Shrimp Pasta with Tomato Basil Cream Sauce
Unbelievably CREAMY and just melt-in-your-mouth AMAZING!!! Loaded with sun dried tomatoes, spinach and basil.
You guys know I love a good cream sauce.
Any cream sauce, really.
I don’t discriminate.
Obviously.
And it’s even better with shrimp.
Perfectly caramelized in the oven, with just a hint of sweetness.
And throw in some sun dried tomatoes.
No wait.
Extra sun dried tomatoes.
Add some spinach too.
You know.
For color.
Or for your extra servings of veggies.
I hear that’s important.
Right?
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Shrimp Pasta with Tomato Basil Cream Sauce
Ingredients
- 3 cups cavatappi pasta
- 1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the tomato basil cream sauce
- ¼ cup unsalted butter
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup vegetable broth, or more, as needed
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- ½ cup heavy cream, or more, as needed
- ⅓ cup julienned sun dried tomatoes in olive oil, drained
- ¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 3 cups baby spinach, roughly chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly oil a baking sheet or coat with nonstick spray.
- In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta according to package instructions; drain well.
- Place shrimp onto the prepared baking sheet. Add olive oil, salt and pepper, to taste, and gently toss to combine. Place into oven and roast just until pink, firm and cooked through, about 6-8 minutes; set aside.
- To make the tomato basil cream sauce, melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes. Whisk in flour until lightly browned, about 1 minute.
- Gradually whisk in vegetable broth and basil. Cook, whisking constantly, until incorporated, about 1-2 minutes. Stir in heavy cream, sun dried tomatoes and Parmesan until slightly thickened, about 1-2 minutes. If the mixture is too thick, add more heavy cream as needed; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Stir in spinach until it begins to wilt, about 2 minutes.
- Stir in pasta and shrimp, and gently toss to combine.
- Serve immediately.
Did you make this recipe?
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Disclosure: This post is sponsored by the National Fisheries Institute Shrimp Council. As always, I only partner with brands that I love and truly believe in, allowing me to create more quick and easy recipes to get us through the week without breaking the bank. All opinions expressed are my own.
Can you please state how many ounces of pasta rather than cups? Cavatappi fits very awkwardly into a cup measure so it seems as though it’s a lot of sauce for not much pasta. Thanks.
This is a terrific pasta dish. Creamy tomato basil sauce makes the dish.
Very delicious. I didn’t add the sun dried tomatoes because I cannot stand them but this recipe didn’t need them. Thank you!
Super easy and quick! Tastes amazing with simple ingredients. I left out the sun dried tomatoes as I didn’t have any, but it was still amazing! I will have them next time I make this. Thank you!
So I have never baked shrimp before but I’m telling you what, i think baking shrimp might be my go to. They came out absolutely perfect at 7 minutes and not a single shrimp was overcooked.
The cream sauce was delicious, although I could argue mine came out too thick. I dont think I would ever need to thicken this recipe, most likely thin it out, so I’d for sure next time around add more vegetable broth!
This recipe all together was beyond simple, huge flavor, and a top notch dinner. Thank you!
My husband and I love your recipes. I was searching for a different take on a shrimp pasta and this one fit the bill. I added more parm due to the sweetness of the the sundried tomatoes. Overall this recipe is a keeper, thanks again!
I made this as written except I used bow tie pasta in place of cavatappi. My husband took one bite and said “this is delicious is it Damn Delicious?” All your recipes are delicious.
Question: I’m allergic to shrimp so can I either substitute chicken breast or just leave it out and prepare just the pasta?
Chicken would be a great substitute.
For the shrimp, can you use frozen or thaw first? Assuming you’d use the uncooked.
I recommend thawing first.
This was wonderful. Thank you for another great recipe.
This is delicious and is now one of my favorite recipes to make. It even tasted good left over. Used half & half instead of heavy cream and was still rich and creamy.
HOT DAMN! This was excellent!!! All I heard was “mmmmmm” “wow” “Is there more?” at the table. Will be making this again and again. Especially Friday’s during Lent.
It looks delicious going to make it thank you for sending all those good recipies
I have been interested in purchasing a spiralizer and unfortunately I bought a hand held one that I couldn’t figure out how to use. I know funny ! Any suggestions on a good product? I initially didn’t want to buy another gadget to clutter the cabinets but I seriously couldn’t get the handheld to work thank you. Also anymore recipe ideas for spiralizing ?
This is actually my favorite spiralizer:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVVDWgmBpU7/?taken-by=damn_delicious.
Made this today and it is so yummy!! My entire household loved it. Thank you!
Drooling over the photos Chungah! Loved everything about it, we’ll be trying this out in the next days and we’re sure it tastes AMAZING. We haven’t seen this type of pasta anywhere here in Greece unfortunately, so we’ll be using classic elbow mac, have you ever tried it with this sauce? It should work, right?
Thank you for the delicious idea. Amazing work, as always.
Mirella and Panos
Yes, absolutely! You can sub any type of pasta.
Great recipe.
I did substitute the heavy cream for plain Greek yogurt and the butter for Smart Balance light.
I added a little more seasoning to the shrimp as well, I drizzled lemon juice on it and sprinkled paprika and garlic salt on it in before placing in the oven.
The dish turned out fantastic.
Thank you for sharing!
Even though I substituted A LOT of the ingredients, this dish came out very well. I will definitely try the real recipe in the near future. In case you’re wondering what I substituted I used what I had on hand: I used my Whole Foods frozen kale and shrimp; added a tablespoon of frozen tomato sauce (which I also freeze because most recipes call for a teaspoon or a tablespoon and I can’t use the whole can before it will go bad on me even though the can is tiny) to the cream sauce because didn’t have any sun-dried tomatoes; I used Italian seasoning since I learned I was out of basil. Oh, and I used Capellini pasta since the grocery store didn’t carry the cavatappi pasta. While it’s almost a different version, it still came out delicious. Thank you Chungah!
Made this receipt today but added additional spinach and used some Parmesan-garlic sauce, turned out as another favorite from your generous receipt donations. Thanks.
Yum! Your pastas always looks mouth-watering