Easy Garlic Prawn Pasta

Garlic prawn (shrimp) pasta is one of the easiest, quickest kinds of pasta you can make. And it tastes sooo good! Save time by buying the already peeled, deveined prawns from the frozen section and you'll have dinner ready in 15 minutes! Pair with a side of refreshing Red Cabbage Salad for a complete and healthy meal!

For a richer version, check out my Creamy Garlic Prawn Pasta. It's light, flavoursome without the heaviness that many creamy pastas has.

If you're in Australia, you know prawns and spring/summer goes hand in hand. This simple, tangy garlic prawn pasta is a great way to eat prawns. No cream, just light and delicious. Pair this simple prawn pasta with a crunchy salad and you've got yourself a perfect, healthy meal!

Love prawns?

Check out my Butter Garlic Prawns recipe, it is my favourite way of eating prawns! Super quick and easy to make and it's absolutely delicious!

Otherwise, a simple Prawn Fried Rice is another easy recipe to make particularly if you've got some leftover rice in the fridge.

Jump to:

• Love prawns?
• Ingredients
• How to make garlic prawn pasta
• How to peel and devein prawns
• How long should you cook prawns?
• 📖 Recipe

Ingredients

Requiring minimal ingredients, this no cream prawn pasta really lets each of the ingredients shine. The flavours are just incredible.

• Prawns peeled and deveined. Tt's important to buy uncooked prawns as we'll be marinating them. This will get lots of flavour into the prawns and you'll be amazed at how much of a difference just 5 minutes can make!
• Fresh parsley is a MUST in my books! It completely transforms and adds freshness to this dish. Make sure to only add them in the last 30 seconds to keep them fragrant.
• Lemon juice where possible, use fresh lemon juice. This will add that refreshing tang and works brilliantly with the prawns-parsley combo.
• Dried spaghetti is my choice of pasta, feel free to use any other pasta you like, such as linguine. If using fresh pasta (which takes minutes to cook), this dish will be done in 10 minutes!

How to make garlic prawn pasta

Requiring minimal prep, this easy pasta dish can't get any easier. The part that takes the longest is really just cooking the spaghetti!

Before you start cooking, marinate the prawns with some olive oil, finely chopped garlic, salt and pepper.

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• STEP 1. Put the kettle on and marinate thawed prawns with minced garlic, olive oil and some salt and pepper. Set aside.
• STEP 2. Cook pasta according to packet instructions until al dente then drain the pasta. Make sure to reserve ½ cup of pasta cooking water as it'll be needed later!
• STEP 3. Once pasta is ready, saute marinated prawns in a large, hot non-stick pan for about 1 minute on medium/high heat.
• STEP 4. By now, the prawns are almost done and have started curling. Squeeze in the juice of ½ a lemon. Be careful at this point! As soon as the lemon juice touches the hot pan, it'll spit a little.
• STEP 5. Very quickly now (because we don't want the prawns to overcook), stir in the cooked pasta, reserved pasta cooking water for 1 minute. Add fresh parsley, salt and pepper.
• STEP 6. Turn the heat off. Mix a little more or until most of the pasta cooking water has been absorbed. Taste and adjust for seasoning as necessary.

That's it! literally takes 15 minutes max.

Serve with a wedge of lemon for those who like the extra lemon tang kick!

If you like a little heat, some chilli flakes would be great also.

How to peel and devein prawns

If you have the patience and using fresh prawns, this is how you do it:

• Lightly twist off the head. If they're super fresh, the vein may come out too.
• Peel the shells and legs off the prawns. I always start from the legs and most of the times the shells come off together.
• Carefully, make an incision along the back of the prawn with a small knife. The safest way is by laying the prawn down on its side and cut the incision.
• Scrape off the vein with the tip of your knife.

Are prawn veins safe to eat?

Although the veins (which really is just prawn poop) are safe to eat, they're just a little gritty texture-wise. I would make the effort of deveining prawns if they're large in size (as the veins are larger too!). If the prawns are small/medium-sized and looking fairly clean, I don't bother. It's up to individual preferences really.

How long should you cook prawns?

Prawns cook QUICK! They are cooked when they've curled into a 'C' shape.

• For a large-sized prawn, peeled and butterflied (incision along its back), it takes about 2 - 3 minutes to cook.
• For small/medium-sized prawns, 1- 2 minutes on a hot pan is all you need.

Thank you for checking out my recipes! Let me know what you think and/or if you have any questions, drop me a note in the comments section below. 🙂

Happy cooking!

Gen

📖 Recipe