The summer holidays have ended, we’re now looking towards the start of a new school session. Creamy Cajun shrimp pasta is just what you need for nourishment at the end of the day on a school night. This scrumptious meal is quick and easy to prepare; and bursting with flavours.
The key to this recipe is home-made Cajun seasoning. The Cajun spice blend is easy to make and calls for kitchen staple spices, so you can’t go wrong. Some Cajun seasoning recipes call for salt, but I prefer to add salt to my cooking. You can also adjust the heat, based on your preference; all you need to do is reduce or increase the chilli pepper in the mix.
I recommend that you keep different spices and herbs in your cupboard; so, you can make spice blends easily, when required. This is better as you can adapt the mixture to your taste. You can also make just enough spice mix to last a few times; which saves on those forgotten jars at the back of the cupboard.
Back to the topic of the delicious Cajun shrimp pasta…The creamy coating on the pasta is slightly spicy, which gives just the right amount of kick, without being too overpowering. The peppers add some colour to this recipe; and the mushrooms? Well, it is one of my favourite vegetables and somehow finds its way into a lot of my cooking. I hope you enjoy this Cajun pasta as much as we do. Jerk Pasta is another super tasty combination of pasta with a spice blend.
How To Prepare Cajun Shrimp Pasta
This is a very adaptable recipe. You can use your preferred pasta shape. You can cook with or without vegetables; and you can add vegetables that you like. You can even adjust the heat of the dish.
I added some cream to give some creaminess to balance the spiciness of the dish while making sure it is not too rich.
Cajun Shrimp Pasta
Ingredients
Home-Made Cajun Seasoning Recipe
- 1 teaspoon Smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon Garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon Onion powder
- ½ teaspoon Thyme
- ½ teaspoon Oregano
- ½ teaspoon Black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon Chilli pepper
Cajun Pasta
- 250 g Linguine
- 2 tablespoons Oil
- 200 g Shrimps
- ½ cup Chopped onions
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 1 Red pepper Red pepper sliced thinly
- 1 Green pepper sliced thinly
- 1 Yellow sliced thinly
- 75 g Mushroom sliced thinly
- ½ can Chopped tomatoes
- ¼ cup Stock
- 2 tablespoons Double cream
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Cook the pasta in salted water, following pack instructions. Rinse under cold water and allow to drain while preparing other ingredients.
- Mix all the Cajun seasoning ingredients in a bowl.
- Add 1 tablespoon of the seasoning to the shrimps and allow to marinate for 10 mins.
- Add the oil to a pan and cook the shrimps on both sides until browned.
- Remove from the shrimps from the pan.
- Add the onions, garlic, peppers and mushroom into the pan, with 1 tablespoon of the seasoning.
- Saute for 1 min, while stirring continuously.
- Pour the tomatoes into the pan along with the stock, scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the caramelised goodness stuck to it.
- Allow to cook for 5 mins.
- Add in some salt and the double cream and allow to simmer under low heat until the liquid starts to thicken. This should take about 5 mins..
- Remove from heat.
- Toss the pasta and shrimps into the creamy sauce and mix thoroughly.
Notes
Nutrition
Why not try;
I'm always interested in recipes that use up the spices hanging out in the pantry- I'm a big fan of curries, but I've never really thought of spices featuring in pasta like this. The spice blend recipe was really useful and I even used a shake of it on something else before trying the pasta recipe.
For the pasta dish, I made a lot of substitutions based on what I had on hand and it still came out pretty good. It also made a good leftover since the spices could really sink into the pasta. The cream at the end doesn't make the dish particularly creamy, but seemed to help all the spices stick to the pasta.
Thanks for the feedback as usual. I'm a fan of adapting recipes to use what you have at home, so I'm glad you did that with good results on this recipe.