Linguine with Clams and Sausage

This easy Linguine with Clams and Sausage comes together in just 30 minutes. Spicy sausage, fresh lime juice, hard cider, and jalapeño give this clam pasta a twist you won't forget.

Jump to:

• 🍝 Why this recipe works
• 🗒 Ingredients
• 🐚 How to buy and prep fresh clams
• 👩‍🍳 Recipe tips
• ⏲️ How to store leftovers
• 🌊 More shellfish recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

I definitely start craving shellfish more when warmer weather hits and it's so, so easy to make at home. And usually pretty inexpensive, too.

This linguine with clams and sausage dish is ideal for spring since it combines shellfish with the comfort of pasta. It's made even more perfect for warm weather with the addition of refreshing hard cider (or white wine) and lime juice.

I love giving it a spicy kick with spicy sausage and jalapeño, but you can leave out the spice if you prefer.

Linguine with clams is one of those dishes that sounds like it belongs on a restaurant menu, but this recipe is even better and honestly comes together faster than most weeknight dinners.

🍝 Why this recipe works

Sausage adds additional depth: browned, crumbled sausage brings a savory, meaty flavor that plain linguine with clams doesn't have.

It uses lime juice instead of lemon: most clam pastas use lemon juice, but I added lime instead to give the dish a brighter, more tropical freshness that's unexpected, delicious, and perfect for summer.

It recommends hard cider instead of white wine: most linguine with clams recipes call for dry white wine (which you can certainly use here, too), but steaming the clams in hard cider adds a subtle sweetness and slight effervescence that rounds out the spice from the sausage and jalapeño instead of sharpening it. It gives the broth a lighter, almost crisp quality that's perfect when the weather starts warming up.

Using one skillet makes for easy clean-up and better flavor: there's a reason the instructions say to cook the clams in the same pan as the sausage; this helps build the flavor in layers and lets you scrape up all those yummy brown crispy bits when you add the cider (or wine). By the time the clams open, they're steaming in a broth that has way more depth than a standard white wine sauce. Plus, cleanup from this dinner is so quick!

Easy, 30-minute meal: linguine with clams feels a little bit fancy; add sausage and you may think this dish gets even more complicated. But it truly comes together in 30 minutes!

🗒 Ingredients

Here's everything you need for this dish, as well as some easy ingredient substitutions (be sure to view the recipe card for ingredient amounts and full recipe instructions):

• Olive oil
• Ground hot Italian sausage: you can use regular Italian sausage if you prefer. Chorizo also works. If you can only find links, just squeeze the meat out of the casings and crumble it as it cooks.
• Dried linguine: feel free to use any kind of pasta you want here
• Yellow onion
• Garlic
• Jalapeño pepper: this can be omitted if you don't like spice
• Littleneck clams: or similar (like manila clams). If you can't find fresh clams or don't want to deal with them, you can use two 10-ounce cans of whole baby clams. Drain them and reserve the juice to use as part of your cooking liquid. The texture won't be quite the same, but the flavor will still be great.
• Hard cider: you can substitute with a dry white wine, but the cider will make the broth a little different from the usual white wine version. If you want to skip the alcohol entirely, use low-sodium chicken broth with an extra squeeze of lime juice to make up for the acidity.
• Freshly squeezed lime juice
• Lime zest
• Parsley
• Unsalted butter

🐚 How to buy and prep fresh clams

If you've never cooked with fresh clams before, I get it; it can feel a little intimidating. But honestly, they're one of the easiest proteins to cook once you know what to look for and how to handle them. Here's everything you need to know:

What to buy:

For this recipe, you want littleneck clams or manila clams. Littlenecks are the most widely available and you should be able to find them at most grocery store seafood counters, usually in a mesh bag. Manila clams are a little smaller and slightly sweeter, and they're a great option if your store carries them. Either way, plan on about 2 pounds for four servings.

When you're picking them out, look for clams with shells that are tightly closed. If any are slightly open, give them a gentle tap on the counter; live clams will close up. If a clam stays open after you tap it, or if it has a cracked or chipped shell, toss it. You also want them to smell like the ocean: clean and briny and not fishy.

Cleaning:

Even though most grocery store clams are farm-raised and relatively clean, it's worth taking a few minutes to purge them. Place the clams in a large bowl and cover them with cold water mixed with about a tablespoon of salt per two cups of water. Let them sit for 20-30 minutes. During this time, the clams will naturally filter out any sand or grit trapped inside their shells.

After soaking, lift the clams out of the water one at a time and give each one a quick scrub under cold running water, paying extra attention to the hinge where the two shells meet as there could be some grit stuck in there. A stiff-bristled brush works well for this, but the rough side of a kitchen sponge works as well.

Note that any clams that stay stubbornly closed after cooking should be discarded. The old rule holds true here: if it doesn't open, don't eat it!

👩‍🍳 Recipe tips

• Don't rinse the skillet after cooking the sausage; those browned bits will add lots of yummy flavor to the dish!

• The jalapeño and spicy sausage both bring heat to this dish, so it can add up. If you want it milder, go with sweet Italian sausage and remove the seeds and ribs from the jalapeño. If you want more kick, leave the seeds in and add a pinch of red pepper flakes at the end.

• Zest the lime before you slice it. This sounds obvious, but it's easy to forget! Trying to zest a lime after you've already cut and squeezed it is very difficult.

• Keep a close eye on the clams. Five minutes with the lid on is usually all they need and you'll want to remove them from the heat as soon as they open as overcooking makes clams tough and rubbery. And, of course, toss any that don't open!

• Cook the pasta about a minute short of al dente. The linguine will finish cooking for another minute or two once you toss it into the skillet with the clams, broth, and butter.

• Don't skip adding the butter at the end. It might seem like a small amount, but that one tablespoon of butter stirred into the hot pasta and broth creates a light emulsion that makes the sauce silky and helps it coat every strand of linguine.

This dish has so many things I absolutely love in it that I'm pretty sure I could eat it all spring and summer (and fall and winter) long and never complain.

It tastes like something you'd get in a restaurant on the coast of Maine and has so much awesome flavor to it.

The lime juice and zest is such a great and unexpected twist, though it will most likely cause you to wish you were eating this dish with an ocean view.

⏲️ How to store leftovers

This dish is at its best right after it's prepared. The clams are tender, the pasta is perfectly al dente, and the broth is bright from the lime. That said, leftovers are still worth saving!

I recommend storing leftovers in an airtight container for up to 2 days. Clams can get rubbery the longer they sit, so it probably won't keep well much longer than this. If you can, remove the clams from their shells before storing as they'll reheat more evenly that way (and it's easier to toss everything together).

For best results when it comes to reheating, I recommend doing it on the stovetop. Warm the pasta in a skillet over medium-low heat with a splash of chicken broth or water to loosen the sauce back up.

Of course, the microwave also works in a pinch, but the clams tend to toughen up when heated this way.

🌊 More shellfish recipes

Here are some more easy shellfish recipes you can make at home that will taste like you ordered them from a restaurant:

Don't be afraid to slurp up any extra broth remaining in your bowl. My favorite part! It's this slightly sweet, cidery liquid that's picked up all the drippings from the sausage and the salted juices from the clams, with lime zest flavoring the whole thing.

And you also may want to enjoy another bottle of hard cider on the side. Nobody expects you to cook with it and not also be drinking it. They know you better than that.

I thought my craving was satisfied, but now that I wrote this post, I realize I need to make this dish again like right this instant. Thank goodness warm weather is just arriving and shellfish season is here. Um, speaking of, can I have my first lobster roll of the season already?

What's your favorite add-in for linguine with clams?

📖 Recipe