Angel Hair Pasta With Garlic Shrimp
Today, I’m going to be sharing a very easy weeknight dinner that your family will love, angel hair pasta with garlic shrimp, served in a light, buttery sauce.
This dish is easy to make, uses simple ingredients, and tastes great, things that anyone looks for during the weekdays.
Before diving into the recipe, there are a few techniques and tips that I would like to quickly go over.
How to Cook Pasta
Pasta is one of the best things you can make for weeknight dinners, It cooks quickly and has a lot of variety to it when you consider all of the proteins, vegetables, sauces, etc that you can serve it with.
Today, we will be working with angel hair pasta, one of the thinnest varieties of pasta in the supermarket which makes it ideal for lighter sauces and seafood, although any long pasta that you have like spaghetti will work well for this dish.
I’ve done an entire article on the basics of cooking pasta, but here’s the short version.
Make sure the water comes up to a full, rolling boil before you put the pasta in.
Use more water than you think you’ll need: for a pound of pasta, you’ll want to start with at least a gallon of water.
Generously salt the water before adding the pasta, it should be salty like the ocean, it’s a good tip for cooking anything starchy.
Keep an eye on the pasta as it cooks, this is especially important for angel hair as it’s so thin that it can overcook in seconds.
Don’t forget to save some of the water that the pasta cooked in before draining, you can use that water to thin out the sauce if you need to.
How to Prepare Shrimp
Shrimp are one of the best types of seafood to cook during the weekdays, they cook quickly and taste great, and knowing how to prepare them before cooking can be a lifesaver, so here’s how to do it.
Start by grabbing the little legs of the shrimp, pulling them out, and then peeling off the shell. (Don’t throw away the shells, by the way. You can simmer them in water for about 15 minutes for a tasty shrimp stock, perfect for just about any seafood dish.)
In some recipes you can leave the tail on, but for pasta, I prefer to take it off, and you can do this by pinching the base of the tail until it pops out.
The shrimp from my grocery store does come to me de-veined, quite handy, but if you’re not that lucky then you can simply run a paring knife along the top part of the shrimp and take out the vein from there.
By the way, since I live alone but still like shrimp, one thing I do is buy a large bag of frozen shrimp and simply thaw as much as I need. When submerged in cold water, they only take about 30 minutes to defrost.
Cooking With Wine
Part of the base for the sauce for this dish is dry white wine, and the common phrase you’ll hear from chefs is, ‘If you wouldn’t drink the wine, don’t cook it.’
While you certainly wouldn’t want to cook with wine that tastes like old grapes, there is no reason to shed out for a $30 bottle of good white wine for cooking. Most of the subtle flavors and nuances you get from the more expensive wines tend to get lost during the cooking process, so I say that a >$10 bottle of wine will do just fine for cooking, and you can leave the good stuff for…well, you know.
Well, having talked about those simple tips, I am quite hungry now, so let’s get cooking!
Angel Hair Pasta with Garlic Shrimp
Serves 4
Salt
12 ounces of angel hair pasta (I prefer De Cecco)
4 teaspoons of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, very thinly sliced
1 pound of small shrimp, peeled and deveined (see above)
Freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
2/3 cup of dry white wine (see above)
1 8-ounce bottle of clam juice
4 tablespoons of unsalted butter, diced
3 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup of chopped parsley, plus more for serving
Bring a large pot of water to a boil, generously salt the water, then add the angel hair pasta. Cook according to the directions for al dente, should be a bout 2 minutes, then reserve 1 cup of the cooking water and drain.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil with the garlic in a wide skillet over medium heat until the garlic starts to turn golden. Add the shrimp and cook for about 2-3 minutes, flipping or turning once, until the shrimp is almost cooked through. Set aside. Stir in a pinch of salt, pepper, and the red pepper flakes, then remove from the pan and set aside.
Increase the heat to medium-high, then add the white wine and use a wooden spoon to scrape up any brown bits from the shrimp. Cook for about 3 minutes, or until the wine has reduced by half, then add the clam juice and 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water, then bring to a simmer.
Remove the pan from the heat, then add the butter and stir or swirl the pan until the butter is melted and the sauce slightly thickens. Stir in the lemon juice, parsley, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Add the pasta and shrimp to the sauce, then toss until well-coated. If you need to, add more of the pasta water, about a tablespoon at a time, to get the desired sauce consistency. Dump onto a serving platter or divide among plates, then top with more parsley.
And there you have it, a simple, delicious weeknight dinner that your family will love. The shrimp is sweet and plump, the sauce has that slight clam flavor and a bit of creaminess with that bright wine and lemon juice to brighten it up, and that tender pasta serves as the perfect vessel for slurping up all of that tasty sauce.
Serve this with a salad, some garlic bread, and maybe a bit of wine and you’ve got a perfect Italian dinner.
