Prawn Pasta Aglio Olio e Peperoncino
Prawn Pasta Aglio Olio e Peperoncino: When Simplicity is Everything
There's something deeply satisfying about a dish that refuses to complicate itself. No cream, no tomato sauce, no fifteen ingredients you'd need to hunt down at three different shops. Just garlic, olive oil, chilli, and prawns that know exactly what they're meant to do.
This is aglio olio e peperoncino -- the pasta that Italian home cooks throw together when the fridge is nearly empty but dinner still needs to happen. The one that tastes like midnight in Rome, like coastal towns where fishermen bring their catch straight to the kitchen, like the kind of meal you make when you're tired but refuse to settle for mediocre.
Why This Prawn Pasta Works
The magic isn't in fancy technique or exotic ingredients. It's in the alchemy of good olive oil meeting sweet prawns, the gentle burn of chilli flakes, the way garlic becomes golden and fragrant but never bitter. It's pasta water -- starchy, salty, essential -- turning everything into a glossy sauce that clings to each strand of spaghetti.
Get the basics right and you'll have a restaurant-quality dish in fifteen minutes. Get them wrong -- burnt garlic, sad rubbery prawns, dry pasta that looks like it's been abandoned -- and you'll understand why even simple food demands respect.
What You'll Learn
This prawn aglio olio recipe will show you how to cook prawns so they stay plump and tender, how to infuse olive oil with garlic without crossing into burnt territory, and the crucial moment when pasta water transforms from cooking liquid into the silkiest sauce you've ever made.
Whether you're cooking for a Tuesday night dinner or trying to impress someone who matters, this is the pasta that delivers. No risotto disasters here -- just prawns, garlic, chilli, and the kind of simplicity that actually tastes like something.
Let's get cooking.
Prawn Pasta Aglio Olio e Peperoncino
Learn how to make delicious prawn pasta aglio olio e peperoncino in just 15 minutes. This simple recipe uses garlic, olive oil, chilli, and succulent prawns for a restaurant-quality dinner that never disappoints. Perfect for quick weeknight meals or impressive date nights.
Ingredients
- 400g fresh prawns, butterflied and deveined
- 2-3 garlic cloves (but really, measure with your heart here)
- 1 fresh chilli, chopped finely (I also added some chilli flakes as my fresh chilli was rather disappointing from a heat perspective)
- 1/2 bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
- olive oil, a knob of butter
- the zest of half a lemon, to finish
- salt, pepper to taste
- 250g pasta of your choice (I used angel hair pasta but spaghetti would work perfectly as well)
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package instructions. Mine cooked rather fast, 5 minutes and it was done.
- Meanwhile, heat a glug of oil and butter in a pan. When sizzling add your garlic and fresh chilli and/or chilli flakes. Let them cook for a few seconds until fragrant.
- Add the prawns (make sure you dry them well with a paper towel before cooking) and cook on both sides until pink and opaque. This should take at most 3-5 minutes.
- With tongs, bring in your cooked pasta from the boiling water making sure to also add a little bit of that cooking water to the pot. It will emulsify with the oil and create the most luscious sauce.
- Mix well making sure the pasta strands are all well coated and adding a touch of olive oil if needed. Add the parsley and lemon zest and mix well again.
- When serving, top the pasta with a few strands of lemon zest and a drizzle of olive oil to finish. Add a great big green salad with a lemony dressing on the side and congratulate yourself for having food on the table in the blink of an eye. Dig in!