This Italian traditional squid stew recipe known as “calamari in umido” is revisited for a healthier and easier version cooked in the Instant Pot. With delicious squid, peas, tomato sauce, and enriched by fresh garlic, parsley and extra virgin olive oil for a mouthwatering seafood meal!

Instant Pot squid stew with tomato sauce, peas and parsley in white bowl

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Squid or calamari

Squid (or calamari in Italian) is a mollusc (just like mussels and clams!) with a soft, elongated body and a head with big eyes, 8 arms and 2 tentacles.

These funny and very intelligent marine animals also make very popular seafood all over the world. Squid is cheap, versatile, and tasty! It can be grilled, fried, boiled, and even stuffed and eaten raw.

Like most seafood, squid comes with many health benefits. It’s rich in proteins, minerals (phosphorus, iodine, selenium, zinc, potassium), and vitamins (vitamins B, Vit E, Vit C). It contains no carbohydrates and it has limited fat and calorie content. It also contains collagen, making it one of the collagen-rich foods we should consume regularly to improve our health (read more about collagen here).

A consumer guide to buying squid

As with all seafood, you should make sure you buy squid from sustainable fisheries. This means that fish (or other seafood products) are caught using sustainable practices that don’t harm their habitat or other species, and they are extracted at a rate that allows their population to sustain over time (as opposed to “overfishing” that harvests fish at rates that are too high to allow the fish to reproduce and maintain their population, causing the fish species to decline or even disappear).

As for squid, unfortunately, most of it is not fished sustainably. When buying seafood in North America, look for the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) blue label, that characterizes seafood harvested using sustainable practices.

If buying fresh, make sure the squid is fresh. Fresh squid should look shiny and smooth and have a mild smell. If it looks dull and wrinkled and smells very fishy, avoid buying it! Another indicator is the eyes (when buying whole squids): they should be full, clear, bulging, with black pupils.

If buying whole fresh squids, clean them properly. Remove the head from the body by pulling it off. Wash the tube cavity and remove any parts left inside the tubes. The skin (which is the dark, spotty part that covers the squid) is edible and I advise you to eat it for the higher collagen content. If you wish, you can easily peel it away. The arms and tentacles are edible as well (and most delicious in my opinion)! Just cut off the head part with the eyes from the tentacles and remove the hard beak that is located at the base of the tentacles.

If buying frozen, pay attention to the ingredients, as many frozen seafood products have preservatives added (such as sodium tripolyphosphate, or pentasodium triphosphate, or STPP).

Slightly revisited Italian traditional squid stew

As you might know if you’ve been following along, I’m actually Italian! Does it mean I only cook traditional Italian recipes in my house? Not quite, but I like bringing many “Italian touches” into my recipes. I love cooking with tomato sauce, parmesan cheese, extra virgin olive oil and I pretty much add fresh basil to everything in the summertime!

However, for health reasons, I stepped away from other traditional Italian foods, such as pasta and bread.

I also love to take traditional recipes that bring back childhood memories and revisit them to make them healthier and adapt them to my current lifestyle. So you’ll find me making carbonara zucchini noodles, cabbage lasagna, cauliflower risotto, and ground meat pizza!

For this recipe, I didn’t need to make big arrangements. The only ingredient I left out for the recipe itself is wine. I also decided to make this squid stew in my Instant Pot instead of simmering it on the stove. This is just a commodity choice, and you can still make this recipe without the Instant Pot! Finally, instead of serving this stew with bread slices, I served it with baked spaghetti squash for a grain-free and gluten-free option.