Shrimp Pasta with Garlic Butter

This shrimp pasta is a 20-minute dinner that tastes like it took longer. Shrimp, butter, garlic, a splash of wine, and pasta water doing the heavy lifting.

The only real rule: get the pasta into salted water first. Everything else finishes in about the same time, so you want the fettuccine ready when the sauce is.

INGREDIENTS NEEDED:

• 250 g shrimp, peeled and deveined
• Salt, black pepper, chili flakes, smoked paprika
• Olive oil
• 2 knobs butter
• 1 white onion, finely diced
• 3 garlic cloves, sliced or grated
• Splash of white wine
• 200 g fettuccine
• Handful of parsley, chopped
• 1 lemon

HOW TO MAKE SHRIMP PASTA WITH GARLIC BUTTER:

1. Season the shrimp. Salt, pepper, chili flakes, and a dash of smoked paprika. Toss so everything is coated and leave them while the water comes to a boil.

2. Pasta in. Salted water, fettuccine, timer on. Save a mug of the water before you drain, you’ll need it.

3. Sear the shrimp. Hot pan, olive oil, 1–2 minutes per side. They should be pink and just firm. Pull them out onto a plate. Don’t cook them through here; they go back in later and will finish then.

4. Build the base. Same pan, don’t wipe it. Butter in, then the onion. Cook until soft and translucent, scraping up whatever the shrimp left behind. Garlic goes in for 30 seconds, no longer, or it turns bitter.

5. Deglaze. Splash of white wine. Let it bubble down until the sharp alcohol smell is gone and the pan looks glossy rather than watery.

6. Bring it together. Shrimp back in with any juices from the plate, then lift the fettuccine straight from the pot into the pan with a splash of pasta water. Toss hard.

7. Finish. Final knob of butter, tossed through until the sauce clings and shines. Taste, season. Parsley, squeeze of lemon, eat immediately!

Tips for the Best Shrimp Pasta

• Pasta water is the sauce. What makes garlic butter shrimp pasta creamy isn’t cream, it’s butter and starchy water emulsifying. If it looks oily and split, add more water and keep tossing.
• Cold butter at the end. Straight from the fridge, off the heat if you can. It emulsifies better than melted butter.
• Don’t crowd the shrimp. If the pan is packed they steam instead of searing. Two batches beats one sad grey one.
• Lemon last, always. Added early it cooks off and turns dull.

Twists:

Creamier: a spoon of mascarpone or crème fraîche in at step 6.

Tomato version: a handful of halved cherry tomatoes after the onion, cooked until they burst.

Green: spinach or peas tossed in with the pasta.

No wine: a squeeze of lemon and a splash of pasta water deglazes fine.

Extra depth: anchovy fillet melted in with the butter. Nobody will taste fish, everybody will taste more.