Garlic Shrimp Pasta with Spicy Sun-Dried Tomato Cream Sauce

This is an Italian-inspired seafood pasta recipe with lots of flavors at play. Garlic Shrimp together with Sun-Dried Tomatoes is smothered in a lot of Spicy Creamy Sauce and served over fettuccine pasta. Everything spiced up with basil and crushed red pepper. YUM!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 30

Total Time 40

Servings servings

Calories 717kcal

Author Julia

Ingredients

8 oz fettuccine pasta (use gluten free brown rice fettuccine for gluten free version)
1 lb shrimp (Use unfrozen uncooked shrimp. If you have to, you can use unfrozen cooked shrimp - it will work here too)
4 oz sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon paprika
4 cloves garlic minced
1 cup heavy cream
½ cup half-and-half or whole milk
1 teaspoon dried basil
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 cup Parmesan cheese freshly shredded

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain (reserving some pasta water).
Note: if using sun-dried tomatoes in oil (in a jar), make sure to drain sun-dried tomatoes from oil, before using them. Reserve 2 tablespoons of this drained oil for sauteing as described below:
In a large skillet, saute minced garlic and sun-dried tomatoes (drained from oil) in 2 tablespoons of oil (reserved from the sun-dried tomatoes jar - see note above) for 1 minute until garlic is fragrant.
Add shrimp, sprinkle with a small amount of salt, paprika, and cook on medium heat for about 2 more minutes.
Add heavy cream, basil, and crushed red pepper to the skillet with shrimp, bring to a stable simmer, and make sure the sauce is hot. Whisk in half of the Parmesan cheese (½ cup) gradually into the hot cream, then stir on the lowest heat setting until the cheese melts. If the sauce gets too thick, add ¼ cup of half-and-half to thin it out. Add more Parmesan to the sauce if it's too thin. You don't have to use the whole 1 cup of Parmesan - it depends on how thick you want your sauce. Use half-and-half to thin it out if it gets too thick.
Remove the sauce from heat. Add more salt, basil, and more crushed red pepper if desired, to taste.
Add cooked pasta to the creamy mixture, add more salt, basil, and more crushed red pepper if desired, to taste. If the sauce is too thick, use the reserved pasta water to thin it out.

Nutrition