Sometimes you just can’t wait for the two to three hours slow simmering sauce as delicious as it is and wonderful tasting it’s just sometimes not possible. The other night I wanted to make Shrimp Marinara but I didn’t want to use a jarred sauce and believe me I love Raos and Carbone sauces and this shrimp would have been just fine using one of them which I know and encourage you to use if you don’t want to make your own.
This is my recipe for a quick sauce for spaghetti and meatballs, anything marinara when I don’t want to make my slow sauce.
Enjoy! and this is what I did.
15 minute Marinara Sauce
Ingredients:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes we like it spicy so I use 1 1/2 if you hate spicy omit it all together
1/2 -1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 medium cloves of garlic, minced or finely chopped
1 28oz can crushed red tomatoes, not pureed, not whole not diced
Directions:
Combine the olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt and garlic in a cold saucepan. Stir while you heat the pan to medium high heat. Saute till fragrant , try and avoid burning the garlic don’t let it get brown . Stir in the tomatoes and heat to a gentle simmer, this will take a few minutes.
I added a little additional salt, and a little additional water. Also I use the pasta water from spaghetti so it got to the right consistency , just add a little water at a time. My sauce was sitting in pan while I prepped shrimp and pasta so it got thicker than I wanted. Easy to thin out , use the pasta water it will help sauce to stick to spaghetti.
Shrimp:
Prepare the pasta– follow directions on packaging for al dente.
Clean Shrimp, pat dry with paper towels and lay out and sprinkle with salt and pepper
I bring sauce to a boil and add the shrimp , the shrimp will start to curl as they cook , stir the shrimp through the sauce a few time and depending on the size of your shrimp they should cook in about 10 -12 minutes , smaller shrimp will cook faster.
Don’t over cook shrimp no body likes rubber shrimp.
Once shrimp is cooked turn off the heat, finish the pasta , take some pasta water and incorporate into sauce. ( about 1/2 cup) but if you need more use more.
Plate it up and it’s done. Delicious homemade sauce with shrimp or meatballs.
Enjoy!
Cooking with Candi 