Classic Shrimp Scampi

Perfect, except.......USE THE SHELLS!!! The shrimp shells are wonderful flavor enhancers and should not be discarded-simmer the shells in the wine (add some extra wine) for ~10 minutes, strain and then discard the shells, and use the enriched wine in the recipe. Double the flavor!

JimF from Sewell

A lot of the "too little sauce" comments I see seem to reflect a missing step in the recipe: you'll notice the sauce doesn't really stick to the pasta so it feels like you have too little sauce.

You'll want to add half a cup of the cooked pasta water to the pan after adding the wine. The starch in the pasta water thickens the sauce a tiny bit and permits it to cling to the pasta. If you do this, you'll want to add 1-2 more tbsp of butter (or olive oil)

This is a terrific recipe. If you double the wine you have plenty of sauce. But less to drink.

USE THE SHELLS!!! The shrimp shells are wonderful flavor enhancers and should not be discarded-simmer the shells in the wine (add some extra wine) for ~10 minutes, strain and then discard the shells, and use the enriched wine in the recipe. Double the flavor!

simmer the shells in the wine (add some extra wine) for ~10 minutes, strain and then discard the shells, and use the enriched wine in the recipe.
add half a cup of the cooked pasta water to the pan after adding the wine. The starch in the pasta water thickens the sauce a tiny bit and permits it to cling to the pasta. If you do this, you'll want to add 1-2 more tbsp of butter (or olive oil)

This is a great recipe. However, cannot over emphasize the importance of the shrimp shell and wine stock. It makes the dish.

Make a quick shrimp stock which REALLY ups the shrimp flavor. Just sauté some shallot, add the shrimp shells and give them a quick turn, add some water/wine and herbs if you'd like, bring to a boil and simmer to taste. Very quick, very simple and makes a huge difference in the flavor. Also use wild gulf shrimp -- even frozen ones will give you the best flavor.

I've tried plenty of Scampi recipes more complex than this, but none as good. This is the quintessence of minimalist Italian cooking. I like it with rice instead of pasta, add some saffron if you want, or better yet, just bread, and some extra butter.

I just made this! Because everyone said there wasn't enough sauce, I made a few adjustments. I used 3/4 a cup of wine and let it simmer an extra minute. I also used the juice of a whole lemon and the zest of it. when it was done, I added my pasta to the pan of sauce, in addition to two-three spoonfuls of the pasta water to help thicken it. it was perfect!!!

Put shells in sauce pan with half cup of white wine, simmered while prepping the rest. Strained liquid and added to Skillet for more sauce. Used fresh hot pepper instead of flakes.

Followed suggestions to simmer shells in wine, and definitely agree that it's worth the hassle of cleaning your own shrimp. Used about 2 cups of wine for 1 lb of shrimps along with some water. The sauce had so much flavor! Everyone wanted more!

So very good.
To those who didn't have enough sauce for pasta, we increased all of the sauce ingredients by about half as the pasta does soak it up quite a bit.

Made for dinner tonight- 1 lb shrimp over 8 oz linguini for 2 of us. Added shallots and used lobster stock in lieu of wine (Better than Bouillion). Kept all else the same so we had enough to sauce the pasta. Will repeat. Husband said best scampi since we dined at Sal's in P'towne.

Use American wild caught shrimp--better flavor and no queasy thoughts about how the shrimp were raised and processed.

Nice, quick recipe. Only problem is that there is very little sauce. I think next time I would use some clam juice in the butter, oil, wine, mixture so that there would be more sauce.