This sambal prawn pasta is a quick and easy pasta dish that’s perfect for a midweek meal but will do just as well for a fancy dinner. Make it as spicy or as mild as you want it to be.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Table of contents
Sambal Prawn Pasta
Remember my Laksa Risotto from a few weeks back? Here’s another simple Malay-Italian fusion recipe.
You get all the bold flavours of Malay sambal prawns without having to cook rice or deal with ten different sides. Sambal brings heat and depth, butter softens the edges, garlic and shallots add background noise and lime juice keeps it bright and zippy.
It’s fast. It’s indulgent. It’s unfailingly delicious.
And you can scale it up, scale it down, or eat it straight out of the pan. Throw in some tomatoes, some spinach if you want to up the veg content. So fluid.
Ingredients
- Pasta: I’m using linguine, but you can use spaghetti, or whatever pasta you’ve got lurking.
- Prawns: aka shrimp in the US. Fresh or frozen, peeled and deveined, but they MUST be raw. Never ever, for the love of Neptune, cook with pre cooked prawns. They’ll add nothing to the dish and feel like cotton in your mouth.
- Sambal: I’m using a simple homemade sambal tumis in today’s sambal prawn pasta. You can use shop bought sambal oelek or whatever kind you fancy. Or make your own sambal oelek (recipe on LinsFood) with just 3 ingredients or one of the many other sambals we have here on SMR. See below this section.
- Butter: the magic ingredient, adds a touch of creaminess. But you can use extra virgin olive oil too, if you prefer.
- Aromatics: garlic and a little shallots or onions.
- Lime: because lime juice makes everything taste better.
- Seasoning: Salt and sugar to balance the heat.
- Fresh coriander leaves (cilantro) a final flourish.
- Cheese if you like. I’ve skipped it.
Sambal Recipes
How to Make Sambal Prawn Pasta
- Cook the pasta
- Fry the prawns
- Make the sauce
- Bring it together
- Serve Up
Too easy!
Tips and Variations
- Dial the heat up or down depending on your sambal and your confidence levels.
- Add a splash of cream or coconut milk if you want a richer, softer sauce.
- Replace prawns with chicken, tofu, or mushrooms.
- A drizzle of garlic oil on top will never, ever be wrong.
- You can add some spinach or tomatoes to this prawn sambal pasta right at end, something I do fairly often when making dishes like this one.
How to Serve Sambal Prawn Pasta?
This dish is a full meal but some greens would go nicely. So perhaps any of the following:
- A crisp salad
- Stir-fried greens
- Garlic bread
Or anything else you fancy that isn’t too heavy, given that pasta is.
How to Store Leftovers
If you do have any left over, cover and keep in the fridge for a day. Keeping leftover seafood makes me nervous, so I don’t store anything longer than a day.
Add a little water or butter when re heating this sambal prawn pasta.
And that’s it, super easy and quick fusion pasta recipe for next time you need dinner in a hurry!
Any questions, just drop me a line. Make it and tag me on Instagram @azlinbloor with a picture.
Lin xx
Sambal Prawn Pasta Recipe
Ingredients
- 150 g linguine or 200 g (7 oz) if you're feeling hungry!
- salt as needed see instructions below
- 200 g prawns (shrimp)
- 60 g salted butter
- 2 garlic cloves
- 3 Tbsp sambal of your choice see article above
To Serve
- 1 Tbsp sambal
- lime juice
- coriander leaves
- 2 Tbsp grated parmesan optional
Instructions
- Cook the linguine for 8 minutes in a pot with 1 tsp salt until al dente, or according to packet instructions.When done, drain, saving 1 cup of the pasta water. Set aside.
- Slice the sallots and roughly mince the garlic, they don't have to be finely chopped. Or slice them widthwise.
- Rub a pinch of salt and 1 Tbsp of sambal all over the prawns and set aside.
- Heat about ⅓ of the butter on medium-high heat and fry the prawns in a deep frying pan or wok, tossing them around until they are just done. Tip out onto a plate and keep warm.
- Heat the rest of the butter into the same deep frying pan or wok. Tip in the shallots and garlic and fry for 1 minute on medium heat.
- Add the sambal, salt and sugar, stir and cook for 1 minute on medium heat.
- Pour in half (125ml / ½ cup) the pasta water, and stir and bring to a simmer.
- Tip the prawns back in, stir, then drop the cooked and drained linguine. Toss well.If you want more sauce, just add a little more pasta water.Check seasoning and add more salt if needed. Finish off with a drizzle of lime juice.
- Serve immediately with coriander leaves, more lime juice and sambal on the side.And some grated cheese if you like.