I just had my 34th birthday on Sunday and I really wanted seafood! But I didn’t feel like taking all our kids and fighting the crowd. I choose instead to try out my own Shrimp dish. And this is what I came up with… Cajun Shrimp & Sausage Pasta! AND YES IT WAS AWESOME!!!!! (ok maybe not the price of shrimp but everything else was pretty inexpensive)
Y’all it really is not that hard to make a restaurant dish at home. Just a little extra effort (like cleaning and deveining shrimp). If you can chop something up you can make this dish!
I started by cleaning and deveining 2 lbs of shrimp. You could always use 1/2 to 1 lb of shrimp because this fed 4 of us then another 4 the next day.
And chopped some good quality sausage (already cooked).
Next, I chopped up my vegetables. So pretty!
Then I sautéed a little minced garlic in butter and added my shrimp & sausage along with my blackening seasoning, salt & pepper.
After the shrimp cooked, I added my vegetables to the pan. Look at the color!
Give that a good cook. Added a little cream & freshly grated parmigiano reggiano as well as a fresh squeeze of lime.
Have your water boiling & salted, ready for the penne pasta (I buy Dreamfield pasta because the carbs are more digestible).
Once the pasta is finished put in a big serving dish & grate fresh parm over the top.
Everything should be coming together perfectly. You will need to let your shrimp/cream/veggie sauce simmer for 15 to 20 minutes to get that creamy texture you want… if it doesn’t happen fast enough, you could always just add more grated parm cheese.
Pour your shrimp sausage mixture over the top of the pasta.
Add a little more fresh grated cheese & freshly chopped basil to the top. Oh my!!! SO good!!!!!
This is an S meal if you are following the Trim Healthy Mama plan!
CAJUN SHRIMP & SAUSAGE PASTA
by Sarah Criddle
serves: 6-8 people
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Ingredients:
2 lbs of shrimp (cleaned & deveined)
1 lb of sausage (already cooked)
4 to 6 cups or more of baby spinach
3 cloves of garlic
1 red bell pepper
1 cup of baby tomatoes cut in half
1 stick of butter
1/3 to 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream
1 cup of fresh parmigiano reggiano grated
1 small handful of fresh basil leaves chopped thin
blackening seasoning & salt to taste
2 boxes Dreamfield penne pasta (you will have pasta left over so you could do just one but it will serve a little less)
Directions:
Clean, devein shrimp. Cut up the sausage into chunk size. Melt half of the butter in a sauté pan. Chop up your garlic till minced. Add garlic to the butter, cook for 5 minutes.
Boil water for pasta with 1 tbsp. salt. Add your shrimp, sausage, seasoning, & salt to melted butter. Stir. Chop tomatoes and red bell pepper. Place tomatoes, bell pepper,& spinach into the shrimp & sausage mixture & stir. Cook for at least 5 minutes then add your heavy whipping cream, along with 1/2 cup of parm. Let that simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Cook, drain, & place the pasta in a big serving bowl. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of parm over the top. Once your shrimp mixture has thickened add to the pasta. Sprinkle the rest of the parm on top & add your finely chopped basil. Serve hot (although the next day I ate it cold & it was awesome too) and ENJOY!!!
So So good. My store didn’t have the penne pasta, so I used Dreamfields macaroni. One box was plenty. I also bought the small pre cooked and cleaned Shrimp. Using the small meant each plate had a lot of shrimp in it. My family of four with two teenagers had seconds and there was a lot left over.
YAY!!!! I LOVE it!!! 🙂
Making this for dinner tonight!!! Couldn’t find dream fields so regular pasta for my family and served over sauteed veggies for me. Can’t wait!!
AWESOME!!!!!!! Hope you liked it!!
Just curious, how can this be an “s” with so much pasta, do you just limit the pasta intake to keep the carb count right?
Yes, it’s Dreamfields pasta which is formulated to be less harsh on your blood sugar. It used to read on the box how much the countable carb count was but they changed that. Anyway, I believe we can have a cup of DREAMFIELDS in an S meal or you can even use spaghetti squash!!
I made this for dinner tonight for the first time and it was phenomenal! Pretty sure this is the first time I have ever commented on a recipe blog post, but MAN. It was THAT GOOD. Thank you!
Thank you soooo much for telling me!! Made my night!! 🙂
This was a nice break from chicken and salmon!! Just wondering where the other half of the stick of butter is used? In the list of ingredients it calls for a stick of butter. However, I only used half to sauté the garlic, etc and didn’t see where to use the other half. Regardless, it was delish! Thanks for sharing.
Hmm… I will love over the recipe… I probably added it in with the heavy whip to make the sauce!
I was wondering the same thing about the butter, I just put it in with the mixture. It smells heavenly, I can’t wait to taste it!
Yay!!! 🙂
This was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank You for the recipe!!!!
YAY!! I love love this recipe! 🙂
Holy Moly!! I can’t even stand how delicious this was! My picky, picky Meat-and-Potatoes husband loved it. All of my (4) boys loved it. Two of them don’t like shrimp, but they just picked it out. This was amazing – thank you, thank you, thanks you!!!
Thank you!! I LOVE this dish too! I’m so glad your family liked it!
I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of blackening seasoning, where do I find it? I’d really like to try this dish.
It’s more of a Cajun seasoning… just look for a Cajun seasoning! 🙂
This was delicious!!! So hard to believe it’s a good for me S meal 😉 one question—in your pictures you show squeezing a lime, but then you don’t mention it in the actual recipe—-would it work either way?
Thanks!
Hmmmm… I probably did squeeze it into the sauce but you can leave it out… I actually don’t remember using it! haha!
This was delicious! I whipped it up quickly with whatever I already had on hand since we just got back from a trip an hour before dinner. I only had one sausage and some chopped up bacon so I used that instead, plus I used Parmesan in a can since I didn’t have any fresh. Also used dreamfields angel hair pasta because it’s what I had. And I used broccoli instead of spinach. Seems like I changed a lot, but I think it still had the heart of what you created. It was all so tasty! Husband approved for sure. Thank you again for a great recipe!
YAY!!!! I love this recipe! Love the creamy cheesiness of it!
Can’t wait to try this. Thank you!
One question- I can’t find the place to pin this on Pinterest- help!
Hmmm, you should be able too. If you go to pinterest and follow me http://www.pinterest.com/mrssarahcriddle you should see my Mrs. Criddle’s Kitchen board and this will be in it!