Today’s Pasta:
This pasta recipe is a chaotic twin sister recipe to my classic with a twist Seaweed Butter Shrimp Scampi recipe. This pasta is for the ones who leave half-eaten jars of tomato sauce in their fridge side pockets for weeks and love their flavors a little spicy, shrimpy, and funky.
What is gochujang butter and how do I make it?
Gochujang butter is a compound butter in which the butter is flavored with gochujang, Korean red pepper paste. The resulting taste has the richness of butter and the sweet, spicy, subtly fermented taste of gochujang.
I actually made this compound butter for another meal a couple weeks ago, but still had leftover butter which I repurposed for this recipe. It is incredibly easy to make. Here are the steps:
- Bring 1 stick of butter to room temperature.
- Add 2-3 tbsp of gochujang. You can find this at any Korean grocery store.
- Mix to combine. Since it can be spicy, start with 1 tbsp, stir and taste. Then add more to your taste.
- Scoop onto parchment paper and roll into a log, twisting and tying at the ends. Refrigerate or freeze. When using, cut off slices like you would with a regular stick of butter.
You can keep gochujang butter handy and use it also for: steaks, add to scrambled eggs, eat with bread, spread on cornbread with drizzle of honey, etc.
Gochujang Butter Tomato Shrimp Pasta Recipe:
Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 15 mins
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
- 400g preferred pasta
- recommended: spaghetti, linguine
- 5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1-2 tbsp gochujang butter (see how to make this above)
- If you don’t already have the pre-made compound butter on hand, you can also use 1 tbsp gochujang and 1 tbsp butter. They will combine in the pan.
- 1 cup tomato sauce (about 1/4 of a jar)
- We used Rao’s marinara sauce from Costco.
- 1-2 handfuls of fresh or frozen shrimp (about 16-20)
- juice from 1/2 lemon and/or 1-2 tbsp soju for brightness
- salt and pepper to taste
- fresh herbs, chopped
- recommended: parsley, cilantro, or a combination
Steps:
- Prepare your ingredients: mince the garlic, slice the butter and cut a half of lemon, chop herbs, etc.
- Boil water in a pot and when it is ready, salt, and cook the pasta 1 minute less than the package instructions for al dente. You can cook the pasta while you are making the sauce, so that when it is ready, you can throw everything together immediately.
- To a wide pan, add garlic, butter and olive oil. Lightly cook at medium heat for 1-2 minutes until fragrant and butter is melted. Stir a little so the garlic does not burn.
- Add tomato sauce and mix. Then add the shrimp.
- Cook shrimp until just pink. Don’t overcook, as it can become too tough. Make sure to also taste and season your sauce with salt and pepper.
- When shrimp is just cooked, lower the heat, and add lemon juice/ soju.
- By now, your pasta is hopefully done cooking. Add your noodles into the sauce pan, and add a splash of pasta water. Then mix everything to combine.
- To serve, garnish with freshly cracked pepper, and a generous sprinkle of chopped parsley.
Notes:
If you prefer your sauce a little spicier, feel free to add more gochujang. All ingredients are adjustable, so play around with the proportions to suit your taste.
Pairings:
I’m trying to eat my veggies so I would probably pair this with a side salad of spinach, cucumber, pepitas, dried tart cherries, balsalmic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.
Let me know what you think of the recipe in the comments below!
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