Finding a quick and easy meal to make on a busy weeknight can be difficult.
You want something that tastes good but doesn’t take too long to prepare.
This recipe for prawn pasta is ideal – it is ready in 30 minutes and is incredibly satisfying. Keep reading to find your perfect weeknight prawn pasta recipe.
Do you love pasta, but have to follow a gluten-free diet? Our article Gluten Fee Pasta (is it worth it?)- A User Review might interest you.
What Do You Need?
This recipe can be made using just two pans – a saucepan for the pasta and a frying pan for the sauce.
Apart from these, you will need to chop some of the ingredients with a knife on a chopping board. Then you’ll need a spoon for stirring the ingredients in the frying pan and a pair of tongs to toss the spaghetti in the sauce.
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Tips And Tricks
If you want to make sure that your prawn pasta comes out perfectly every time, follow these tips and tricks.
- Pasta – When you boil the pasta, add a good handful of salt to the water. This gives the pasta more flavour. How much salt? The water should taste salty – like the sea. If you struggle with the pasta sticking together, you can also add a few drops of olive oil to the water. Make sure you don’t overcook the pasta- it needs to retain some firmness to stop it from going mushy when it is added to the sauce. Always add the pasta to the sauce rather than adding the sauce to the pasta. This is the authentic Italian way.
- Reserve a Cup of Cooking Water – Before you drain the pasta, always take out a cup of the cooking water. When you’ve put the sauce and pasta together at the each of the cook, add a little of the reserved pasta water to loosen the sauce and also add a silky finish to the final dish.
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- Prawns – Fresh prawns are ideal, but you can also keep some prawns in the freezer so you always have what you need to make this dish. Make sure to defrost the prawns before you add them to the sauce. You can defrost prawns by soaking them in cold water for 15 minutes then draining them.
- Garlic – Fresh garlic is best, but if you want to save time then you can keep a jar of pre-minced garlic in the fridge to use in recipes like this.
- Shallots – Using shallots instead of normal onions adds a sweetness to the sauce which works really well with the spicy chorizo.
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How To Customise This Recipe?
There are several ways to customise this recipe if you want to.
- Pasta – Spaghetti or linguine works really well with this recipe, but you can switch this for any kind of pasta that you like – tagliatelle, penne, farfalle . Use whatever you have in the cupboard.
- Meat – You can switch out the prawns for diced chicken if you prefer, or change the chorizo to bacon lardons for a different flavour. If you are using different ingredients make sure you adjust the cooking times so that the meat is fully cooked.
- Vegetables – Instead of spinach, you could try using baby kale. If you don’t have shallots then you could use red or white onions or even leeks.
- Garnish – This recipe uses parmesan cheese and chilli flakes to finish off the pasta. You could use some fresh parsley and a wedge of lemon if you prefer.
In Sydney and hunting for a great plate of pasta? See our Italian Restaurant recommendations.
Weeknight Dinners: Prawn Pasta Recipe
Course: DinnerCuisine: Italian4
servings30
minutes20
minutes600
kcalA delicious and simple prawn pasta recipe which is ideal for a weeknight dinner, or any time when you are hungry but time poor.
Ingredients
300 g 300 Spaghetti Or Linguine
450 g 450 King Prawns (raw, peeled, heads and tails removed)
100 g 100 Spicy Chorizo (chopped)
400 g 400 Cherry Tomatoes (fresh, chopped)
1 Tablespoon 1 Olive Oil
Minced Garlic
Teaspoon Chilli Paste (or sriracha)
Teaspoon Red Wine Vinegar
1 Teaspoon 1 Salt
1 Teaspoon 1 Sugar
2 Teaspoon 2 Butter
120 ml 120 White Wine
2 Handful 2 Large Shallots (Diced)
1 Handful 1 Spinach (chopped)
1 Pinch (to taste) 1 Chilli Flakes
To taste Ground Pepper
Optional Parmesan Cheese (grated)
Directions
- Prep all of your ingredients before you begin cooking. If you are using frozen prawns then they need to be defrosted. Chop the chorizo and the tomatoes, dice the shallots and mince the garlic.
- Once your ingredients are prepared, you can start to boil the pasta. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil then add the spaghetti. You can also add a teaspoon of salt to the water to give the spaghetti more flavour.
- While the spaghetti is cooking, get to work on the sauce. Add the olive oil to a large frying pan over high heat, then add the chopped chorizo. As the chorizo heats up it will release oil that is red/orange in colour and packed with flavour.
- Reduce the heat to medium and add the dice shallots. Give it a good stir to coat the shallots in the oil, and saute them for around 5 minutes so they start to soften.
- Now add the butter, garlic, chilli paste, chopped tomatoes and red wine vinegar. Stir all of the ingredients and season with salt and pepper. Next, add the white wine and adjust the temperature so that the sauce is simmering. This will break down the tomatoes, releasing juices and flavour into the sauce.
- Check on your pasta – you want it al dente, which means it is cooked and still has a little bite. This will prevent it from breaking or going mushy when you add it to the sauce. If the pasta is done then drain it and put it to one side. If it isn’t done yet then leave it boiling while you move onto the next step.
- Once the tomatoes start breaking down you can add the prawns into the sauce. They need to cook on a bubbling heat for 3 to four minutes or until they turn from white to pink. Once cooked, you can add the spinach and stir it in. The spinach will cook very quickly.
- Strain the pasta if you have not done this already. Just before you add the pasta to the sauce, check once more for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if needed. Add the pasta into the frying pan and use tongs to toss the pasta and coat it with the sauce.
- Dish up the pasta onto plates or into pasta dishes, then top with grated parmesan and chilli flakes.
Recipe Video
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