Trader Joe’s Spaghetti Shrimp in Garlic Herb Sauce

Here is an old classic that Trader Joe’s has packaged up and put in the frozen section. I saw this in the What’s New section of my local Trader Joe’s last week and picked up one for lunch. The picture on the cover of the box looked very appetizing. We are of course talking about the new Trader Joe’s Spaghetti Shrimp in a Garlic Herb Sauce.

I’m always on the look out for these quick meals. I hate making sandwiches for lunch and dinner is usually a pretty big ordeal around here with 2 growing boys. Many times I end up cooking two complete meals because I know my wife wants something more adult and the kids won’t touch it with a 10′ pole. So, like I said, I’m always on the hunt for something easy and more adult so I don’t end up cooking two meals every night. Pizza is big around our house, needless to say!

Becky and I love pasta and seafood and this product is clearly aimed at the Shrimp Scampi (which roughly translates to Shrimp Shrimp). Basically a quick and easy shrimp in wine, butter and garlic sauce. The box called for preparing it either in the microwave or in a skillet and I almost always recommend the skillet when I can. As you can see from the 2nd picture, it comes in a box and there is quite a bit of shrimp. The pasta and sauce are at the bottom and you dump it all into a skillet with a little water and start to cook it.


It takes a while for the balls of pasta and sauce to warm up and come apart, but it sure smelled good and garlicy when I was cooking it. In hindsight, I might’ve done a hybrid approach to this and defrost in the microwave and then finished in the skillet.After everything has warmed up, the sauce thickens up a bit before the shrimp and pasta is done, so I had to add a little more water.

Finally, I plated the dish. The pasta was a little sticky, but I followed the directions to the letter. You can see it looks quite similar to the picture on the box. Lots of herbs and a ton of garlic. As expected the shrimp was slightly tough from being pre-cooked and cooked again but not too bad. The big downer was the pasta, it was gooey and mushy compared to fresh cooked. I really did like the herb, butter, garlic sauce and it was quite nice!

You know it seemed like I went through a lot of work for such a simple dish. This is one of those things you whip together on a weeknight without a lot of thought. Just for the hell of it I’m going to include a recipe that is so simple, but 1000 times better than this Trader Joe dish and you can buy everything at Trader Joe’s! I probably won’t buy this again seeing how simple the real recipe is.

I’m going to rate this one 7 bells!

Sauteed Shrimp with Lemon-Garlic Butter

1/2 cup dry Two Buck Chuck Sauvignon Blanc
2 tablespoons Trader Joe’s Champagne vinegar
8 Dorot Minced Garlic cubes
1/2 cup chilled Trader Joe’s unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons Italian olive oil
1 Trader Joes uncooked large shrimp, peeled, deveined
2 tablespoons grated lemon peel
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
1 tablespoon chopped italian parsley
1lb of Trader Joe’s Spaghetti noodles

Cook pasta in boiling water until done (time with cooking of shrimp)
Boil wine, vinegar and garlic in small saucepan until mixture is reduced to 1/4 cup, about 4 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Whisk in butter, 1 piece at a time.
Remove from heat.
Stir in the lemon juice.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Cover and keep warm.
Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over high heat.
Sprinkle shrimp with salt and pepper.
Add to skillet and sauté until shrimp are cooked, about 3 minutes.
Drizzle lemon-garlic butter over.
Toss pasta in the pan with shrimp
Sprinkle with lemon peel and chives and parsley and toss and serve!

 

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