Shrimp Scampi Pasta with Creamy Lemon Sauce

If you love creamy lemon pasta like I do, you are in the right place. This recipe is also quick and easy, the only downside is the amount of pots and pans used. However, the end result is well worth the extra dishes! Plus if you are the one cooking, someone else should do the dishes, right?! This shrimp scampi pasta came about when I really wanted something for dinner that was comforting and for something citrusy. So far, this is my favorite pasta I can just eat whenever!

I grew up eating lots of pasta, but when learning about how processed conventional grains are (at least in the U.S.), I began shifting my focus on food. Now, I hardly even eat pasta, but it’s making a comeback in my life now cause one, for me personally, I don’t crave it anymore, and two, there’s clean pasta out there. So when I do eat pasta, I don’t get the bloatedness grossness. My hope is you’ll give this amazing creamy lemon shrimp scampi pasta a try, fall in love, and feel good.

What is Shrimp Scampi?

Well “scampi” means large prawns or shrimp in Italian. Shrimp Scampi is basically the American version of how Italians cook these types of crustaceans. That is with butter and garlic mainly. We could also just call this the Shrimp Shrimp pasta, it does have a nice ring to it. Shrimp Scampi can just be the shrimp or in this version, with pasta and can’t forget that creamy lemon sauce!

That Creamy Lemon Sauce

This sauce uses goat cheese as the main ingredient for the creaminess. But why goat cheese? Is it clean dairy? First off, goat cheese is softer than cow cheese, it also has a tanginess which goes perfectly with the lemon in this sauce. It makes for a delicious sauce where the lemon and goat cheese compliment each other. Goat cheese is also much lower in lactose than conventional cow cheese which makes it easier to digest for most people. Besides being tasty, it’s packed with more vitamins (like A, B, calcium, magnesium, and potassium) than cow cheese.

It is considered a clean cheese because goat farms are typically small and goats are foragers that help eat weeds and things cows don’t typically eat. They are more humanely treated and are free to roam and eat their natural diet. Hopefully more conventional dairy farms will follow suit as many of the practices at these farms are horrendous. Still, you can find a few humane dairy farms that believe in sustainability, and ethically and humanely treating animals. I recommend giving the goat cheese a try if you haven’t really used it before! Here’s what you will need for the sauce:  

• Butter
• Shallots
• Garlic
• Goat Cheese
• Oat Milk (or choice milk, almond is also great)
• Italian Seasoning
• Lemon Juice
• Lemon Zest

The Pasta

For this I like using the spaghetti or angel hair, but if you like elbow or fusili noodles go for it! My favorite gluten free pasta I have tried is the Jovial brown rice pasta. Or in this case, I recommend the Jovial Cassava Flour Spaghetti noodles. If you have ever substituted pasta for gluten free and it just has a weird taste or is not the same, I feel you! I’ve been there too, so when I came across Jovial, I was very impressed. Maybe you use it too?!

If there’s another amazing pasta you’ve tried, please share! And this is not brand advertisement, I just want to share it with you because this is my favorite pasta I’ve found that tastes like, well, pasta. Something else worth trying would be pasta straight from Italia! The grains are not genetically modified as it is heavily done so here, so pasta from Italy would work too and taste amazing.

Pasta Cooking Tips

Here are some tips to bring your pasta to the next level. It’s about the details!

1. When bringing the water to boil in a large pot, be generous with adding sea salt. Think about 1-2 tablespoons. In this recipe I also add some garlic powder to the pasta water. And yes, follow the instructions on the box. For Jovial I typically end up cooking the pasta an extra minute and find that the texture is perfect per my preference.
2. It’s good to follow the instruction time on the box and then taste a noodle to see if it’s to your liking or add another minute or two.
3. Save about 2 tablespoons of pasta water before straining the noodles.
4. Immediately add to the shrimp scampi sauce mixture (this is made first and ready for the pasta). Mixing the pasta in the sauce creates a more flavorful pasta while also keeping it from drying out. It’s called “mantecatura” (say that five times fast, and you’ve got to use your hands!) in Italian, the magic that happens when marrying pasta and the sauce. You can add the optional tablespoons of pasta water to the sauce as well. 

Serving and Garnishing the Shrimp Scampi Pasta

Serve the pasta while hot is the best way to eat any pasta! Enjoy it with love and with loved ones. Garnishes can add that extra extra that I’m all about over here. I have a black truffle finishing sea salt and this is one of those recipes where some sprinkled on top is like pixie dust magic. Some chopped parsley as always is money too. Buon appetito!

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