I love a quick and easy pasta sauce recipe so prawns are the perfect ingredient to include in one. Taking less than 5 minutes to cook, they are difficult to get wrong. I used some lovely big raw king prawns (which were already deveined) which were lovely and meaty and filling. I like to cook my prawns from raw so I know they are as fresh as possible and so they can cook them in the garlic and chilli so that take on all the flavour. If you are funny about cooking prawns from raw though, there is no harm in buying the precooked ones and just heating them through in the sauce at the end.

This recipe requires very little effort other than a little roasting of tomatoes however if you don’t have time to do this, feel free to replace the roasted tomatoes with ½ tin of chopped tomatoes. I think this recipe is better when it’s not too saucy. That way you can really taste the garlic, chilli, roasted tomatoes and prawns. If you do like your pasta sauces a bit more runny, feel free to add more chopped tomatoes or even a little stock.

Chilli Prawn Linguine

Serves 2 = 8sp each (Flex)

Ingredients

120g spaghetti

1 tsp olive oil

3 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 chilli, finely chopped

200g king prawns, raw and deveined

Large pack of cherry tomatoes (or ½ tin chopped tomatoes)

125 ml white wine

Handful of basil leaves, shredded

Method

Pop the oven on 200c. Take the whole pack of cherry tomatoes, pop in a baking dish, season with salt and pepper, drizzle with ½ tsp olive oil and ½ tsp balsamic vinegar. Toss together and then roast for around 15 minutes.

Pop your spaghetti on to boil.

In a large frying pan add the rest of the oil, heat and then add the garlic and chilli, frying for a few minutes. Take care not to burn the garlic as this will give you dish a horrible bitter taste. In the same frying pan add the prawns, season and fry for 2 minutes, flip and then fry on the other side for another 2 minutes. The prawns should be pink and cooked through. Remove the prawns from the pan and pop to one side.

Remove the tomatoes from the oven and pop the majority in a food processor (reserve 3 or 4 per person to add back at the end). Churn until you have a nice, chunky tomato mixture that is both saucy but still has a few lumps. Add the contents of the food processor to the frying pan with the wine and half the basil leaves, season and simmer for five minutes until the wine reduces and the sauce mixture thickens a little. Add the prawns back to the pan with the tomatoes you put to one side and 1 tbsp single cream (optional). Heat until everything is piping hot. Drain the spaghetti and then add to the pan. Toss the spaghetti in the sauce and again simmer until everything is heated through. Add the rest of the basil leaves stir through and serve in a nice big pasta bowls with a dusting of fresh parmesan.

Enjoy!