Spicy Shrimp Pasta in Garlic Tomato Cream Sauce - shrimp seared on stove top with crushed red pepper, paprika, and salt, then smothered in a spicy cream sauce made with chopped onions, minced garlic, crushed tomatoes and cream. Seasoned with basil and oregano. Delicious, creamy shrimp pasta recipe with lots of bold flavors!
This spicy shrimp pasta has everything you crave for in an Italian pasta: easy creamy tomato sauce made from scratch, seafood, spices (garlic, paprika, basil, oregano, crushed red pepper) - all of that over the perfectly shaped penne pasta. Simple recipe that you can make at home.
Penne is perfect for this pasta dish as it holds the sauce very well, and with every bite you will get not only pasta and shrimp but a generous scoop of spicy tomato cream sauce too! I've used gluten free pasta (brown rice penne) for this dish as well, and it was marvelous!
Whichever pasta you use, make sure to cook it al dente, then rinse it with cold water, drain it, and only then add it to the sauce. This will preserve the pasta structure and prevent it from getting mushy in a creamy sauce.
How to make spicy shrimp pasta with garlic tomato cream sauce:
Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet on medium-high heat and cook shrimp on one side for about 1 minute, until shrimp turns pink on that side. While it cooks, GENEROUSLY sprinkle the top of shrimp with crushed red pepper, paprika and SALT to cover every single shrimp. Do not crowd the shrimp and don't skimp on spices:
Using spatula, turn the shrimp over to the other side and cook for 2 more minutes (on medium-high or medium heat):
Remove shrimp to a plate, being careful to leave all the oil in the skillet. To the same skillet, add chopped onion and minced garlic and cook on medium high heat in the olive that will have a nice reddish color from paprika and crushed red pepper. Cook for about 2 minutes until onions soften:
Next, add crushed tomatoes and chicken bullion cube dissolved in ¼ cup boiling water. Add basil and oregano, mix everything, bring to boil, reduce to simmer. Simmer for about 10-15 minutes, mixing occasionally and crushing all tomatoes into very small bites, until the garlic tomato cream sauce reduces just a bit. Season with more red pepper and salt, if needed.
Add heavy cream, while on simmer, and mix it in on very low simmer:
Almost immediately after you added cream and mixed it in on low simmer, remove the skillet from heat. Your garlic tomato cream sauce should look like this:
Add back the shrimp and pasta. Mix everything well to combine. Add more salt and pepper if necessary. Add more spices (crushed red pepper, basil, oregano), if needed. Gently reheat your spicy shrimp pasta.
Spicy Shrimp Pasta in Garlic Tomato Cream Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 pound shrimp without shells, and deveined
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- ¼ teaspoon paprika
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 small onion finely chopped
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 2 cups canned crushed tomatoes
- ¼ cup water
- ½ cube chicken bullion (I used Knorr)
- 1 tablespoon basil
- ¼ teaspoon oregano dried
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 8 oz penne pasta (for gluten free version, use brown rice penne)
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet on medium-high heat. Add shrimp and cook on one side for about 1 minute, until shrimp turns pink on that side. While it cooks, sprinkle the top of shrimp with crushed red pepper, paprika and salt to cover every single shrimp. Make sure not to crowd the shrimp in the skillet, otherwise moisture will form and shrimp won't sear right. And, don't skimp on spices. Using spatula turn shrimp over to the other side and cook for about 2 more minutes.
- Remove shrimp to a plate, being careful to leave all the oil in the skillet.
- To the same skillet, add chopped onion and minced garlic and cook on medium high heat in the olive oil that will have a nice reddish color from paprika and crushed red pepper. Cook for about 2 minutes, occasionally stirring, until onions soften.
- Add crushed tomatoes and chicken bullion cube dissolved in ¼ cup boiling water. Add basil and oregano, mix, bring to boil and reduce to simmer. Simmer for about 10-15 minutes, mixing occasionally and crushing all tomatoes into very small bites, until the sauce reduces just a bit. Season with more red pepper and salt, if needed. In the end, while on simmer, add heavy cream, mix it in, and immediately remove from heat.
- In the mean time, bring a large pot of water to boil and cook pasta al dente according to the package instructions. Drain.
- Add back the cooked shrimp and cooked and drained pasta to the skillet with the sauce. Mix everything well to combine. Reheat on low simmer, if needed. Do not bring to boil or high heat as it might affect the sauce texture. Add more salt and pepper if necessary.
- When serving, I like to sprinkle the top of pasta with just a touch of crushed red pepper.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer:
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Wow, came out very yummy. I used Marinara sauce instead of tomatoes because I had an open jar. This will definitely be on our family menu!
Hi Zara! Using marinara sauce was a great idea—love that you made it work with what you had on hand. I'm happy to hear it’ll be a regular on your family menu! 🙂
can this bemade ahead for a dinner party?
This recipe did not disappoint. Yummy
Absolutely delicious!! We love garlic & spice so I doubled both garlic and crushed red pepper flakes. It was a big hit! Thanks for the Great recipe! It's my new favorite pasta dish for sure!
Wow, Patti, I am so flattered! Thank you for your review! 🙂
Can this be made a day ahead of time? It sounds ds Delish!
Marianne, I do not recommend making this ahead of time as the cream-based sauces don't reheat well and quickly lose their nice smooth texture when reheated the next day.
I've made this recipe several times now and it is absolutely delicious. It is now in my regular dinner rotation. It comes together quickly, and the flavors are simply amazing. I only had smoked paprika so that is what I used. Not sure if it made much difference but we loved it. If you like shrimp and pasta, you can't go wrong with this dish. :))
Nancy, thank you for recommending this dish - I really appreciate it! 🙂
Haven't tried this yet but I'm wondering if anybody knows if it would be even better with smoked paprika? I once had a sauce like this at a very nice Italian restaurant and I've never been able to find a recipe online or recreate it myself. But it has a smoky flavor. And it was cream and it was a red sauce but you couldn't see any tomatoes. It was about as red as like red curry sauce is but it definitely was not Curry it was cream and basil flavored with a smoky flavor and it was a little spicy. I want so bad to recreate that I don't even know if that restaurant is still in business. It was called Ebenezer's wood-fired pizza LaCrosse Wisconsin
Ella, if you want to try shrimp pasta recipes that use paprika, take a look at these 2 choices:
https://juliasalbum.com/creamy-mozzarella-shrimp-pasta/
https://juliasalbum.com/garlic-shrimp-and-sun-dried-tomatoes-with-pasta-in-spicy-creamy-sauce/
OH MY GOODNESS!!! This recipe is amazing! My husband, who is not a pasta fan, declared that it is his new favorite dish!! I didn’t change a thing about the recipe. Thank you for sharing it.
Yvonne, I am so glad you enjoyed this recipe! Thank you for such an enthusiastic comment - I really appreciate it! 🙂
On business but that's not on their menu at all. It might have been that my ex who was a chef there, whipped up a combination of things especially for us when we ate there that night. I know that he did cook it. And that he was always fiddling with new recipes from whatever he had in the kitchen back there. I just desperately want to recreate what he did that night. He's still my friend but he doesn't remember lol he's made a lot of food in his life. I just need somebody to help me maybe Julia could help me figure out how to make that this is the first recipe I've seen though that she posted here, that's seems really similar to it. Help Julia please help me LOL. I'm desperate here it's been 20 years and I've been looking for it trying to make it ever since but I'm not a wiz in the kitchen I'm just kind of "ok" LOL
Er mer gersh!!! So good I almost swallowed my tongue!!! Totally making this again.
I am so glad the recipe was enjoyed! And, thank you for the 5-star review! 🙂
The only thing I added was @ a 1/2 vodka! We love adding vodka in tomato spicy pasta. We LOVED it!
Kathy, I agree - adding vodka in a proper way to the tomato sauce certainly elevates it! Glad you loved the recipe!
This is legit just spaghetti with shrimp.. was not impressed..
This is delicious!!!! It really has some bold tastes...but in a nice way. I loved it! Once I started eating it I couldn't stop! I will be making this again. Its a fast and very easy recipe! Try it......you won't be disappointed.
Cindy, thank you so much for your comment! It made my day! 🙂
Hollie,
You are so rude…if you read all the other reviews you will notice you were the only one with a negative review. It must mean you don’t know how to cook, or that you don’t know when a recipe is good! I don’t understand why people have to be so rude. It would have been wiser if you had just abstained from leaving your snarky review! I found the recipe quite good as is!
Sarita, I am so glad you liked this recipe!
❤️ I couldn’t agree more Sarita! I have no idea why people have to post mean comments. If someone makes a recipe that doesn’t taste good to them, they could just ask the Poster what could have gone wrong. That is the nice way to comment. No one follows the rule “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything ” anymore…
Thank you for your support, Debbie. I don't get the negativity either, it's so much more pleasant to be a happy person!
Thank you for sharing the dairy free option! I just found out my almost 18 year old son is allergic to dairy but he loves this dish!
I hope you enjoy the recipe!
This recipe was a huge hit with my family!
I did make several modifications. In a 14" skillet it took me two batches to cook the shrimp so I probably used double the seasonings and a little more olive oil. It turned out spicy, but just the right amount. Crushed tomatoes come in a 14.5 oz can which is not quite 2 cups, so I used one can and added a half a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes (I like the chunky texture). That was so good, next time I'd probably add the entire can. I love a seasoning mix called Vegeta so I used 1 tbsp of that instead of the bouillon cube. I tore up the fresh basil indicated in the recipe but then added a handful of whole basil leaves at the end, as well as two big handfuls (half a 5 oz box) of fresh spinach and just wilted it all into the sauce. I felt like this made more than enough sauce and my boys eat a lot, so I used all of a 1 lb box of penne and that was fine. 12 oz would probably work even better. I served it with caesar salad and garlic bread, and my two teenage sons practically licked their plates clean.
Shrimp is not cheap these days so next time I might try cubed chicken breast instead when it's on sale.
Anna, thank you so much for sharing such helpful and detailed feedback - I really appreciate it! This feedback will be so useful to me and other readers. Love the addition of spinach! Serving this pasta with Caesar salad and garlic bread sounds delicious! And, yes, I agree - this recipe will work well with cubed chicken breast!
What can I substitute the cream with or can I make it without the cream?
Mandy, you can use half-and-half or evaporated milk. For a dairy-free option, use unsweetened coconut milk.
Thank you for sharing the dairy free option! I just found out my almost 18 year old son is allergic to dairy but he loves this dish!