Mardi Gras Pasta is a wonderfully spiced New Orleans-style dish loaded with shrimp, andouille sausage, peppers, and garlic. It’s basically fettuccine alfredo Cajun-style and it can be made start to finish in just 20 minutes.
There’s nothing at all difficult about this recipe. It’s creamy, buttery and so rich.
The andouille sausage gives this pasta dish so much flavor and some spice.
What is Andouille Sausage and where to find it?
Andouille is a smoked sausage popular in cajun and creole cooking made from pork and spices. You should be able to find andouille sausage at a well-stocked grocery store. Johnsonville makes one that is fairly widely available. It is not as good as the ones you can get in Louisiana. If you really want some authentic andouille sausage, try ordering some from CajunGrocer.
How To Make Mardi Gras Pasta:
- Cook the pasta.
- While the pasta is cooking, saute the shrimp and then set them aside.
- Make the sauce in the same pan you cooked the shrimp in by first cooking the sausage and veggies in butter, then adding the garlic and tomatoes, followed by the heavy cream. Once the mixture thickens some, add the remaining ingredients.
- Remove from heat and toss the fettuccine and shrimp with the sauce. So simple!
Is this dish spicy?
The spice level of this dish will depend to a large degree on how spicy your andouille sausage is. It can really vary between brands. There is also a little heat from the Cajun seasoning. If you want it spicier, add 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
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Mardi Gras Pasta
Ingredients
- 12 ounces fettuccine
- 8 tablespoons butter, divided
- 1 pound medium to large shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1 teapsoon Cajun seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 4 green onions, sliced
- 1/4 cup diced yellow pepper
- 1/4 cup diced green pepper
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- 12 ounces andouille sausage, sliced
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 cup diced tomato
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Cook pasta in salted water according to package directions. Drain.
- While water comes to a boil and pasta cooks, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet.Sprinkle the shrimp with cajun seasoning and paprika and cook in the butter until they turn pink.Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- Add the remaining butter to the skillet. When melted, add onion, bell peppers, mushrooms and sausage and cook until the sausage is browned and the veggies are soft.
- Stir in the garlic and tomato and cook 1 minute.
- Stir in heavy cream and simmer until thickened some.
- Add lemon juice, Parmesan and parsley. Stir to melt the Parmesan.Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.
- Remove from heat. Add fettuccine and shrimp and mix in.
Nutrition
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This is one of the BEST recipes I have found online. It will definitely be cooked again. I omitted the mushrooms, but it was still delicious!
There is a restaurant in nacogdoches TX called the cottage wine bar that is using your recipe and pictures. Just thought I would let you know. Let me know if you need anymore info.
I will check it out. Thanks for the heads up.
Was looking for a Mardi Gras recipe that I could Make low carb (over zoodles). My family absolutely loved this and will prob call for it to be a staple in our house moving forward!
The first time I made this dish, it was absolutely delicious. Family really enjoyed it. What I appreciated the most was that I could increase the ingredients to my taste, such as sausage and shrimp.
This is my second time cooking this pasta my family goes mad for it
How can this be made wo the cream & parmesan? Sickest I’ve ever been with food was w fettucini alfredo so I don’t want to repeat that! I like the basic recipe ingredients. Any suggestions to make it into a tomato-based sauce wo those two ingredients & make it tasty? Also, would a different pasta be better inthe “new” recipe. Ideas appreciated.
This dish was great. I wa initially concerned it was too spicy for my wife, but it is not. It has a great flavor, but very little heat. When we make it again, we will skip the parsley, as I do not think it adds anything to the dish. The recipe says the dish feeds five, but they had better be hungry as I think seven or eight would have enough, especially if you start with a small salad and add some crusty bread to go with the dish. We are looking forward to making this again.
I just want to say that I don’t care from where this recipe is. What it matter here is if the recipe is good. I have to say this is so good. I changed the sausage for kielbasa and the cajun seasoning for curry powder. I forgot to put lemon. Even with this changes it was delicious with some slices of avocado. Thanks for this wonderful recipe.
It took quite a while to prep all the ingredients for this recipe but, in the end, it was time well spent. I could taste every ingredient, and the combination was so flavorful. I consider this recipe a ‘keeper’!
This is a great recipe but being from New Orleans and currently living in New Orleans, you can’t say it’s New Orleans style and then also say it’s Cajun. New Orleans is a Creole City. We are not a Cajun City. To get Cajun flavors you have to go down the bayou or over in the Lafayette area. You can clearly see on Tony Chachere’s label in your picture you have provided says Creole seasoning. As we do eat pasta down here, we have mostly Sicilian Creole cooking. Cajun and pasta is kind of a oxymoron. You can’t just throw some Cajun or Creole seasoning in a recipe and claim that it is a native dish. The dish looks fantastic however! So there’s that!
Does it really matter whether it’s a cajun or creole dish? It looks absolutely devine. I plan on making it on Saturday for my daughter-in-law’s bday. We live in CA, and I don’t think she cares for a labeled pasta dish, only that it tastes good!