there. And I really do hope you guys get everything you want for Christmas Day. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to give this a good mix. What we need to do is go in with the oregano and the parsley. Okay, give this a good mix. We’re going to bring this up to a simmer and we’re going to simmer this for about 7 to 8 minutes. I went ahead and cleaned up here. I rinsed out both those 28 oz clans with water and the water went in here. Total, I would say about a half a can. So, we’re going to bring this up to a simmer. Once this comes up to a simmer, we’re going to allow this to simmer for about 7 to 8 minutes. What we need to do, we’re going to lightly season with salt and black pepper. You don’t want to go too heavy on the salt because this is seafood and we can always check at the end of the cooking. So, let’s give this a good mix. Bring it up to a simmer. and allow this to simmer for seven minutes. In the meantime, what I need you guys to do is subscribe, hit that like button, ring that dinner bell, and let’s start sharing my content. The sauce has been simmering away for about 8 minutes now. I already dropped the pasta and the pasta is just becoming al dente. It’s still got quite a little bit of bite to it. Now, what we’re going to do is we’re going to drop most of the basil. Save a little bit for garnish. Okay. Give this a good mix. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to add the muscles. Okay. Make sure these are drained good. The muscles, all we’re going to do is simply heat them through. And that’s it. And this recipe is just about done. Okay. So, give these a good mix. And this is just looking and smelling fantastic. Okay. Just heat these muscles through. Check this pasta. And we’re just about ready to plate and serve. Remember, the only way to see how done the pasta is is to actually taste it. Still has quite a bit of bite left. So, we’re going to give this another minute and then we’re going to plate and serve. This pasta is just al dente. What we’re going to do is we’re going to remove the sauce off the heat. Remove the pasta off the heat. We’re going to drain this pasta and I’ll be back. Okay, this pasta’s looking great. What we need to do is test this sauce for seasoning because we only lightly seasoned it. That’s absolutely delicious. Could use a little bit of salt and it could definitely use some black pepper. So, give it a good seasoning. Let me throw this in the sink. Okay, let’s mix this up. Now, what we’re going to do is I want to take some of this sauce and we’re going to put it in the pasta. Okay. And we’re going to mix this real well. This is just smelling fantastic. Okay. And look at the mess I’m making here. I don’t believe it. I try to be as neat as possible and I still make a mess. Unbelievable. Okay, let’s get enough of sauce to coat the pasta. And this recipe my mother’s been making my entire childhood and it’s just absolutely delicious. Now, grab yourself a bowl. What we’re going to do is go in the center of the bowl with the pasta. Okay. And look at this. This is just fantastic. Okay. Get a little bit more. Now, what we’re going to do, we’re going to take some muscles and we’re going to take some sauce and we’re going to go around the bowl. Okay? And This recipe is simple, it’s easy, and it’s done in under 30 minutes. If you use the frozen muscles, you could definitely have this done in under 30 minutes, you know, because the holidays and stuff, you know, I like using the the frozen because when I was younger, I had a food poisoning problem from a local fish manga. And since then, I swore I would never eat frozen fish, I mean fresh fish on a holiday ever again. Because what happens is the fish manga for Christmas in New York gets a whole bunch of fish. He gets hundreds of people that come in that order their fish for the holidays because seven feast of the seven fishes, it’s a big thing for the Italian community. So, the fish monga orders an abundant amount of seafood and by the time it got to me, it was all bad. I didn’t realize it until after I served it. There’s no way you could tell. So, since then, I prefer using the frozen. So, let me get one one more muscle. I think I like this one right here because I’m very picky with how the dish looks. So, we’re going to clean the plate. Always make sure you clean the plate. Okay. And just a little bit more. We’re going to garnish this with a little bit of basil. And I wish you guys could smell what this studio smells like because this is what my house always smells like on Christmas Eve. Now, this is a a first course, and you wouldn’t serve it as much as I am. I serve it as a main course, especially the older I get. I’m not really doing the whole seven fishes anymore. So, what we’re going to do now is lightly drizzle it with olive oil. Okay. And there you have it, my linguini with muscles marinara. I hope you guys enjoy this video. I hope you guys give this a try. Don’t forget to ring that dinner bell. Don’t forget to subscribe, share my content, and give me that thumbs up. Now, let’s give this a try. Okay, grab a fork. Let me see. Give it a nice twirl. Oh, let me get a bigger twirl. Mean, I’m going to woof this down like there’s no tomorrow. I look forward to this every single year. Absolutely delicious.