I recently had an AMAZING 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. Capture the lightness of the dish. The delicious pasta. The lemon, the garlic, the BUTTER.
So. Where was this fantastic shrimp scampi from? Disney World. More precisely… the fancy Italian restaurant (Tutto Italia) in Epcot at Disney World.
We didn’t plan on eating there. It was almost 100 degrees out. It was past our daughter’s nap time and she was fussy. We were trying to get her to fall asleep in the stroller. And she FINALLY did. We were looking for somewhere to eat, where hopefully she could nap while we ate lunch. We spotted the Italian restaurant. Josh walked inside to check to see if we could bring the stroller inside. Of course we could. Into the glorious air conditioning.
And then we had the BEST meal of our trip. Everything we got was delicious. The service was impeccable. And that garlic butter shrimp scampi? I talked about that for the rest of the trip. Worth every penny. Oh, and Zara didn’t wake up from her nap until the very end of lunch. Perfect timing.
And of course once we got back to Texas, I knew I needed to try to recreate the shrimp scampi as soon as possible. I tested it out several times. And finally settled on this version. And this recipe for garlic butter shrimp scampi is now here for you!
I used dried linguine 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.
Here’s a few tips when making the garlic butter shrimp scampi recipe:
- 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
- 1/2 lb linguine pasta
- 1 lemon, zest and juice
- 6 Tbsp butter
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 Tbsp 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 Tbsp 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.