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
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
Fish Friday Foodies
Out of the Shell and Into the Pan
Be sure to check out the other Fish Friday Foodies Bloggers this month!
Would you like to join Fish Friday Foodies? We post and share new seafood/fish recipes on the third Friday of the month. To join our group please email Wendy at wendyklik1517@gmail.com. Visit our Facebook page and Pinterest page for more wonderful fish and seafood recipe ideas.
That right there is a big bowl of comfort during this looonnnnng coooooold winter.
Sounds great, Sue. I actually make and smoke my own Andouille. I’ll thaw some and make this pasta! <3 P~
Sue, this looks fantastic. Thanks for joining me. I might have everything I need to make this tonight. If not, I’ll make a shopping list for this weekend!
This looks and sounds delicious! I’m jealous of your Shun knives too!
I’ve been buying them one at a time for a long time. Makes the price easier to swallow
I assembled my Wusthof collection the same way =)
A delicious meal, love the combo of shrimp and sausage.
I like the hint of using evaporated milk…I’m going to have to incorporate that into my cooking since we’re trying to eat a wee bit healthier around here lately!!!
I have some leftover Andouille sausage in the freezer after making jambalaya – might have to give this a go to use it up!
This made for a seriously delicious dinner. Thank you!
Made for Susie’s World tour
This was wonderful! We loved the sausage and shrimp combo. It worked really well with the noodles and sauce. My only tweak for next time will be to add a touch more corn starch to make the sauce a little thicker. The flavor combinations were perfect! Thank you!