Easy spicy pasta with nduja sauce and shrimp (prawns)

5 from 5 votes

Easy spicy pasta with nduja sauce and shrimp (prawns)

Made with spicy Calabrian nduja sausage, red onions, canned cherry tomatoes, fresh parsley and large shrimp (prawns), this is a super easy spicy seafood pasta dish. Perfect for weeknights or date nights! Ready in just 30 minutes.

Prep Time10

Cook Time20

Course: Dinner, Main Course

Cuisine: Calabria, Mediterranean, Southern Italian

Keyword: fileja, nduja, seafood pasta

Servings:

Calories: 600kcal

Author: Jacqui

Equipment

1 large skillet
1 large pot
1 sharp knife
1 chopping board

Ingredients

14 ounces short pasta I used fileja. Rigatoni, fusilli and paccheri are also good with this sauce.
14 ounces large shrimp (prawns) fresh or frozen and defrosted. Cleaned and some peeled.
3 ounces Nduja sausage. see notes.
14 ounces canned peeled tomatoes I used peeled cherry tomatoes
2 small red onions peeled and sliced
1 handful fresh parsley
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt for pasta and to taste
freshly ground black pepper. to taste

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Make the sauce.

Prepare the ingredients. Peel and finely chop the onion, wash and chop the parsley, cut chunks from the nduja if you have a whole sausage.
Prepare the shrimp by washing them, removing the heads, peeling most of them and deveining (removing the thin black vein along the shrimp’s back). I like to leave some shrimp tails unpeeled for flavor and aesthetics.
Sauté the onion in heated olive oil over a medium heat in a large frying pan or skillet until it starts to soften. Add the shrimp and sauté for 1-2 minutes.
Add the chunks of nduja and mix everything together with a wooden spoon until the nduja melts.
Add the canned tomatoes and simmer together over a low heat for about 10 minutes. Finally add the fresh parsley and season with salt and black pepper as required.

Finish and serve.

Cook the pasta al dente in boiling salted water over a medium-high heat. When it’s ready, save a cup of the pasta water and drain. Add the pasta to the nduja and shrimp tomato sauce. Mix everything together well. If the sauce seems thick, pour in a little of the pasta cooking water and mix again.
Serve immediately with more fresh parsley.

Notes

How much nduja you use depends on how spicy you want the dish to be. The spiciness can vary from brand to brand so taste a little first to see how much you’d like to add to the sauce. I use about 80-100 grams (2.8-3.5 ozs) depending on individual taste.

Leftover pasta with nduja sauce and shrimp can be kept in the fridge in a sealed container for 1-2 days. You can reheat leftovers in the microwave or bake them with a sprinkling of breadcrumbs on top.

Nutrition