With a prep time of just 15 minutes and a cook time of just 25 minutes, you'll enjoy the world's best Shrimp Scampi recipe at home.
Arrange the 11 ingredients from the list below on your kitchen countertop and follow the next 5 steps to learn how to make the best rated Shrimp Scampi recipe among the chefs of the best restaurants in the world!
Step 1:
Shrimp scampi is very quick cooking, so be sure to have everything ready before you begin cooking the pasta or making the sauce. The shrimp should be thawed if frozen and peeled with the tails removed.
For the pasta, put a large pot of water on the stove to boil. When it has come to the boil, add a couple of tablespoons of salt and the linguini. Stir to make sure the pasta separates; cover.
When the water returns to a boil, cook for about 6 to 8 minutes or until the pasta is not quite done. Drain the pasta.
Step 2:
Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons butter in 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Swirl the butter and olive oil into the pan.
After the butter melts it will foam up a bit then subside. If using unsalted butter, sprinkle a little salt in the pan. Heat a sauté pan on high heat then reduce to medium high heat.
Saute the shallots, garlic, and red pepper flakes (if using) until the shallots are translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes.
Step 3:
Season the shrimp with salt and pepper. If you are using frozen raw shrimp, defrost them quickly and safely by putting the shrimp in a large bowl of lightly salted ice water.
We cook the shrimp scampi in butter and olive oil so we can cook at a relatively high heat without burning the butter but still impart the butter flavor. Cook shrimp mixture, being careful not to let shrimp or garlic brown, until shrimp is pink but still slightly underdone, about 1 minute per side.
Stir the shrimp and arrange them so that you turn them over to cook on the other side. Add sliced garlic and red pepper to skillet and cook, tossing, until fragrant, about 1 minute.
Add wine and lemon juice and cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced by half, about 2 minutes.
Step 4:
Remove the shrimp from the pan; set aside and keep warm. Scrape shrimp along with any accumulated juices into skillet.
Transfer to a plate with a slotted spoon, leaving as much oil in pan as possible. Add the wine and stir to coat the shrimp with the sauce of butter, oil, and wine.
Step 5:
Add 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons oil. When the butter has melted, return the shrimp to the pan along with the parsley and cooked pasta. Stir well and season with salt and pepper.
Toss to coat and cook until shrimp are fully cooked through, about 2 minutes. Sprinkle the shrimp with parsley, lemon juice, and black pepper, and toss to combine. Do not skip or skimp on the parsley for finishing the shrimp scampi.
While this herb is sometimes added to dishes purely for color, here it brings fresh, bright flavor that's critical to balancing the richness of the shrimp. Drain the pasta quickly and immediately add it to the pan with the shrimp and sauce.
Use the tongs to lift and rotate the pasta over and over until all the strands are coated in sauce. The pan will look a bit dry when you've done this because the pasta will have absorbed most of the sauce.
Now your Shrimp Scampi is almost ready for serving!
About 25 minutes. There are many recipes where we encourage you to cook "in the meanwhile" (i.e., peel the shrimp while the pasta cooks), but with the exception of bringing the pasta water to a boil, scampi is very quick cooking so you'll want to be smart about multitasking.
Here's the plan: Start the pasta water first. In the 10 to 15 minutes it takes to come up to boiling, you'll grate and slice the garlic (you need both cuts — and it's worth the work!), peel and juice a lemon, and peel the thawed shrimp before you start cooking the pasta.
I’ll put some frozen shrimp in a bowl of ice water, and if I’m serving them with pasta, by the time the pasta water has come to a boil the shrimp are defrosted enough to cook. If you’re wondering how to cook Shrimp Scampi, you can easily have the this recipe completed in about the same time it takes to boil your pasta.
Shrimp scampi has to be one of the easiest ways to quickly prepare shrimp!
Per Serving: 511 calories; 57g fat; 9g saturated fat; 135mg cholesterol; 260mg sodium; 21g carbohydrate; 12g sugars; 1g fiber; 22g protein.
Keep in mind that the nutritional information in the best recipe for Shrimp Scampi is a rough estimate and can vary greatly based on the products used.
Do you have a favorite meal for those need-something-quick-and-don’t-want-to-have-to-plan-or-work-too-hard days?
Keep a bag of frozen shrimp in the freezer just for those times when you're too busy to plan but want a quick and easy meal.
To make this scampi recipe come together even more quickly, stop by your grocery store seafood counter and buy the peeled and deveined shrimp like I did for this one.
This gourmet shrimp scampi recipe makes a simple garlic, white wine and butter sauce that goes well with a pile of pasta or with a hunk of crusty bread.
However you make the dish, once the shrimp are added to the pan, the trick is to cook them just long enough that they turn pink all over, but not until their bodies curl into rounds with the texture of tires.
Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 25 mins
Total Time: 40 mins
Servings: 4-6 People
Skill Level: Easy
Over-cooked shrimp is rubbery, tough and not pleasant to eat at all. If you can find wild-caught shrimp, please cook with those. Better flavour, better colour and a lot healthier for you than farm-raised seafood.
Served over pasta, this main dish is pretty enough for company. Leftovers can easily be reheated by either placing them into an oven-safe container and covering with foil, then baking for about 20 minutes at 350°-375°.
Re-heat your shrimp scampi in a skillet, with a touch of olive oil, or even white wine, my favorite.
Shrimp scampi is a delightful combination of everything I love in a good pasta dish. Olive oil and/or butter, white wine, lots of garlic, a dash of fresh herbs, and perhaps a bit of brightness from a squeeze of fresh lemon, are the perfect ingredients for a stellar pasta recipe—add shrimp, and that’s when it becomes a favorite!
But “scampi” is actually the name of an edible lobster found in the Mediterranean and northeastern Atlantic; it also goes by the name of “Dublin Bay Prawn”, or “Norway Lobster”. Evidently, there was a time when scampi was hard to find, so shrimp was used instead.
“Shrimp scampi”, as a pasta dish, is what ultimately became the popular menu item here in the United States. The wonderful thing about a shrimp scampi recipe is that it is a very easy recipe to prepare, with only a few basic ingredients that lend a lot of depth and richness.
Medium-size peeled and deveined shrimp are the best choice for scampi, because there is little work with them other than to season and sear them off. And the other ingredients that bring the aroma to the dish—ingredients such as shallots, garlic, red pepper flakes, white wine, chicken stock and a little butter—really only need a few moments together to sort of “melt” into each other and marry, and create that desired richness and flavor.
What Is Shrimp Scampi?
Scampi are tiny, lobster-like crustaceans with pale pink shells (also called langoustines). Italian cooks in the United States swapped shrimp for scampi, but kept both names. Thus the dish was born, along with inevitable variations. Scampi can refer to large shrimp or prawns, but is most ubiquitously the quick dish of shrimp sautéed in garlic, butter, and white wine.
You might occasionally see shrimp scampi served over toasted bread as a chic appetizer, but for the hearty, most satisfying dinner dish, shrimp scampi with linguine (which holds the weight of the shrimp and soaks up the sauce brilliantly) is the very best version of scampi you can learn.
There's a lot to love about this Shrimp Scampi recipe.
