Looking for a quick hearty meal?
This spicy shrimp pasta recipe in garlic butter curry sauce is an easy choice that only takes 20 minutes to cook!
A lot of my relatives are asking for this recipe after I brought over some ingredients two Sundays ago at my dad’s childhood home in Quezon City. We were celebrating my two grandma’s birthdays.
I would have brought over a cooked pasta dish but I didn’t have enough time before leaving home. So I decided why not just cook there and make it imprompto?
I came up with this recipe after one late night I was working. I usually work on my startups from 12am to 7am (that’s when my baby girl Avis is asleep) thus when I get hungry I want something that’s fast so I can get back to my desk.
In my sleepy eyes, I dragged myself to the kitchen and opened up the fridge.
Nothing.
Frozen bacon, frozen chicken, frozen meat…
There was nothing that I could easily cook there and be done with.
So I pulled the chiller and then I remembered I went grocery shopping a few days back: I HAVE SHRIMP!
And then this pasta was born. It’s been my go-to midnight meal ever since because cooking and prepping takes less time.
You only need 5 major ingredients to make this.


- A handful of veggie pasta (1 full grip is to 2 servings)
- 1 cup peeled shrimp
- 1/4 head of garlic, minced
- 1/2 cup butter (equivalent to 1 stick of Dairy Creme), halved
- 2 tsp curry
- 1 small ripe tomato (optional)
- 1 fresh parsley
- A dash of cayenne pepper (optional)
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Ground black pepper
- Cook the pasta in a boiling water moderately seasoned with salt for 10 minutes. Add some olive oil to the water to help prevent the pasta from sticking.
- While the pasta is cooking, thaw the shrimp if it's frozen.
- Heat a non-stick skillet to medium heat and drizzle with a bit of olive oil.
- Add half of the butter, minced garlic & curry. Add a dash of salt & black pepper. Wait for it to become a fragrant cloud on the pan.
- Saute the garlic until golden brown. Add the shrimp and saute until it's orange pink in color. Turn off the stove once it's done.
- When the pasta is cooked, drain it and let it cool. Add a few slices of butter to the hot pasta.
- Toss the pasta into the garlic butter curry sauce until well-coated. Sprinkle with a bit of cayenne pepper for extra heat. Toss again.
- Garnish with chopped parsley and sliced tomatoes.
- You can use ordinary pasta, but I wanted it extra healthy & veggie pasta was cheaper so I used that.
- Tomatoes are optional, but it's a great palette cleanser if your pasta turns out too spicy.
- Adding butter will not only make your pasta yummy, but also gives it a nice gloss finish and keeps it from clumping together.
