This Creamy Garlic Prawn Pasta is for all those nights when nothing but a creamy pasta will do! It’s the pasta version of Creamy Garlic Prawns – a creamy Alfredo sauce infused with garlic flavour tossed through with plump prawns (shrimp). Every pasta lovers’ dream come true!
Creamy Garlic Prawn Pasta
The weekend is here and we deserve a treat!!! Rather than heading out for dinner, I think you should make THIS luscious Creamy Garlic Prawn Pasta at home. 🙂
Yes it’s indulgent, but let me assure you, it’s a whole lot healthier than eating out. Because let’s face it – restaurant food is so good because it’s loaded with butter, oil and salt. I once went in search for a famous Mashed Potato recipe by Guillaume Brahimi, a renowned French Chef here in Australia, after having it at his restaurant. It’s made with 200g / 1 3/4 sticks butter for 600g / 1.2 lb of potato. THAT’S INSANE!!!!! I felt my arteries clogging up just reading the recipe!!!
So. This is rich but not crazy rich, you’ll certainly satisfy your creamy pasta craving but you won’t feel ill afterwards. 🙂 (Unless you have more than your fair share, which I cannot be held responsible for)
You don’t need gallons of cream for a great creamy pasta
This recipe serves 4 and is made with 1 1/4 cup of cream, which is just over 1/4 cups per serving. Which I think is actually a very reasonable amount for a cream pasta.
The sauce is thickened using a combination of freshly grated parmesan cheese and by emulsifying the sauce. If you’ve tried any of my other pasta recipes (like Bolognese, Shredded Beef Ragu, Tomato Prawn Pasta), you’d know that I (along with the entire nation of Italy) religiously do this mandatory step of tossing the pasta in the sauce on the stove with a splash of pasta cooking water. This makes the starch and fat in the sauce work its magic to thicken the sauce and makes it sticky so it clings to the pasta rather than sitting in a pool in the bottom of the skillet.
There’s no exception with creamy pastas. In fact, it’s most effective with creamy pastas because that’s how to thicken the sauce without using more and more cream.
Creamy pastas are so hard to shoot so you can see the creamy sauce coating the pasta. But do you see how there is no / little sauce pooled on the plate? That’s because it’s all on the pasta and prawns!
Best prawns for Creamy Prawn Pasta
I like making Creamy Garlic Prawn Pasta with small to medium prawns. (That’s shrimp, to those of you on the other side of the pond. 🙂 ) I find it easier to eat rather than jumbo sized prawns in pasta form, and you get more littered throughout. And because of this, I usually use (gasp, shock horror!) frozen peeled raw prawns.
I actually peeled fresh prawns when I made this the other day, pictured in the black skillet at the top of the post, and left the tail on. Which, for some reason, felt like I was making a point that the prawns are fresh ones I peeled myself, but in hindsight was completely impractical because it was such a pain to stop eating and pull the tail out of my mouth.
#FirstWorldProblems
Yes, peeling your own fresh prawns is better than using frozen. But because they are small, it is a pain so using frozen is completely acceptable – in my books. 🙂 Also, these days, you can get good quality frozen prawns even from grocery stores! (Look for Australian prawns, they are better quality).
After a non cream-based prawn pasta?
Try this Spicy Chilli Prawn Pasta with a tomato based sauce, or this Lemon Prawn Pasta, or my signature Restaurant-Worthy Prawn Linguine in Dinner (page 173) which features a stock made using the prawn shells.
If you’ve had a long week, I’m betting you are busting to get on that couch and flick on the TV to watch something that doesn’t require too much brain power. To complete that picture, all you need is a cozy bowl of homemade deliciousness and a glass of your favourite wine.
And in this vision I have, the cosy bowl of deliciousness is in the form of this Creamy Garlic Prawn Pasta. Get the water boiling, and you’ll be slurping this down in 20 minutes. (Wait a sec – that’s faster than take out!)
Happy weekend! – Nagi xx
PS One day, try the foil packet prawn and potato version of this recipe. Creamy garlic prawns + cheesy potatoes in a foil pack!
Watch how to make it
Note: The recipe has been updated to serve 4 rather than 3 – because who writes recipes for 3?! 🤭 Ingredients were scaled up accordingly then the only recipe step that changed to accomodate this was to cook the prawn in 2 batches rather than 1 because they won’t all fit in the pan in one go.
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Creamy Garlic Prawn Pasta
Ingredients
- 12 oz / 350g fettuccine , or other long strand pasta of choice
- 50 g / 3 tbsp unsalted butter , separated
- 500 g / 1 lb small or medium peeled prawns / shrimp , raw or 1kg / 2 lb whole unpeeled (Note 1)
- 4 garlic cloves , finely minced with a knife
- 1/2 cup Chardonnay or other dry white wine (Note 2 for sub)
- 1 1/4 cups heavy / thickened cream or regular cream, pouring cream etc, full fat (Note 3)
- 1/2 cup chicken broth (or fish or vegetable broth), preferably low sodium
- 3/4 cup (75 g) finely grated parmesan cheese (freshly grated) (Note 4)
- 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley , optional
- Black pepper
- Parmesan , for serving
Instructions
- Cook pasta – Bring to boil a large pot of water. Add a big pinch of salt and the pasta, then cook per packet MINUS 1 minute – it will finish cooking in the sauce later so we want it slightly under. (Note 5).
- Reserve water – Just before draining, scoop out 1 cup of pasta cooking water and set aside, we need this to thicken the sauce later. Drain pasta.
- Lightly cook prawns in 2 batches – Meanwhile, melt about 1/3 of the butter in a large non stick skillet over medium high heat. Add half the prawns, spread out, and cook for 1 1/2 minutes, then turn and toss using 2 spatulas for another 1 – 1 1/2 minutes until just barely cooked (the prawns will cook more in the sauce). Remove prawns into a bowl. Repeat – add half the remaining butter, cook the remaining prawns then remove.
- Sauté garlic – In the same skillet, add the remaining butter. Once melted, add the garlic and stir for 20 seconds until fragrant (don't let it burn, lower heat it needed).
- Deglaze – Add wine and stir. Simmer rapidly for 2 minutes, scraping the pan to dissolve any bits stuck to it into the liquid, until wine mostly evaporates (see video).
- Sauce – Add cream, broth and parmesan. Stir until the parmesan is melted, then leave to simmer for 1 1/2 minutes until it thickens slightly – it will still be quite watery though which is fine, it will thicken more in next step.
- Toss & thicken sauce – Add prawns, pasta plus about 1/4 cup of reserved pasta water. Toss pasta energetically (still on stove on medium high) and in 1 to 2 minutes, the sauce will thicken and start clinging to the pasta. It will seem like nothing is happening at first but trust the process, it will happen! If you take it too far and the sauce gets too thick, add a small splash of remaining reserved pasta cooking water to loosen and toss again (you can do this repeatedly as needed).
- Finish – Add most of the parsley and a grind of black pepper, taste and check if you need salt (I don't need more), then give it a quick toss.
- Serve immediately, garnished with remaining parsley and parmesan if desired.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Updated January 2026 to serve 4 rather than 3 (which is just an odd number, I am not sure what I was thinking!). Changes made were to cook the prawn in 2 batches rather than 1, and to sear the first side undisturbed, then toss with two spatulas to finish cooking through (turning one by one is a pain!).
More prawn (shrimp) pastas & risottos
And more ways to get your creamy pasta fix!
Fettucine Alfredo – also see One Pot Chicken Alfredo Pasta
Baked Mac and Cheese – and try the Shrimp version!
Browse all pasta recipes
Life of Dozer
He’s just the wrong colour.
The tip about using reserved pasta water to thicken the sauce instead of adding more cream is brilliant. I also like the advice to cook the prawns in two batches so they stay juicy rather than overcrowding the pan.
Appreciated the comment to trust the process- I did, and it did magically transform! I added spinach, mushrooms, and fresh diced tomatoes that I cooked ahead and set aside with the shrimp and recombined everything at the end. I also used 16 oz pasta. With the extra ingredients I bumped all the sauce ingredients up just a little bit and had plenty of sauce. This is a delicious and forgiving recipe.
Just WOW! Made the recipe as written; had linguine for the pasta & pinot grigio for the wine. Added an extra 100g of pasta as I know the teenaged son & husband will demolish.. I was right! And it didn’t seem dry, plenty of creamy sauce! So it fed 2 starving diners & me! Will happily make again as it’s already been requested to be added into the repertoire!!
This creamy garlic prawn pasta looks absolutely delicious! 🍝 The combination of juicy prawns, creamy garlic sauce, and tender pasta sounds like the perfect comforting meal. After a rich dish like this, I’d definitely be in the mood for something sweet from a bakery near me. I’d especially love to explore a mexican bakery near me or a panaderia near me for fresh pastries, conchas near me, and maybe even a slice of tres leches cake near me!
Such a delicious recipe. Made it twice now and it is great. Wife loves it!
Looking forward to trying these quick
recipes.
Love your recipes. You are my go to when I’m cooking something new. 👍👍👍
At this rate, Nagi, you could ask me to boil a stone & I would!!!! ALL your recipes that I have tried have been absolutely SPOT ON…..Thank you ever so much….! x
Absolutely loved this recipe. I doubled the garlic and it was a real winner.
Fantastic recipe. So simple, but fantastic result. Sublime. We made just one small adjustment – added a teaspoon of chilli flakes. Another brilliant recipe from Nagi.
Food
Another banger – thank you Nagi. Even my husband enjoyed it and he doesn’t really like seafood.
Can I just ask, what is probably a dumb question? For the no-wine-broth-substitute, is it still necessary to reduce it down like you would with the wine? I didn’t because I ran out of stock and it still worked fine but I just wondered if it would have been even better if I’d done that. I just can’t wrap my head around why you’d reduce the stock away and then add more stock.
Absolutely sensational. Wow! Thank you so much 🌸♥️
I was a little heavy handed on the garlic but my fiancé loved this. So simple and easy!
Made this recipe tonight for myself, my 13 yr old daughter and her friend, 5 stars across the board!
I used frozen cooked prawns with the tails on, next time i will remove the tails.. also due to my daughters friend not liking prawns, i added them at the end after i seperated her serve.
Absolutly first time playing with wine! I dont drink it so i had no idea what to buy.. i just bought a cheap bottle from aldi for $5 and it did the job, was fun exploring with this ingredient!
I noticed that for my family it lacked salt so i added more salt and more pepper.
Over all a great dish, i will adjust the amounts to feed my family cook it again!
If you dont like seafood i think ham or bacon with mushrooms would be nice instead of prawns.
Thankyou for sharing =)
I made this using what we had on hand, which was: fusilli pasta (we couldn’t find a long strand pasta), and king prawns (in fact they were labelled as ‘extra large’) which were pre-cooked, so I sautéed the garlic first, then briefly reheated the prawns, before adding in the rest of the ingredients. But even so, the pasta turned out absolutely delicious, I will definitely make this again!
Fantastic, very easy to will definitely do again. Threw a bag of spinach in to at least pretend it was healthy lol and it worked a treat
Absolutely delicious! I followed the recipe and it was incredible. Thank you 🙏 very much Nagi. I have both of your cookbooks they are amazing!
the meal was superb, although i do not know what grams mean, haha i don’t know if its as I’m an old folk but can someone comment what they mean!!!
Grams is a metric unit of mass and weight. Goggle will convert # of grams to other weights such as ounces
it was so good
I made this added some bacon and some chopped broccoli it was delicious. 🙏🙏