This recipe for garlic butter shrimp scampi is so easy to make. It's light, bright, and has a little punch of garlic and lemon in a butter sauce.
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I recently had an AMAZING garlic butter shrimp scampi dish. You'll never guess where it was from. I'll tell you in a minute. But... ever since I've had that dish, I've been working to recreate it. To capture the lightness of the dish. The delicious pasta. The lemon, the garlic, the BUTTER.
So. Where was this fantastic garlicy and light shrimp scampi from?
Disney World. More precisely... the fancy Italian restaurant (Tutto Italia) in Epcot at Disney World.
I used dried linguine for shrimp scampi because I wanted to make this quick and easy (which is my favorite kind of meal if you haven't heard me mention that 100 times on the blog), but this would be incredible with homemade, fresh pasta. You can of course use spaghetti if you don't have any linguine on hand. (Or angel hair pasta, or even penne or other types of pasta if that's what you have).
Ingredients needed:
- Shrimp (fresh or thawed if frozen)
- Pasta
- Lemon (zest and juice)
- Butter
- Olive oil
- Garlic clove
- Fresh parsley
- Salt and pepper
How to make with frozen shrimp:
If you have frozen, unthawed shrimp, you can still make this shrimp scampi! Instead of cooking for 2-3 minutes per side, you'll just cook the frozen shrimp for longer. I find that I usually cook my shrimp for 8 minutes on one side, and then only 3-4 minutes after flipping.
However, watch your shrimp carefully. You want to cook until it's opaque and pink, but not much longer than that or it will be tough.
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Tips:
- Every stove is different. I cook on a gas stove, but you might find that medium heat cooks the shrimp too slowly. If so, cook the shrimp for longer or turn the heat up on your stove.
- When cooking the shrimp, flip them when they start to get pink and opaque.
- You can definitely add parmesan cheese to this dish if you'd like! I've tried it with and without, and even though I'm usually a huge parmesan cheese lover, I prefer it without on this dish. If you do use parmesan, I recommend freshly grated or shaved.
- If you're using fresh linguine and not dried, please note that the cooking time will be much shorter, so you may want to prepare the pasta after the shrimp is already cooking instead of starting it at the beginning.
- This recipe uses fresh lemon zest. To zest, I use a microplane similar to this one.
Garlic Butter Shrimp Scampi
Equipment
- zester
Ingredients
- 10-12 large shrimp deveined
- ½ lb linguine pasta
- 1 lemon, zest and juice
- 6 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
- salt
- pepper
Instructions
- In a large pot, heat water to boiling. Add a touch of salt to the water. Add linguine and cook according to package directions.
- Mince the garlic clove and chop the parsley leaves. Zest the lemon.
- In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat.
- Add shrimp and cook 2-3 minutes per side. Remove from pan and set aside.
- Wipe out the skillet. Add the butter to the skillet and let it start melting. Add the minced garlic and the lemon juice. Turn down the heat to medium-low. Cook for one minute.
- Divide the pasta between the two bowls. Pour the lemon butter mixture on top. Top with the shrimp and sprinkle on lemon zest and parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Notes
- Every stove is different. I cook on a gas stove, but you might find that medium heat cooks the shrimp too slowly. If so, cook the shrimp for longer or turn the heat up on your stove.
- When cooking the shrimp, flip them when they start to get pink and opaque.
- You can definitely add parmesan cheese to this dish if you'd like! I've tried it with and without, and even though I'm usually a huge parmesan cheese lover, I prefer it without on this dish. If you do use parmesan, I recommend freshly grated or shaved.
- If you're using fresh linguine and not dried, please note that the cooking time will be much shorter, so you may want to prepare the pasta after the shrimp is already cooking instead of starting it at the beginning.
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