Seafood Stir Fry on the Traeger

In partnership with Safeway

With the New Year upon us and the long stretch of holiday gatherings and parties in the rear view mirror, now is the time to think about new recipes and ways to bring health and happiness to 2024. While we continue to cook everything and anything we can on our Traeger grills, we’re excited to try to cook more fish and seafood in 2024, putting a healthier spin on our meals. And doing so will be easy and approachable thanks to our local Safeway grocery store and their incredible meat and seafood counter.

This recipe for seafood stir fry on the Traeger is loaded up with fresh and flavorful seafood we picked up at our local store and highlights the many ways you can make quick and healthy meals on the Traeger in no time.

STIR FRY ON THE FLATROCK

Often, stir fried meals are cooked in a wok, which is a concave vessel. And a wok works great over a gas stove. But after a bit of trial and error (and some leveling of our Traeger Flatrock griddle), we have found that you can get equally amazing and delicious results stir-frying on the big flat cast iron cooking surface of the Flatrock.

We like how the Flatrock has three cooking zones– all controlled individually– which gives us lots of cooking space to cook up amazing meals. So rather than using a few pans in the kitchen, we can fire up the entire Flatrock griddle and cook the veggies, protein and starches all at once, in one place.

This makes it fun to cook– kind of hibachi style– and limits the cleanup and mess because you’re cooking outside.

KEY ELEMENTS OF GREAT STIR FRY

There are a few things that should come together to make a great stir fry- and all of those things can be cooked on the griddle in our backyard. One of the great things about cooking something like stir fry, in the dead of winter, outdoors, is that it all happens really fast so you have limited time outdoors!

PROTEIN

Whether it’s beef, chicken, tofu or seafood, a great protein is an important part of a delicious stir fry. You want to choose something that will cook quickly and end up tender under high and fast heat. So think about thinly-sliced meats, cubed tofu or seafood that cooks quickly like shrimp and scallops.

SEAFOOD WORKS GREAT

It may be a bit of an unexpected twist on stir fry, but we have found that a seafood stir fry is so delicious and unique. After a trip to our local Safeway store, we came home with a big variety of fresh seafood, hand selected and packed for us at the seafood counter, to create the ultimate stir fry dish.

VEGGIES ARE A MUST

A great stir fry is laden with fresh and delicious veggies that bulk up the meal and provide flavor and variety. Now, normally, we’d have to select a few carrots, a head of broccoli, a squash, some mushrooms, some peppers, etc. to put together an adequate mixture of stir-fry ready veggies. Expensive and then time consuming to cut everything down to size.

But our Safeway store has made eating healthy fresh vegetables SO easy with their cut-in-store vegetable varieties. After grabbing our seafood from the counter, we made one quick stop in the produce department to pick up a Fresh Cut Stir-Fry Mix. Washed, cut and ready to go, it included so many delicious vegetables– in just the right ratio– for the perfect stir fry for our family. And for an incredible price– around $6 at our store– you almost cannot afford NOT to eat healthy!

SAUCE IT UP

There are so many ways to cook up a stir fry– and every one will come out differently. But in the interest of making dinner quick, affordable and approachable for our whole family (including twin 2-year olds who have varying tastes), we headed quickly to the Asian food aisle to grab a sauce for our dish.

There were a number of Safeway Select brand stir fry sauce options waiting for us, and we grabbed the Safeway Select Kung Pao Stir Fry Sauce for our family meal. Knowing it would have a kick without overbearing spice, it was the perfect way to stretch the twins’ palates without burning them up!

STARCH TO ROUND IT OUT

Sometimes we like to serve stir fry over pasta, for a change of pace. But knowing that we wanted to cook everything on the Traeger Flatrock Griddle for this meal, we opted for rice. A quick spin down the rice aisle at our Safeway store left us with a variety of options for this quick and healthy meal. We ultimately decided on the family-pack of white rice. From the O Organics brand at Safeway, the box came with 4 individual servings of pre-cooked white rice that only required 90 seconds of microwaving to be ready to serve.

We knew we didn’t need four full servings of rice for this dish (yet… wait till the kids are older!), but having extra pre-cooked white rice on hand wouldn’t be a bad idea.

EASY SIDES TO AMPLIFY THE MEAL

As we were headed out of the store with everything we needed, we stopped in the frozen food aisle quickly and grabbed a bag of Signature Select Veggie Spring Rolls and a bag of Signature Select Chicken and Pork Potstickers. Our kids are big fans of veggie spring rolls currently, and we know they’d be a good side with this dish. And it never hurts to have extra on hand for hungry toddlers.

DON’T FORGET THE PROPANE!

Our Traeger Flatrock runs on propane and we knew we were running low headed into the weekend. So we tossed the empty canister in the back of the car when we headed to the store. It was so convenient and easy to be able to exchange our propane canister for a full tank all in one stop. As we were checking out, we asked our cashier to ring up the exchange and then a store associate met us at the cage in front of the store after we loaded the kids and groceries in the car.

SAFEWAY MAKES IT EASY

We usually opt to use our FreshPass membership when we shop for groceries, making it super easy to keep our house fed and provisioned with two little kids underfoot. Taking advantage of the free unlimited delivery on orders over $30 (which happens a lot!) means that we don’t have to stuff the kids in winter coats and take them out in the car for a grocery trip. Instead, the groceries are selected by us in the app, shopped by a personal shopper in-store and hand delivered with care to our doorstep. Using the Safeway Deals and Delivery app, it just takes a few clicks and suddenly groceries at at your home.

With DriveUp and Go, we’re also able to get groceries in a flash by pulling up in front of the store and letting them know we’re outside by clicking on the app. Both of these features from Safeway make our life so easy and cooking at home super simple.

BUT… we wanted to visit with the fishmonger at our local store to get the best seafood for our stir fry dinner. So this was a rare occasion where we all went inside (and the kids enjoyed a bagel) while we did our quick shop. It was worth it to see the seafood counter in action, see the great deals available through Safeway for U (like extra jumbo shrimp at HALF off!). We saw how great the clams and mussels looked and were able to tell the fishmonger exactly which ones we wanted in our packed seafood. And because we knew we needed just a few things, our trip in and out was quick quick quick.

PRIMARY INGREDIENTS

• Extra Jumbo Raw Shrimp from the seafood counter
• Sea Scallops from the seafood counter
• Littleneck clams from the seafood counter
• Mussels from the seafood counter
• Fresh Cut Stir Fry Mix- from cut freshly in store from the produce department
• Signature Farms sugar snap peas
• O Organics Rice Bowl
• Signature Select Kung Pao Stir Fry Sauce
• Signature Select Soy Sauce
• Green onions
• Signature Select Veggie Spring Rolls
• Signature Select Chicken and Pork Potstickers
• Signature Select Dumpling Dipping Sauce

WHY COOKING STIR FRY ON THE TRAEGER WORKS 

Like we mentioned, most stir fry usually happens in a concave vessel over extremely high heat. We like to think of our Traeger Flatrock like a hibachi grill in our backyard. I’ve yet to give the onion volcano a try, but that might be on my to-do list.

In any event, cooking up a delicious stir fry hot and fast on the Traeger griddle is quick and easy and ends up with amazing results every time. So rather than dirty several dishes getting dinner on the table, we cook everything at once on the big cast iron griddle and dinner is done in a flash.

STEP-BY-STEP

• Preheat your Traeger Flatrock Griddle to medium high heat in all three zones.
• Peel the shrimp but leave the tails on.
• Cook the rice in the microwave according to the directions and set aside.
• Thinly slice the scallions and set aside.
• Once the griddle is hot, lightly oil the middle zone and begin cooking the Stir Fry Mix and the snap peas.
• Cook for about 5 minutes and then add the mussels and clams to another zone of the grill, add 1/4 cup of water and cover the mollusks to allow them to steam.
• Pour 1/2 cup of the Kung Pao Stir Fry Sauce on the vegetables and continue cooking, stirring frequently.
• Once the mollusks have opened, transfer them to a covered bowl and set aside.
• Sear the scallops on the hot griddle until just opaque.
• Saute the shrimp on the griddle until just cooked through.
• While the shrimp are cooking, put the rice on the third zone of the griddle and drizzle with a little soy sauce.
• Chop and flip the rice a few times to heat to heat through and distribute the seasoning.
• Using two spatulas, combine the seafood and the sauced veggies.
• Add the clams and mussels to the mixture and turn to coat.
• Transfer the stir fried vegetables and seafood to a serving dish.
• Wipe off the spatula and transfer the griddled rice to a separate dish.
• Serve your seafood stir fry, hot off the Traeger and enjoy.

ALTERNATE RECIPES/PRODUCT LINKS

Here are a couple other griddled recipes to try, that are a bit like stir fry:

• Jambalaya on the Traeger
• Burnt Ends with Bacon Fried Rice
• Quick orange chicken on the Flatrock
• Vietnamese-style pork eggroll bowls

Products used in this cook:

• Safeway for U
• Safeway Deals & Delivery App
• Safeway DriveUp & Go
• Traeger Flatrock Griddle

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