Scallop crudo asks less of the cook than any other raw plate and punishes overreach faster. The scallop you eat is the adductor muscle, the single round of meat that opens and closes the shell, and in a Hokkaido scallop it is sweet, dense, and faintly briny, closer to chilled custard than to fish. Slice it across into coins, lay the coins on a cold plate, and give each one a film of olive oil, a few drops of yuzu ponzu and lime, a sliver of fresh chili, and a flake of salt. That is the entire recipe. The craft is in keeping the scallop cold, keeping the knife clean, and holding the dressing back until the plate is on its way to the table.
The scallops this plate is built on are Wild Japanese Sea Scallops, Sushi Grade, Extra Large, wild-caught off north and east Hokkaido, Japan, removed from the shell by hand, and individually frozen with no preservatives. They are sold dry, which matters more raw than in a pan: a scallop soaked to hold water tastes of the soak, and nothing on a crudo plate will cover it. U10 means fewer than ten scallops to the pound, so a 12 oz pack holds about six to eight, and each one gives three clean coins, about 20 in all. They arrive frozen and vacuum sealed, and the thaw happens once, slowly, in your refrigerator.
Crudo and sashimi are the same slice with different intentions. Scallop sashimi is the Japanese approach: the muscle cut and served plain, with soy sauce and a little wasabi on the side, so its sweetness is the whole point. Crudo is the Italian word for raw and now the shorthand for the dressed version, where fat, acid, salt, and something sharp go onto the seafood moments before it is eaten. This recipe does both from one 12 oz pack: four coins per plate go out dressed, one sits plain beside them with soy and wasabi, and you taste the two side by side. Our yellowtail crudo is this plate's richer sibling; a scallop has far less fat, so here the oil does more of the work.
Raw scallop is also a food the FDA treats differently from raw fish. The FDA Food Code requires most fish served raw to be frozen first to kill parasites, at -4F for seven days or -31F for 15 hours, and the same section lists what the rule does not cover: molluscan shellfish are exempt, and so is "a scallop product consisting only of the shucked adductor muscle" (FDA Food Code 2022, section 3-402.11). Parasites are not the hazard in a shucked scallop; bacteria are, and they are managed with cold and cleanliness: keep the scallops at 41F or below, the Food Code's cold-holding limit, use a clean board and knife, and serve within minutes of slicing. The FDA is also plain about who should skip raw shellfish: pregnant women, young children, older adults, and anyone with a weakened immune system (FDA, people at risk of foodborne illness). Sushi grade is our handling standard for a scallop meant to be eaten raw, not a government grade.
Plan around the thaw, not the knife work. The sealed bag needs 12 to 24 hours in the refrigerator; nothing else here takes more than a few minutes, and the whole plate is about 25 minutes once the scallops are thawed. If the pack is bigger than the table, slice what you will eat raw tonight and sear the rest tomorrow. Our guide to searing scallops uses the same scallop and explains the wet-versus-dry difference in full.
Nutrition
Scallops are about as lean as animal protein gets. USDA FoodData Central lists raw scallops at roughly 69 calories, 12 grams of protein, half a gram of fat, and 3 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams, with about 392 mg of sodium of their own, plus vitamin B12, selenium, and phosphorus (FoodData Central). Nearly all the fat here is the olive oil and most of the added sodium is the ponzu. The figures below are estimates for 3 oz of scallop per person with all of the dressing, leaving out the optional yuzu kosho and the soy for the sashimi coin. Estimated values per serving:
| Fats | % DV* |
| Total Fat 7g | 9% |
| Saturated Fat 1g | 5% |
| Trans Fat 0g | |
| Monounsaturated Fat 5g | |
| Polyunsaturated Fat 1g | |
| Cholesterol 20mg | 7% |
| Carbs, Protein & Micronutrients | % DV* |
| Total Carbohydrate 4g | 1% |
| Dietary Fiber 0g | 0% |
| Total Sugars 1g | |
| Protein 11g | 22% |
| Sodium 550mg | 24% |
| Potassium 180mg | 4% |
| Selenium 11mcg | 20% |
| Vitamin B12 1.2mcg | 50% |
| Phosphorus 280mg | 22% |
Ingredients
- 12 oz (about 6 to 8) Wild Japanese Hokkaido sea scallops, extra large, sushi grade, thawedFeatured
- 2 tbsp Extra-virgin olive oil, fruity rather than peppery
- 1 tbsp Yuzu ponzu
- 2 tsp Fresh lime juice
- 2 tsp Fresh orange juice
- 1 Fresno or serrano chili, seeded and sliced paper thin
- 1/2 tsp Green yuzu kosho (optional)
- 1 tbsp Chives, finely sliced
- To finish Flaky sea salt
- On the side Soy sauce and freshly grated wasabi for the sashimi coin on each plate (optional)
Preparation
The thaw is the only slow part and the only part you cannot rush. Set the sealed bag on a plate, slide it onto the lowest refrigerator shelf, and leave it there for 12 to 24 hours. A slow thaw keeps the muscle fibers tight, and a tight scallop slices into clean coins instead of smearing under the knife. Never thaw on the counter, where the outside warms into temperatures where bacteria grow while the center is still ice. If you are short on time, keep the bag sealed and immerse it in cold water, the FDA's own fallback (FDA, Selecting and Serving Seafood Safely). Once thawed, pinch off the small, tougher tab of side muscle that sometimes rides along; it comes away clean. Pat the scallops dry and return them to the refrigerator.
Everything else is cold storage and knife work. Put four plates in the refrigerator, and the cutting board with them if it fits. Stir the ponzu, lime juice, and orange juice together and keep the olive oil in its own dish, because the oil goes on first and alone. Slice the chili as thin as the knife allows and shake out the seeds, slice the chives, and set out the salt and the yuzu kosho, plus soy and wasabi for the sashimi coin. Before you pick up the knife:
- Thaw the sealed bag on a plate in the refrigerator for 12 to 24 hours, never on the counter.
- Peel the small, tough side muscle from each scallop and blot them dry.
- Chill four plates and, if it fits, the cutting board.
- Stir the ponzu, lime juice, and orange juice together; keep the olive oil separate.
- Slice the chili paper thin, seed it, and slice the chives.
- Keep the scallops in the refrigerator until the moment you slice.
How to Cook
There is no heat anywhere in this method, so the order of operations is the technique: slice cold, plate cold, oil first, citrus second, salt last, and serve the moment the salt lands.
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Slice into coins
Set a scallop flat side down on the cold board. The grain of the adductor muscle runs top to bottom, so a horizontal cut, parallel to the board, goes across the fibers and gives a tender coin. Cut each scallop into three coins about 1/4 inch thick with one long pull of a sharp knife, never a sawing motion. Wipe the blade every few scallops; a clean blade leaves a glassy face, a smeared one tears.
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Plate on cold dishes
Lay the coins in a single layer on the chilled plates, slightly overlapping, smoothest cut face up. Five coins make a serving: four dressed as crudo, and one set off to one side and left undressed for sashimi. Leave a clear border so the dressing does not pool under the scallop.
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Oil first
Spoon the olive oil over the crudo coins, about a teaspoon and a half per plate, and tilt the plate so each coin picks up a thin film. A raw scallop has almost no fat of its own, so it tastes thin under citrus alone; the oil supplies the richness the muscle lacks and gives the acid something to cling to. Stop while the coins glisten. A pool on the plate is oil that is not on the scallop.
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Citrus and chili
Spoon the ponzu and citrus mixture over the dressed coins, a scant two teaspoons per plate, starting with less than looks right. Lay one slice of chili on each coin and, if using it, a pea-size dot of yuzu kosho on every second coin. The acid starts firming the surface the moment it lands, and within a few minutes the glassy face turns white and the texture tightens toward ceviche. That is the clock. Dress the plates in the order you will serve them.
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Salt, chives, serve
Finish each dressed coin with a flake or two of salt and scatter the chives. Pour a little soy into a dish for the undressed coin and grate wasabi fresh beside it. Serve at once with cold forks or chopsticks, and taste a dressed coin against a plain one first; the difference tells you how much dressing a scallop can carry.
How to Serve
Serve scallop crudo as the first thing on the table, before anything warm or smoky, and serve it fast. A dressed plate has about five good minutes before the acid takes the shine off the coins. Chilled plates matter; a scallop at 41F tastes sweeter and cleaner than one ten degrees warmer.
- Keep the sashimi coin plain. Soy on the side, wasabi grated fresh, nothing else, so the scallop's sweetness has one place on the plate where it is the only flavor.
- Grate real wasabi if you can. Our fresh wasabi root is grated to order and rests for a minute before serving; its heat is softer and shorter than tube paste, which suits a mild scallop.
- Taste one dressed coin before dressing the rest. Ponzu varies in salt by brand, chilies vary in heat, and a raw scallop gives you no second chance.
What to serve it with. Cold, clean, and quiet. The scallop is sweet and the dressing is sharp, so the sides should be neither.
- Warm short-grain rice, plain, if the crudo opens a sushi night.
- Cucumber sunomono with rice vinegar and sesame, which echoes the citrus.
- Seared scallops from the same pack as the second course, using our searing method.
- A dry, cold drink: chilled sake, a brut sparkling wine, or a dry Riesling.
Dressed crudo does not keep. By morning the coins are cured and chalky, so plate only what you will eat. Undressed thawed scallops that stayed cold and untouched should be cooked within a day or two and never refrozen; sear them rather than serving them raw a second day. Hold them at 40F or below, the FDA's storage guidance for seafood used within two days (FDA), and see our guide to how long sushi-grade fish keeps in the fridge for the full timeline.
