How to Make Shrimp Scampi

This is so quick and easy you will just be in shock by how delicious it is and that you’ve already eaten it in the time it takes to make another meal. Okay, let’s get started.

Prep the Garlic

First thing: just a little prep. I’m gonna be smashing and mincing some garlic. The recipe calls for a tablespoon and a half or so, but to me that means a handful of garlic because that’s how I roll when I’m making my own food. All right, so give it a smash—that helps release the oils in the garlic. You can just discard that skin, and now we’re gonna mince it up. It doesn’t have to be like a perfect you-know baking-school mince, just get it nice and small, and then repeat for all those cloves. So satisfying to do, and I love the smell of garlic. There we go, now mince it all up.

Do you follow the actual amount of garlic in a recipe, or do you just quadruple it? My fingers are gonna be smelling like garlic. Just chop roughly—proceeds to mince everything. Let’s collect all this delicious garlic and save it for later. I mean, that might have been a bit too much. Well, setting it aside.

Peel and Devein the Shrimp

Now for the shrimp. I have a pound and a half of really nice fresh shrimp. They are not, however, peeled. You can buy peeled shrimp—that’s totally personal choice, and they cost roughly the same, but it totally depends. To peel a shrimp, let’s go over this because some of you might be a bit scared. You’re gonna remove the shrimp’s carapace starting from the bottom, so basically grab the little swimmerets and just peel it out.

But you’re not done now—no, you’re not. There’s something more important to do. Let’s do all this peeling first, and then the next step. I like to leave my tails on just because they’re like little handles, but you can totally remove the tail as well—personal choice. Notice the heads are gone, so there’s that.

Deveining

Now for the deveining part. This is what they say is not the fun part, but it’s the most useful part of cleaning your shrimp. Use a very sharp knife carefully and make a shallow incision along the top of the shrimp’s body. When you do that, you will discover the shrimp’s digestive tract. We’re going to lift that out and discard that—it’s trash now. Make sure you got all of it, so you might need to carry your incision further down a bit. Repeat that process over and over again until all of your shrimp are nice and clean.

Okay, there we go—my shrimp are now all prepared. Before we sauté your shrimp, you can pat them with some paper towels to dry them off; that’ll help them really get a nice cook as opposed to steam, but it’s kind of optional.

Cook the Scampi

Melt about two tablespoons of olive oil and two tablespoons of butter. While that’s warming up, I’m gonna be zesting a lemon. Lemon zest is like one of the most important parts of this recipe, in my opinion. Get all that zest off—don’t waste any.

I’m gonna add my garlic in—a bunch of garlic. Move it around, and we’re gonna cook it for about a minute. You don’t want it to burn; you really have to watch it carefully. See, it’s bubbling, it smells amazing, and it’s just starting to brown. That’s fine, but don’t let it brown too much because then it becomes bitter.

Now I’m gonna add my lemon zest and about a third of a cup of white wine. Add some salt. Don’t forget the lemon juice—I’m gonna add in the juice of most of a lemon. Stir it around, and you’re gonna let this reduce by about half. You want the wine to cook off and leave all that delicious flavor but none of the alcohol.

Sauté the Shrimp

Now that the mixture is reduced, I can start adding in my dry-ish shrimp. Just arrange them on here, give them a little bit of space. I’ll probably have to do two batches of shrimp just ’cause I’ve made so many. Give it about two minutes and check—you really just want the color to change. The shrimp can be a little bit translucent inside; I think that’s delicious.

Okay, the color’s changing—time to turn over. There’s a lot of garlic on this, and that’s just how I like it. Once your shrimp are turned over, just leave them alone; don’t mess with them too much. You really want them to get that heat from the pan and not be slippin’ and slidin’.

Shrimp are done. I’m going to take this off of the heat, and then we’re gonna serve it with some minced parsley and a little bit of pasta.

Finish with Parsley and Plate

Take as much parsley as you want—try to move the stems if possible. Nobody wants any roughage these days. All right, and then let’s chop it up. I used to think parsley was just a garnish that you would get at a diner when I was a little child, but it has so much flavor; it really adds a nice little layer. I have a nice bank of parsley chopped up, setting it aside.

Let’s plate something out. Fresh spaghetti—I’m gonna try and be artful with this right now. Some shrimp—who wants shrimp? I do. These shrimp are beautifully cooked and they smell amazing. Finish the whole thing off with a liberal sprinkling of that parsley. So delicious. Okay, and you can include a little lemon wedge on the side.

That garlic really caramelized—some of it got really dark, and I didn’t show you, but I’ve actually been snacking on it. It’s really tasty. I like things that are burnt, so this is pushing all my buttons.