Shells Garlic Shrimp Pasta

Shells Shrimp and Garlic Pasta comes from a very popular Florida restaurant chain. This is one of their most requested recipes. This is a quick and easy dish to make at home.

a skillet of garlic shrimp pasta


Easy Garlic Shrimp Pasta

Anyone can make this recipe at home. One taste and you’ll want to put this on your weekly menu. Do you enjoy recipe videos? I made one of this recipe so you can see how to make it. Scroll down to the recipe card to find the video and watch it.

A Popular Shells restaurant recipe

Shells is a very popular Florida restaurant chain renowned for its great seafood in a casual setting. This delicious shrimp pasta dish is one of their most requested pasta recipes. Many of us don’t live near Shells, but you can make this classic dish at home.

Succulent shrimp in a creamy wine and garlicky sauce pairs nicely with linguine. It’s quick and easy, and dinner will be ready in no time.

In this dish, the pasta is clearly present. But you won’t feel like you’re eating a giant heap of mostly linguine with a few scarce shrimp dotted sparsely about as though they’ve been rationed.

When you make this shrimp and pasta recipe, you’ll feel like a chef in a fancy restaurant. Even though what you’re actually doing is just cooking noodles and enjoying a little wine.

This pasta recipe is ideal for all kinds of occasions. Maybe you just need a simple meal for a weeknight (always!)? Perhaps you plan to prepare dinner for that special someone? This is the perfect dish for that February holiday that begins with a “V” and ends in chocolate!

You can reuse this garlic sauce on other seafood pasta recipes. It’s a classic and will go with lobster and crab too.

Ingredients

  • Linguine pasta
  • Butter
  • Shrimp
  • White wine
  • Olive Oil
  • Garlic
  • Salt and Pepper
  • Heavy Cream
  • Soy Sauce
shrimp, garlic, cream, and pasta

How to Make Garlic Shrimp Pasta

  1. Add the linguine and butter to a pot of salted boiling water and cook until almost al dente. Drain and set aside.
  2. In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, combine wine, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, heavy cream, and soy sauce.
  3. Stir in the shrimp then add the linguine.
  4. Stir gently for a few minutes until the shrimp are done and the linguine is fully cooked.

Do not overdo the soy sauce

Be very careful with the soy sauce. You only need two dashes for the entire pan. But don’t skip it either. You might think, “oh just two dashes? I’ll just leave it out.” But the soy sauce adds the depth and saltiness that makes it taste like the sauce from Shells Restaurant.

Can You Use Frozen Shrimp?

Many people keep frozen shrimp on hand as a staple, so you don’t have to be a seafood purist. You can buy frozen raw shrimp with the tails, shells, and veins removed, and save yourself oodles of time.

Frozen shrimp thaw quickly and cook in less than four minutes. Also, unless you live near the ocean, the “fresh” shrimp you buy at the supermarket has usually arrived frozen and are then thawed prior to being sold.

What type of pasta can you use?

If you want the garlic shrimp pasta to taste like the one from Shells Restaurant, then use linguine noodles. If you don’t have linguine noodles. you can use fettucini noodles instead. I’ve seen recipes use angel hair pasta too. Feel free to be creative and try different types of pasta and see which you like best.

How long do you cook shrimp?

This depends on whether you buy raw or pre-cooked shrimp. Raw shrimp usually takes about 5 minutes to fully cook. You will know it’s cooked all the way when it is nice and pink, like in my pictures.

Recommended Tools

  • I love a pot with a removable strainer insert. It makes draining the pasta easy.
  • You can use a knife to finely chop the garlic, but a garlic press makes the job much easier.
a skillet filled with shrimp and garlic pasta

More Shrimp and Pasta Recipes

Popular Shellfish Recipes

Be sure to check out more of my easy seafood recipes and the best copycat pasta recipes.

Let me know what your favorite shrimp pasta dish is. I love hearing from my readers.

a skillet of garlic shrimp pasta

Shells Shrimp and Garlic Pasta

Shells Shrimp and Garlic Pasta is soo good. This shrimp pasta is so deliciously doable that you can cook it with confidence and success.
4.96 from 22 votes
Print Pin Rate Add to Collection
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Seafood
Keyword: Shrimp
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Servings: 6
Calories: 704kcal

Ingredients

  • 8 ounces linguine
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 pound shrimp — cleaned and halved
  • 1/2 cup Olive oil
  • 1/2 cup dry White Wine
  • 8 cloves garlic — crushed
  • 2 dashes soy sauce
    DO NOT OVERDO
  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Add the linguine and butter to a pot of salted boiling water and cook until almost al dente. Drain and set aside. 
  • In a large saucepan, combine the wine, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper, heavy cream and soy sauce. Stir in the shrimp then add the linguine. Over medium-high heat, stir gently for a few minutes until the shrimp are done and the linguine is fully cooked. 
  • Serve immediately. This dish will seem a little runny at first but will set up and turn into a wonderful sauce. 

Video

Nutrition

Calories: 704kcal | Carbohydrates: 32g | Protein: 22g | Fat: 52g | Saturated Fat: 23g | Cholesterol: 309mg | Sodium: 655mg | Potassium: 234mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 1285IU | Vitamin C: 4.8mg | Calcium: 178mg | Iron: 2.3mg

About Stephanie Manley

I recreate your favorite restaurant recipes, so you can prepare these dishes at home. I help you cook dinner, and serve up dishes you know your family will love. You can find most of the ingredients for all of the recipes in your local grocery store.

Stephanie is the author of CopyKat.com's Dining Out in the Home, and CopyKat.com's Dining Out in the Home 2.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jesse Skeens

    5 stars
    Thanks for the tip about the beef bullion. I had a friend who worked at Shells about 15 years ago and he mentioned something about a broth being a secret. I think he also said they precooked the pasta but I never tried those two tips.

    I marinated pasta that was cooked 7 min in about 30ml each of oil and wine and half a cube of paste. I forgot the garlic so added it at the end of cooking. I then put 120ml of cream in the pan and cooked it with the raw shrimp. I ended up adding a little extra wine, maybe another 30ml and then some garlic plus the rest of the cube of paste.

    This was all for about 130g of uncooked linguine, one serving.

    It came out excellent and was probably the best rendition of this recipe I’ve had. I’ve been using this site’s recipe for about 15 years too and now I finally can make it the way it used to taste.

  2. michael

    Worked at Shells in the 90’s – one of the key ingredients missing that I don’t see anyone mentioning is saffron. I think they added it to the cream/marinade for the pasta.

  3. Mindy

    5 stars
    This recipe is so good! I made one small change, I I used fresh pasta, and since it cooks so fast, I cooked it in the pasta sauce with the shrimp, it only added a couple minutes to the cooking time.

  4. Mary

    5 stars
    Awesome! I added a beef bullion square (big one – Knorr’s) to the olive oil, garlic and wine and let it pretty much dissolve before adding the cream. Also tossed one in the pot that I cooked the pasta in. I feel like it added some depth.

  5. Carlie

    Let me tell you I marinated my pasta and the white wine olive oil beef bouillon and garlic mixture like the person who worked at Shell said to game changer!!!! I also added a little bit of beef bouillon to my sauce let me tell you the flavor was off-the-charts good my boyfriend who never likes when I make this recipe suddenly loves it and wants me to make it more.

  6. Matt G

    I worked prep at Shells many years ago. The secret is that they pre-cook pasta, cool it down and then MARINATE the pasta for hours before service. Marinate base is wine, olive oil, garlic and beef bullion past

    • James

      HI Matt – Shells is one of my all time favorite places ever – I went so often. What do you mean by beef bullion past? If you have any more details you would share i would appreciate it. I am also looking for the recipe for Shell’s Shrimp Diablo.

  7. jen p

    5 stars
    I’ve tried this three times – with the video and with recipe alone. I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong. It smells like the real thing but the taste of off. Do you use regular white garlic and just chop it? I love Shell’s – we go there all the time. If I get this right – I will be so excited!!

  8. Joann Flynn

    5 stars
    This was amazing! Tastes just like the restaurant, made it exactly as she did in the video. Do you happen to know the baby lobster pasta recipe from the restaurant, or even the clam chowder recipe? These are also a favorite in our house. Thank you!

  9. James McNulty

    5 stars
    Well, I cut recipe in half, and to make a “one pot” meal out of your tasty recipe, I added the following:
    1. An ounce or 2 extra ounces of pasta. 4 ounces seemed so little. In the end, recipe made service for 4.
    2. 1 Tbsp E.V.O.O. & 1 Tbsp BUTTER used in lieu of ¼ cup E.V.O.O. [Fat reduction 50%]
    3. 2 or 3 Tbsp chopped WHITE ONIONS
    4. 2 Tbsp PINE NUTS – fry in pot with ONIONS above.
    5. ¼ – 1/3 cup chopped red BELL PEPPER
    6. 1 cup mixed frozen MIXED VEGETABLES.
    7. 6 – 8 CHERRY TOMATOES
    8. 1 heaping tsp RANCH DRESSING POWDER
    9. Instead of 8 ounces of shrimp, used 10 ounce (60% – 40%) of LANGOSTINO and 31 – 40 SHRIMP – split down the middle. Used an extra 2 ounces as so much added water is released when Langostinos/shrimps thawed.
    10. ¼ or a third cup of chopped PARSLEY added at the end.
    11. Because of Dannella’s Lactose allergy, used ½ cup whole Lactose free milk and a couple Tbsp of SOUR CREAM [after heat turned off] in lieu of heavy cream.
    12. As it was too thin after cooking, added a coupe tsp WONDRA FLOUR to thicken just before serving.
    13. Added a small handful of ROMANO SHREDDED CHEESE right at the end stirred into pasta. Shredded ROMANO also sprinkled on top of finished dishes at serving.
    14. If you don’t have frozen MIXED VEGETABLES, use Broccoli or frozen Peas.
    15. A nice add if you have, would be halved GREEK or KALAMATRA OLIVES.

    My wife and I both loved it and will make again. Thanks for posting such a great recipe
    :

  10. Lilly

    5 stars
    This was exactly like Shells restaurant Shrimp pasta, I was so happy to be able to make it at home!!! Delicious! Thank you for posting!!! 🙂

  11. Angelina

    4 stars
    I made this several times, & we all love it (4 kids & 3 adults. I double the recipe, so that we have enough for ‘seconds’. I sometimes add fresh spinach when I have some. I would like to say that adding butter (or oil) into the pasta cooking water is a definite NO-NO!. If the pasta is slippery, the sauce won’t stick to it! If you’re worried about your pasta sticking together, use the correct ratio of pasta to water, which is: 4 quarts of salted water to 1 lb. of pasta. This is from an Italian cook (me), who was brought up cooking pasta in my parents’ restaurant. Also, cook your pasta ‘al dente’ (not soft & mushy) for best enjoyment.

  12. Tina Giaramita

    Just curious as to what type of dry white wine you used (ex:
    Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, or even a sparkling wine, etc…)
    This recipe sounds amazing, and I can’t wait to try it!
    I love this website – been enjoying the recipes here for several years!
    Thank you!

  13. Bob

    Shells base for its shrimp scampi also called for a little beef base. For the shrimp pasta, they just added cream to the scampi base.

  14. S Holmes

    5 stars
    Spent many years in south Florida and eaten at Shell restaurant. My favorite dish is the shrimp pasta. This recipe is spot on.

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