Description

We love Cajun food, shrimp, and pasta! This quick and delicious Royal Red seafood pasta is the culmination of all that affection! We like ours on the spicy side but feel free to tone down the heat. Old Bay Seasoning and Zatarain’s Liquid Crab Boil provide just the right amount of Cajun’y flavor while allowing high-quality Gulf Coast Royal Red shrimp (or even Argentinian Red shrimp) to be the superstars in this pasta. The best part — dinner’s ready in the amount of time it takes to boil the pasta!

Ingredients

Scale

6 Royal Red Shrimp, deveined with shell-on (or other wild-caught sustainable shrimp)
4 ounces dried spaghetti or linguine pasta (115g)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (separated into two equal portions) (30g)
1/2 teaspoon liquid Concentrated Zatarain’s Shrimp & Crab Boil, or to taste (3g)
1/2 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning, or more to taste (2g)
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil, or more to taste (5g)
kosher salt to taste
cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes to taste (optional)

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Instructions

Boil the water. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil.
Cook the shrimp. While the water is heating up, melt the butter in a skillet on medium-high heat, add the Zatarain’s Crab & Shrimp Boil liquid and Old Bay Seasoning, and stir to combine. Add the shrimp to the skillet in a single layer, sprinkle with a little salt, and cook for approximately 2 minutes. Flip the shrimp in the butter mixture being sure to coat them well and continue cooking for an additional 30 seconds to 1 minute more, or until they turn pink and mostly opaque, and turn off the heat.
Cook the pasta. Add the spaghetti (or linguine) to the boiling water and cook until al dente according to the packaged directions.
Add the noodles to the sauce. When your pasta is just cooked through, strain the noodles reserving approximately 1/2 cup of the starchy pasta cooking water. Add the strained noodles directly to the skillet with the shrimp and turn the heat back on to medium-high. Add the olive oil and about 1/4 cup (60g) of the starchy pasta water to create a loose (but not watery) sauce and continue stirring and tossing everything really well with tongs to combine and coat the noodles in the smooth silky sauce.
Finish the pasta. As soon as you reach the perfect sauce consistency (a matter of just a few seconds), remove the skillet from the heat and add in the last two tablespoons of butter, toss to coat, and serve immediately, Enjoy!

Notes

Why add the pasta cooking water? Starchy pasta water added to sauce is one of the professional techniques used in restaurants (and by the Italians who invented the stuff) to create rich velvety pasta. And in this recipe, when combined with the butter sauce, noodles, and the heat of the skillet in the last minutes of cooking it helps create a perfectly silky and extremely flavorful sauce.
If your sauce is too thick or you feel you don’t have enough, add just a little more pasta water 1 tablespoon (15g) at a time, and toss well. Just don’t add too much which may drown out all the good shrimpy, Cajun’y flavor!
In step 3, do not overcook the pasta in this step because you will add the cooked, drained pasta to the skillet along with the shrimp sauce and sauté for just about 1 minute more in order to build the sauce and bind everything together just before plating.
If using Gulf Coast Royal Red shrimp in this recipe do not cook the shrimp for longer than 3 minutes or they will overcook and become rubbery.
If using Argentinian Red shrimp in this recipe you may cook them for up to 3.5 to 4 minutes without them becoming rubbery.

More Cajun Style Royal Red Shrimp Pasta Tips & Tricks

If you decide to remove the shells from the shrimp before cooking them, use this delicious 4-minute pan-seared Argentinian Red shrimp recipe.
Save shrimp shells/heads to make shrimp butter. Simply sauté shrimp shells with unsalted butter until it imparts a nice reddish color and full shrimp flavor. This can be stored in the refrigerator and used on garlic toasted french bread, or bruschetta, to butter your favorite breakfast sandwich, in sweet summer seafood corn chowder, or to top your favorite pan-seared or grilled steak. with a little imagination, the applications are endless.
Double this recipe. Ensure you use the appropriate size skillet for the shrimp so they can all be cooked in one single layer and not thrown on top of one another.
If you only have a small skillet, simply add the butter and seasonings to it and cook the shrimp in separate batches. It will take just a few minutes longer.
Substitute pan-seared sea scallops for all (or some) of the shrimp.
Substitute extra virgin olive oil if you’re averse to using butter or have health issues that keep you from using it. It won’t taste quite the same, but it’ll still be great.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Category: Pasta
Method: Stovetop
Cuisine: American

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1 recipe