For some reason, I feel like you can’t eat shrimp on a regular day. There has to be some kind of special occasion or celebration. Or at least a date night at home. Oh, wait, so that would be every night. It is probably the case because of the price of shrimp and prawns. So, as any bargain hunting lady, I buy them in bulk when there is a good deal. I would always buy large jumbo shrimp and prawns, but there are moments for the Nordic baby shrimp as well. I think they work really well in egg sandwiches and quick weeknight pasta dinners. This garlic butter shrimp pasta with garlic and green olives comes together in about 20 minutes and is seriously good.
This pasta was basically a way to get rid of the one sad lemon and the few green olives I had laying in my fridge for far too long. You don’t have to add the olives, or you could also add black olives, but that is totally optional. Does give it some more character though. The main heroes of this garlic butter shrimp pasta story are the garlic, the lemon zest and juice, butter, burst cherry tomatoes, and the shrimp. You could add a splash of white wine here, but then you would have to reduce the sauce a bit and that would be too much of a hassle for a 20-minute dinner.
There is no in-between. I either plan out a couple of meals when I do the shopping and have leftovers in between, and sandwiches for breakfast, and stuff like that, or at 5 in the afternoon I suddenly realize that I have no idea what to cook for dinner when my husband gets home. I am the kind of person to procrastinate Monday and Tuesday and then crunch a lot of work in the next three days. Then I forget to go grocery shopping and basically if only I woke up super motivated on a Monday, all would be good. But that is why I stuff my freezer and pantry with stuff so there would always be something to quickly throw together. This garlic butter shrimp pasta turned out not only to solve our dinner problem but also be worthy of its own recipe.
Garlic butter shrimp pasta
Ingredients
- 200 g dried spaghetti
- 250 g cherry tomatoes
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 250 g baby shrimp
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 200 ml pasta water
- 3 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp chili flakes
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp sugar
- Green olives for serving
Instructions
- Cook the pasta til al dente in a large pot of salted water, reserve 200 ml of the pasta water
- Melt the butter with the oil in a pan on medium, add the garlic and the chili and fry for 30 seconds
- Add the cherry tomatoes, the lemon zest, the lemon juice, the spices and sautee for 3 minutes
- Slightly smash the tomatoes with the spatula and add the shrimp
- Cook for 2 minutes
- Add the pasta and the pasta water and and cook for 2 minutes
- Remove from heat, put the lid on and let sit for 5 minutes
- Serve with the green olives