Seafood Pasta (Pasta of the Month, July 2024)

This post may contain affiliate links. As Amazon Associates and through other affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases if you click on a link – at no extra cost to you. We only promote products we actually use and truly love!

A creamy seafood pasta recipe with a Southwest veggie medley and shrimp that comes together in about 30 to 45 minutes.

This recipe is inspired by one of the best seafood pasta recipes I’ve ever had. I had it for dinner at a hotel restaurant in Big Sur the night Alex and I got engaged – and that meal was memorable for more reasons than one! The Southwest inspired flavors of this creamy seafood pasta stuck with me, and I’ve been determined to recreate it ever since.

Our seafood pasta features a creamy chipotle sauce that’s surprisingly light, brightened by lemon juice and fresh veggies like tomato, corn, peppers, and onions. There’s more chipotle flavor than heat to this dish, so it’s not too spicy. Overall, it’s a really fun fusion recipe inspired by the flavors of California and the southwest, and it’s perfect for summer!

What This Recipe Entails

To make our seafood pasta recipe, you’ll prepare a vegetable medley with a chipotle cream sauce, and reheat precooked shrimp to serve on top.

• Prep time: 10 to 15 minutes
• Cook time: 10 to 30 minutes (10 minutes to boil pasta, 10 minutes to cook the veggies and sauce, and 10 minutes to heat the shrimp)

If you can handle cooking the pasta, sauce, and shrimp all at once, you can make this pasta dinner in under 30 minutes. But if you’d prefer not to juggle multiple pots and pans at the same time, it will take about 45 minutes total.

Seafood Pasta Ingredients

Our seafood pasta recipe is made with a creamy chipotle sauce, a Southwest inspired vegetable medley, and shrimp. Here’s what you’ll need to make this creamy seafood pasta:

• Pappardelle
• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Red bell pepper
• White onion
• Sweet cherry tomatoes
• Frozen whole kernel corn
• Frozen green peas
• Sea salt
• Heavy cream
• Parmesan cheese
• Cotija cheese
• Chipotle purée (chipotles in adobo, puréed in the food processor)
• Lemon
• Butter
• Precooked shrimp, fresh or frozen
• Cilantro

We chose pappardelle for our seafood pasta since the super thick noodles hold onto the cream sauce well, and make it easier to scoop up all the veggies. We don’t recommend swapping this out for another type of pasta, but in a pinch you can use a thick noodle like fettuccine or linguine.

Precooked shrimp makes this seafood pasta recipe super easy! We like to buy frozen shrimp and then defrost just the right amount for dinner when making recipes like this one. A little bit of time on the stove in some butter, and it’s just as flavorful as freshly cooked shrimp.

For the chipotle purée, buy a can of chipotles in adobo and pulverize the contents in a food processor. You won’t end up using all of it for this recipe, but you can keep it in the fridge for about 1 to 2 months and use it in any recipe that calls for chipotles in adobo. You can also make it into a delicious hot sauce by blending it with white vinegar, lime juice, and garlic!

How To Make Seafood Pasta

To make our seafood pasta recipe, you’ll need to prepare three components: the pappardelle, the veggie medley with chipotle cream sauce, and the shrimp.

Here are detailed instructions for how to make seafood pasta:

1. First, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pappardelle and cook until al dente, about 10 minutes. Reserve about a quarter cup of pasta water, then drain and set aside.
2. In the meantime, heat olive oil in a large frying pan over medium. Add the garlic, pepper, onion, corn, and peas and season with a pinch of sea salt. Sauté until soft, about 5 minutes.
3. Next, add the cherry tomatoes and cook for another minute or two.
4. Then, turn the heat to medium-low and add the heavy cream. Stir in the parmesan and cotija cheese until melted, then stir in the chipotle purée and lemon juice. Add another pinch of salt, stir, and adjust lemon juice and salt to taste. Keep warm over low heat.
5. In a separate, small frying pan, add the butter and shrimp and cook over medium-high heat for about 8 to 10 minutes, flipping once or twice during cooking.
6. Finally, add the pappardelle to the sauce and stir gently to combine. Add a splash of pasta water to help the sauce cling.
7. Plate the pasta topped with shrimp and garnished with grated cotija cheese and fresh cilantro. Squeeze extra lemon juice over the dish before serving.

If you can manage having multiple pots and pans going at once, you can make the veggies/sauce and shrimp while the pasta boils. Each of these components takes about the same time to cook, so if you tackle them all at once it will only take about 10 minutes for this dish to come together.

If you don’t want to pay attention to all of these ingredients at the same time, we recommend focusing just on the veggies and sauce while the pasta boils (since you don’t need to pay that much attention to the pasta), and then keeping the sauce warm while you cook the shrimp. Give the sauce a stir every few minutes while it’s sitting there to make sure it stays evenly heated through.

Make sure to hit each dish with an extra squeeze of lemon juice before serving. This simple yet crucial step adds extra acid to the dish, which brings out the flavor of the shrimp!

Tip: Setting your mise en place before cooking this recipe will help make it super easy to follow and ensure the best results! If you don’t know this term, check out our article that covers what mise en place is and why it’s important here.

Seafood Pasta Serving Suggestions

Like any pasta dinner, this seafood pasta goes great with a side salad or fresh bread and dipping oils.

We love trying unique olive oil and balsamic vinegar flavors with fusion recipes like this one. We served this dinner with chipotle olive oil and mango balsamic, with artisan bread for dipping, and it was the perfect side dish!

Storing and Reheating Leftovers

Our seafood pasta recipe only plates the shrimp on top of the pasta, instead of mixing it in, so that you can store leftovers without the seafood component. This will make the leftovers last much longer!

Store leftover seafood pasta (pasta, veggies, and sauce only – no shrimp) in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. Reheat single servings for about 2 minutes in the microwave, stirring halfway through, and serve with freshly cooked shrimp.