Pasta with Bacon and Shrimp


Pantry Meal, Seafood

Print the recipe card!  pasta with bacon and shrimp

This recipe was adapted from a recipe found in Giada Laurentiis’ new book Weeknights with Giada.  As a preface to the recipe, Giada writes that it was her way of persuading her husband that whole wheat pasta is delicious.  This is funny to me… so  when in doubt (and trying to get your husband to eat healthier pasta) just add bacon!  Whichever way about it, it works as a food storage meal.  Turn this loose on your own bacon lovers and see what they think!

serves 4-6

Ingredients:

8 – 12 oz. whole wheat linguine (*see note)

4 oz. package -or- 2.8 oz jar real bacon pieces

4 cloves garlic — or — 1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1 (14.5 oz.) can diced tomatoes, with juice

1 (12 oz.) can evaporated milk — 1 cup used here

1 (8 oz.) bottle clam juice — 3/4 cup used, or more as desired

1 1/2 pounds large peeled and deveined shrimp   –or — 2 (4 0z.) cans tiny shrimp, undrained (*see note)

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Instructions:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat.  Add the pasta and cook until tender, 10 – 12 minutes.  Drain.

While the pasta is cooking, put the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat and cook until the bacon is crispy, about 5 minutes.  Remove the bacon and set aside.

In the same skillet, add the can of tomatoes, garlic powder, clam juice, 1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper.  Bring to a boil and scrape up any browned bits of bacon that are left in the pan with a wooden spoon.  Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for 10 minutes until slightly thickened.

Add the shrimp.  (If using thawed frozen shrimp, cook until just pink throughout and cooked through, 3 minutes.)  Add the bacon and stir to combine.

Combine the pasta and shrimp mixture and toss until coated.  Serve.

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Even though the bacon pieces are already cooked you can still “crisp them up” in the skillet, lending more flavor to your sauce.

Setting the bacon aside, add the tomatoes, garlic, milk, clam juice and salt and pepper.  Allow to simmer for 10 minutes to thicken a little bit.

After simmering, add in the shrimp and bacon.  (If using canned shrimp, there’s no need to cook it any further.)  Add in the cooked pasta and you’re good to go!

Serve and enjoy!

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Notes:

  • As a 3 month meal (short term storage), larger (frozen) shrimp would work.  However for long term, canned tiny shrimp are what’s available unless you’re able to can the larger ones yourself.  I’ve been told shrimp is actually pretty easy to can w/good results.   Anyone out there with experience canning shrimp?  How did it go for you and were you happy with the end product?  I cut the amount of shrimp here (a lot, more than half) due to the expense of it.
  • If available, the original recipe also calls for 1 cup fresh basil.  1/2 cup of this is added into the sauce as it simmers and the other 1/2 cup is to be used to garnish at the end.  One other substitution I made was the canned milk, Giada’s recipe called for cream.
  • The original recipe calls for 16 oz. of linguine yet states the recipe serves 4-6 people.  I think they made a typo there.  A full pound of linguine is enough pasta for 8-10 people, so I scaled back the pasta rather than re-adjusting the sauce ingredients.  Use what you think is best.

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6 Replies to “Pasta with Bacon and Shrimp”

  1. I’ve canned sea-fresh shrimp (and crab) with pretty good results. I thought the home-canned ones were much better than the storebought baby-shrimp. Canning frozen shrimp (and crab) is quite as good, but certainly not horrible. Great instructions here… http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pdf/pnw/pnw194.pdf

    I modified 3 things about those instructions — 1) I also deveined the shrimp when I cut off their heads; 2) I added a little lemon juice to the canning brine, and 3) I wrapped the shells in cheesecloth and boiled the pouch in the canning brine for a little extra flavor.

    I find adding clam juice for fish-flavor in many food storage recipes a little overpowering, especially pasta dishes. Knorr makes a shrimp bouillon that’s pretty tasty and a little more delicate than clam, and shrimp powder also makes a light seafood base. You can normally find these and dried shrimp (in lieu of canned shrimp) in Asian groceries or online from ethnic food sellers.

    Tip for swapping Evap Milk for Cream… try adding 1/2 tsp of butter powder, ghee/clarfied butter, or olive oil to the milk to replace some of the removed fat and thicken it up. This really seems to help keep your cream sauce from separating when adding milk to something acidic like tomatoes.

    1. All good tips! Thank you!

      I’ll try out your suggestions with the shrimp boullion and added butter powder/oil. I bet they would make it better. I have shrimp boullion in the cupboard and didn’t even think about using it!

      1. Nestle also makes canned table cream. I used to get it from my Hispanic grocery and recently found it again on Amazon (“Media Crema”). Also found Heavy Cream Powder (72% butterfat) on Amazon as well, and will be ordering some to try.

        1. Interesting about the powdered cream — I’ve never heard of that before! I’m going to go look it up. And Nestle’s brand too — great to know. The only one I was aware of was one Gossner foods makes (packaged to be shelf stable, like the Nestles I imagine) but I haven’t been able to try it. I called the company and got a list of retailers to check but since the product gets re-packaged and re-named depending on where it’s shipped I haven’t been able to find it. Thanks for the information!

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