Today we’re making one of our all-time favorite date night recipes (great for Valentine’s Day), our easy spicy shrimp pasta. It has a lot of components, but it’s easy to make and we’re sharing our tips for making it great!

As we mentioned in our super simple spicy shrimp post, one of our favorite date night recipes is our easy spicy shrimp pasta. The spicy part comes from the crushed red pepper. Spicy shrimp and your favorite pasta all melted together with feta, spinach, and tomatoes. Yum! Seriously, it’s hard to beat.
Check out the Video!
Pasta Preference
Generally, we use linguine for our pasta in this recipe. It pairs really well with the sauce. But, any sort of pasta will do. You might notice in the accompanying pictures and video we’ve made it with spaghetti noodles, not linguine. On this occasion when we reached to the pantry for linguine there was none to be found. Doh! Fail. But no worries, it still turned out delicious. As stated, any sort of pasta will do. Feel free to experiment and find the pasta that you like best.
In fact, you can even make this dish without pasta! If you are looking for a gluten-free, no carb version, we have also made this spicy shrimp dish with zoodles. Not quite as decadent, but still totally delicious and still a great way to splurge while still watching your carbs.
Because any pasta will do and because we love this dish so much, we often just refer to it as spicy shrimp pasta or even just “shrimp dish”. Call it whatever you like, just enjoy it! What you call it may depend on how you customize it. We tend to use a generous amount of red pepper and so we often call it spicy shrimp dish or spicy shrimp linguine. We also tend to be heavy handed with the garlic so garlic shrimp linguine or garlic shrimp pasta would also be apt names. What will your dish be called?
More than the name, we are concerned with what beverage to pair it with and we love pairing it with our coconut rum strawberry daiquiris. Spicy dishes pair well with frozen drinks and strawberry daiquiris are one of our favorite frozen drinks.
Fresh or Frozen
When you make this spicy shrimp pasta you can use either fresh or frozen shrimp. We love buying it fresh, but it’s not always possible and so we also like the convenience of having frozen shrimp in the freezer. One of the things we love about shrimp is that it’s really easy to thaw. If you forget to pull it out of the freezer, you can put it in a colander and run cool water on it for a few minutes. Remove the shells, set it on a paper towel lined plate, and it’s ready to cook!
The key to the whole dish is that after about 10 minutes in the oven while you are stirring the shrimp, spinach, tomato, feta, and wine mixture that you smush (yes, that’s a technical cooking term) the feta so that it ends up melding with the liquid to make a delicious feta flavored cheese sauce. On occasion, when I only have a little wine on hand I add some of the pasta water to pan in the oven for extra sauce (don’t add too much–maybe 1/3 of a cup).
A Quick Warning
Don’t skimp on the feta! We tried this dish once with low-fat feta and it was a total flop. We’re all for making healthier dishes when they work, but in this case, the idea fell flat. Feta is just such a star ingredient in this dish and it just wasn’t the same without it. We’d recommend halving the amount of feta you use before we recommend using low-fat feta. Low-fat feta…yeah…let’s just say we’re not the biggest fans. 🙂
So, in review:
Spicy Shrimp Pasta Tips
- remember to thaw the shrimp ahead of time if you use frozen shrimp
- No linguine, no worries…any sort of pasta will do
- Zoodles are a great pasta alternative when watching your carbs or following a gluten-free diet
- pair this dish with your favorite frozen drink
- don’t forget to smush some of the feta cheese while mixing so that it blends into the sauce
If you’re looking for other great pasta dishes, check out our Instant Pot Ziti.

Ingredients
- 1 T . olive oil
- 1 lb . shrimp , peeled and deveined
- 1/2 tsp . italian seasoning
- 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
- 2-3 cloves garlic , minced
- 4 oz . spinach , roughly chopped
- 4-6 oz . feta , chopped
- 1 pint of cherry or grape tomatoes , cut in half
- 1/2 c . white wine
- 8 oz . linguine
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Place and start heat to a large pot of water on the stovetop for the pasta.
- Oil a 13x9 inch pan.
- Layer spinach and then feta in pan.
- Heat oil in a skillet.
- Add shrimp to the pan and sprinkle with salt, pepper, italian seasoning, and red pepper flakes.
- Cook for 1-2 minutes and flip to the other side.
- Add garlic and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes, stir and cook another 1 minute.
- Transfer shrimp to pan with spinach and feta.
- Return skillet to heat and add wine to deglaze the pan.
- Cook wine for several minutes until reduced.
- Add tomatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes.
- Pour tomatoes and wine over shrimp.
- Place pan in the oven and cook for 10 minutes, stir, then return to oven for another 5 minutes.
- Salt the boiling pasta water and start cooking pasta after shrimp pan is in the oven.
- Cook pasta according to directions.
- When pasta and shrimp mixture are cooked, serve, and enjoy!
15 Comments
Gloria @ Homemade & Yummy
February 3, 2017 at 9:01 amYou gotta love when simple and easy is so tasty. This was a fun collaboration. We NEVER go out for Valentine’s Day…in fact I don’t think in our 40 years of marriage we have ever done it. Making dinner at home is so much more relaxing…I hate crowded restaurants. Besides…I can sip wine all afternoon, and not have to worry about driving.
mywifecancook
February 12, 2017 at 7:42 amWe don’t either. And at this point, we just spend it with the kids and make it a family holiday. Then eat something we like after they go to bed.
Veena Azmanov
February 3, 2017 at 9:38 amI just love when things are so simple easy delish!! Such an amazing round up of recipes I cannot wait to try them. I love shrimps so will definitely be making this.
mywifecancook
February 12, 2017 at 7:43 amThanks. They do all sound delicious!
Sarah @ The Fit Cookie
February 4, 2017 at 10:46 amMmm, that looks amazing! Shrimp and pasta is one of my favorite dishes, after bacon wrapped scallops. I love good seafood when I can get it!
mywifecancook
February 12, 2017 at 7:43 amBacon wrapped scallops, yum! Shrimp and pasta are so good together!
Megan @ MegUnprocessed
February 7, 2017 at 7:52 pmSuch a flavorful pasta recipe!
mywifecancook
February 12, 2017 at 7:44 amThanks, we love it!
Julia
February 7, 2017 at 10:35 pmI love seafood pasta and the flavours in this dish are amazing. I love how the sauce is done in the oven – such a great idea! You can pre-prepare everything for the sauce and then do it closer to dinner time . Video is great too!
mywifecancook
February 12, 2017 at 7:45 amThanks. That is frequently how we do it–prep everything while the kids eat their dinner, including getting the pasta pot filled and on the stove. Then once we have tucked them in, we can run down and have it ready pretty quickly!
valentines day sayings
February 8, 2017 at 1:09 amVery great post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed surfing around
your blog posts. After all I will be subscribing in your feed and I’m hoping
you write again very soon!
Lane & Holly @ With Two Spoons
February 8, 2017 at 10:31 amThis is my kind of comfort food-brilliant!
mywifecancook
February 12, 2017 at 7:46 amThanks!
susan | the wimpy vegetarian
February 9, 2017 at 1:04 amReally great flavors together! And I never skimp on feta!
mywifecancook
February 12, 2017 at 7:46 amI’d rather skip than skimp!