Creamy Cajun shrimp pasta pairs includes Andouille sausage and piquant spices in a Cajun cream sauce in this inspired and comforting supper.

Creamy Cajun Shrimp Pasta

By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

It’s time again for Fish Friday Foodies and Camilla is hosting and decided on shellfish as the topic.

This is the kind of thing I really love making, possibly because it has such a creamy sauce for the pasta. It is an indulgence, to be sure, but you can always lighten that up a bit with evaporated milk, which has some of the body without all  of the fat. But if it is just an occasional thing, I wouldn’t worry about it.

Fast &  Easy

The supper itself cooks up fairly quickly once you get the pasta water going and the vegetables chopped. I don’t mind chopping vegetables and often will prep them ahead and keep them in the fridge until I am ready for them. It might be a psychopathic tendency to want to use my  knives so much (laughs) but I have invested in very  nice knives (Shun) which make doing that sort of kitchen work a joy. It most certainly  is not a joy to have to work  with a dull blade and end up cutting yourself. Dull cheap knives are dangerous things.

Creamy Cajun Shrimp Pasta

The Andouille sausage is a basic smoked sausage and will have some of the spice in it. You can substitute just about any smoked sausage in this, although I do prefer leaner,  firmer sausage if you can as you can really tell the difference. Some of the bargain brands I refuse to use since they compromise the entire dish just to save a dollar or two.

I also used fresh tomato. You could use canned tomato if you like, but it does tend to be more wet so watch that it doesn’t dilute the sauce excessively. Add a little more tomato  paste if you need to balance that.

And my herb is dried, but this is January and I had no fresh thyme. I don’t mind using dried thyme. If you do use fresh triple the quantity. Some herbs I don’t care for dried, specifically cilantro. And I will only use dried parsley for color,  usually in stew. Something like oregano I find actually benefits from being dried.

Upcoming

Join me tomorrow for Soup Swappers as I am hosting a pho-nomenal soup event (Did you see what I did there?) I am sharing my recipe for crockpot bone broth and Pho Bo Vien, which is a soup with both meatballs and sliced beef. I have some really cool Vietnamese herbs to show you as well that I was lucky enough to snag.

Enjoy the pasta. And don’t forget to click the blue froggy below to see the recipe link up.

~s

Creamy Cajun Shrimp Pasta

Creamy Cajun Shrimp Pasta

Sue Lau

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Prep Time 18 minutes mins

Cook Time 12 minutes mins

Course Main Dish, Pasta

Cuisine American

Ingredients

  

• 1 pound large shrimp   peeled and cleaned
• 6 ounces smoked Andouille sausage sliced
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 large onion sliced
• 1 green bell pepper sliced
• 3 cloves garlic chopped
• 2 teaspoons Cajun spice
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 cup chopped green onion
• 1 to mato diced
• Tabasco sauce to taste
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 16 ounces uncooked linguine pasta cooked according to package directions

Instructions

 

• Cook linguine in boiling salted water according to package directions, then drain and set aside.
• Heat butter in a large deep skillet and add the onion, bell pepper and garlic. Cook until semi-soft.
• Add the sausage to the pan along with the Cajun spice, paprika, black pepper and thyme. Cook to lightly brown the sausage.
• Whisk the cornstarch, tomato paste and chicken broth together and add to pan. Cook over moderate heat, stirring, until mixture thickens (about one minute after it begins to bubble).
• Stir the shrimp, green onion, tomato and Tabasco into the sauce, cooking until the shrimp curl lightly.
• Stir in the cream. When it is hot, remove from heat and stir in the cheese,
• Toss with hot cooked pasta and serve.

Notes

From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com

Keyword cajun shrimp pasta, cramy cajun sauce

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Fish Friday Foodies

Out of the Shell and Into the Pan

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