Creamy Seafood Spaghetti: How We Make It at Home

See how we make creamy seafood spaghetti at home with shrimp, vegetables, half-and-half, cheese, garlic, and a simple rich cream sauce.

A Creamy Pasta We Have Enjoyed Since Living in Korea

We often have noodles for lunch at home. Our lunches include Korean noodles and naengmyeon, Japanese udon and soba, and Italian-style pasta.

Among them, creamy pasta is something both my wife and I especially enjoy.

We started making creamy seafood spaghetti at home when we were still living in Korea. After enjoying cream pasta at restaurants, we began making our own versions at home.

In Korea, we often used packaged cream pasta sauce from the grocery store. Since moving to the United States, we have found another easy way to make it: using half-and-half, which is readily available at American grocery stores.

The result is creamy, savory, and rich, but making it ourselves also lets us control how heavy the sauce becomes. We prefer a creamy sauce that is thick enough to coat the spaghetti while still leaving some sauce on the plate.

This Time, We Made It with Shrimp

Although we call this creamy seafood spaghetti, we do not always use the same seafood.

Depending on what we have available, we may use shrimp, clams, squid, scallops, crab, or a combination of different seafood.

For the spaghetti shown in the photo, however, we used only frozen shrimp.

For two servings, we use about 10 to 12 shrimp. We like seafood, so when we cook pasta at home, we tend to be generous with it.

We also added red onion, yellow and orange bell peppers, and chopped garlic.

To finish the dish, we topped it with pine nuts and dried parsley. Pine nuts are optional, but we like the extra nutty flavor they add, and they also make the finished pasta look more inviting.

Ingredients for Two Servings

For the version shown here, we used:

• About 160 g spaghetti
• 10–12 frozen shrimp
• 240 ml half-and-half
• 2 slices Havarti cheese
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 20 g butter
• Chopped garlic
• Red onion
• Yellow and orange bell peppers
• Salt
• Black pepper
• Pine nuts
• Dried parsley

Havarti is not essential. We used it simply because it was the cheese we had at home. Another cheese that melts well and works with a creamy sauce can be used instead.

We Cook the Spaghetti a Little Softer

For two servings, we use about 160 g of spaghetti.

We add 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the pasta water and cook the spaghetti for about 10 minutes. We prefer our spaghetti a little softer rather than very firm.

We do not add pasta water to the cream sauce.

Once the sauce is almost ready, we add the cooked spaghetti directly to the pan and mix everything together.

We Start with Olive Oil and Add Butter Later

We begin the sauce with olive oil in a pan.

First, we sauté the chopped garlic. Then we add the red onion and bell peppers and continue cooking. The shrimp goes in next.

One detail that matters in the way we make this dish is that we do not start by mixing butter and olive oil together.

We first cook the garlic, vegetables, and shrimp in olive oil.

Once the shrimp is partly cooked, we add the butter. For two servings, we use about 20 g. After the butter melts and combines with the other ingredients, we add the half-and-half.

This gives us the flavor of sautéed garlic, vegetables, and shrimp first, followed by the richness of butter and then the smooth creaminess of the sauce.

Making a Simple Cream Sauce with Half-and-Half

For two servings, we use about 240 ml of half-and-half.

After adding it to the pan, we let everything simmer together until the sauce reaches the consistency we like.

We do not want the sauce so thick that almost nothing remains on the plate. We prefer it creamy and slightly thick, with enough sauce left to enjoy with the spaghetti.

We season it simply with salt and black pepper and add two slices of Havarti cheese, allowing them to melt into the sauce.

Finally, we add the cooked spaghetti to the pan and mix it thoroughly with the creamy seafood sauce.

From preparation to serving, the entire meal takes us about 40 minutes.

Making It at Home Lets Us Control the Creaminess

One reason we enjoy making cream pasta at home is that we can control the consistency of the sauce.

Restaurant cream pasta can sometimes feel very rich or heavy. At home, we can adjust how much half-and-half we use and how long we reduce the sauce.

We like ours creamy enough to feel rich and smooth without becoming overly heavy.

Garlic adds flavor, and using plenty of shrimp and vegetables helps balance the creaminess so that the sauce is not the only flavor in the dish.

Cream Pasta Is Familiar in Korea Too

Cream pasta is not unusual in Korea.

It is commonly served at Italian restaurants and pasta restaurants, and it is also easy to make at home.

We made cream spaghetti regularly when we lived in Korea. At that time, we often used packaged cream sauce from the grocery store.

In the United States, half-and-half is easy to find, so we now use it more often to make our own simple cream sauce.

The country has changed, but this is one of those meals we can continue making almost the same way because the ingredients are easy to find.

A Satisfying Pasta Lunch at Home

Noodle dishes are usually lunch meals in our home, and this creamy seafood spaghetti is enough for a complete meal by itself.

We usually make only as much as we plan to eat, so there is rarely anything left over.

Sometimes we serve it with salad or pickles. And because this is our Korean home kitchen, having a little kimchi alongside pasta does not seem unusual to us either.

This is also a dish we can serve when we have guests. It looks attractive on the table, and its creamy, mild flavor is easy to enjoy.

The spaghetti in the photo was not prepared especially for a photograph. It is simply the way we normally make and eat creamy seafood spaghetti at home.

Our Korean Home Kitchen Is Not Only About Korean Food

Not every meal we eat at home is Korean.

We make Korean noodles, Japanese-style noodle dishes, and Western foods such as spaghetti. That was true when we lived in Korea, and it is still true now that we live in the United States.

Sometimes we continue using the same ingredients we used in Korea. Other times, we adapt a familiar dish using ingredients that are easier to find in American grocery stores.

This creamy seafood spaghetti is a good example.

In Korea, we often relied on packaged cream pasta sauce. Here, we make the sauce with half-and-half and whatever cheese we happen to have at home, then add the seafood and vegetables we want that day.

It is not meant to be a restaurant-style recipe that follows strict rules. It is simply one of the comfortable meals we actually cook and enjoy in our Korean home kitchen.