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This made me so happy! I followed the recipe exactly, and it was easy to make and the payoff was huge. It’s fancy, yet it’s comfort food. So good!
Juicy, succulent shrimp laced with garlic, butter, and thyme, tucked into a silky burst tomato sauce, and piled high on creamy, luscious Parmesan orzo. WHAT A DREAMBOAT DINNER. I love this recipe!
In This Post: Everything You Need For Garlic Shrimp and Tomatoes
- Take Me To The Recipe
- How To Make This
- Lindsay’s Notes
- Watch How to Make This Garlic Shrimp and Tomatoes
- FAQs
- Reviews
How To Make This Garlic Shrimp and Tomatoes (with Pictures)
Step 1: Blister and Smash the Tomatoes
Get the tomatoes hot and blistery; then give ’em a gentle smash with the back of a spoon or a small plate. It’s… very fun.
Step 2: Cook the Shrimp
Make a little clearing right in the center of the tomatoes where you can add your shrimp to cook for a couple of minutes. Salt it up!
Step 3: Get the Garlic and Butter Going In There
Throw in a bunch of freshly sliced garlic and a knob of butter. Stir it up a few times until it’s dreamy.
Step 4: Make a Creamy Orzo
Put a lid on the shrimp and make a quick creamy orzo – butter, Parmesan, cream, lemon, and salt.
Step 5: Put It All Together
Piping hot orzo goes on the plate first, and then we pull our shrimp and tomatoes back out to pile on top.
Lindsay’s Notes
This recipe is in heavy rotation at the moment – and it never fails to make me feel like I’m eating at a fancy restaurant and/or generally have my life together. Is my laundry all over my table? Yes. Have I been using dry shampoo for the last 4 days? Yes. But am I also eating a kind of fancy and beautiful dinner? YES! Three cheers for doable “fancy” recipes. 10/10 recommend.
Creamy orzo with the twang of Parmesan, sweet burst tomatoes gently bubbled into a sauce, and a pile of jumbo, delicate, buttery, garlic-laced shrimp. Pass me a glass of wine and I am living my best life.
As far as family approval goes, Bjork and I love the whole big, beautiful thing – no thyme for him (a true crime and I don’t want to spend any more time talking about it), and lots of thyme, salt, and pepp for me. The girls are hit and miss with the shrimp and tomatoes, but you better believe they love the creamy Parmesan orzo which is, of course, just mac and cheese in disguise. They’ll usually eat a few of the fresh little tomatoes on the side, too. Winning for everybody! This similar orzo recipe is also a hit with them.
Watch How To Make This Garlic Shrimp and Tomatoes
Garlic Shrimp and Tomatoes with Parmesan Orzo
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 2–3 servings 1x
Description
Shrimp laced with buttery garlic and thyme and a burst tomato sauce served on a creamy Parmesan orzo.
Ingredients
Garlic Shrimp and Tomatoes:
- 1 lb. cherry tomatoes
- 1–2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 lb. shrimp – I use jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails off
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
- 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
Creamy Orzo:
- 8 ounces uncooked orzo
- 1/2 cup half and half
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
- lemon juice (optional)
Instructions
- Cook the Orzo: Cook according to package directions. Drain, toss with a bit of oil, and set aside.
- Soften the Tomatoes: Add the tomatoes and olive oil to a pan over medium high heat so they can soften and get a bit blistered on the outside. I usually cover the pan to avoid extra splatters.
- Smash the Tomatoes: Once they’re soft (5 minutes or so), give them a gentle smash with the back of a spoon or applying even pressure with a plate or similar flat object. You want the tomatoes to be partially burst / smashed so they release some juices.
- Cook the Shrimp: Make a little clearing in the center of the tomatoes and add your shrimp right in; season them with 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook for 2 minutes on each side.
- Give it Some Flava-Flave: Add the garlic, butter, and 1/2 teaspoon salt to the pan and stir to mix it all together. Let it get saucy and bubbly; then remove from heat and cover with a lid.
- Make the orzo: Mix the orzo with butter, half and half, Parmesan, and lemon. Stir to combine; warm it up over the heat if necessary.
- Pile it up: Serve immediately so the orzo doesn’t get too starchy and sticky! Pile it on a plate with a big scoop of steamy shrimp and tomatoes. Top with thyme. So good!
Notes
This amount usually makes enough for just Bjork and I to finish the shrimp, with plenty of orzo for us and the girls. If you wanted to serve 4 adults, I would use 2 pounds of shrimp!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Sauté
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: shrimp and orzo, orzo recipe, shrimp and tomatoes
Frequently Asked Questions For Garlic Shrimp and Tomatoes
Chicken would be delicious! I would probably pan-fry the chicken first, then take it out and set aside while you build your tomato sauce, then add the chicken back in at the end.
You can definitely eat this meal as leftovers for 1, maybe 2 days after you make it, but it’s one of those meals that really shines when it’s made fresh.
Use zucchini in place of the shrimp! Or, similarly, this recipe is great.
Use gluten free orzo, dairy-free butter (or olive oil), and something else creamy in place of the half and half and Parmesan – a knob of dairy-free cream cheese would be good!
Another option would be to skip the creamy orzo and serve this with quinoa or another gluten-free, dairy-free option.
Excellent recipe and super easy! The only comment was that I thought the garlic was added rather late and didn’t have time to cook. The orzo was great, but I think that the shrimp and sauce would also be great over rice or pasta for a lighter meal.
This was amazing! Easy, flavourful, a quick “make again!” from the husband and kids. Made as written, just added extra garlic!
We are doing no-spend month and I went to make this and realized I was out of cherry tomatoes… I found some sun-dried tomatoes in oil in my pantry, and cooked the shrimp in the oil- a phenomenal last minute substitution!
This is one of the best recipes I’ve made. It is so flavourful yet simple.
This was absolutely wonderful. I added some chopped fresh basil and 2 TBS of capers. It was FABULOUS!
Wow, wow, wow! The orzo was fantastic and stupid me didn’t realize you needed a pound of cherry tomatoes so I had to had a quarter cup of white wine and a bit of lemon juice to make more of a sauce but I’m in Heaven! I also sautéed the garlic with the tomatoes because my hubby hates the taste of raw garlic but I’ll definitely make this again! Be sure to use succulent jumbo prawns!
Yum! This looks like the perfect weeknight dinner 😋 Love how quick and simple it is, but still fancy enough to impress. That garlic shrimp combo with the parmesan orzo sounds divine. Quick question – think it’d work with cherry tomatoes if I can’t find the mini San Marzano ones? Can’t wait to try this out, my stomach’s already growling!
Hi Lindsay & team!
Thanks again for sharing a great recipe. Quick question – the 8 ounces of dried orzo: does that measurement refer to the volume (aka about a cup), or the weight (aka about a cup & a half)? Thank you for the clarification!
Hi Amy! It’s the weight!
Good start, but needed some tweaking. I make it with more garlic, basil, oregano, etc. and served over linguine. Boyfriend enjoyed my version a lot! Nice and fast and easy to prepare.
A++ recipe. I didn’t even have half and half or parmesan and it still turned out delicious even without those ingredients.
Good recipe
This was a 10/10 meal for me. Came together in no time and the flavors had me feeling like a queen! I added a blob of Italian Bomba from Trader Joe’s for some heat, and some frozen corn for extra veg. This is one of my new favorite SOS meals. Can’t wait to make it again!
I tried out this recipe tonight, and it turned out fantastic! I appreciate the sweetness from the tomatoes. So creamy and cheesy. Thanks for sharing this great recipe!
This Garlic Shrimp and Tomatoes with Parmesan Orzo recipe is a culinary delight! The combination of flavors must be sensational. Excited to try it out – thanks for sharing this mouthwatering recipe!
Made this with a can of diced tomatoes rather than fresh (because that’s what I had) but otherwise exactly as written. So yummy! I could eat a bowl of just the pasta but the tartness of the tomatoes against that creaminess was really nice.
Food that looks very good.
Cool tomato recipes. I like them a lot. I want to make one of the dishes.
This was delightful! So quick and easy to pull together. I was immensely surprised at how great of an impact the addition of thyme brought in the end. A fancy dish for sure that I’ll make over and over again! Thanks for the recipe!
It’s dish is absolutely delicious. We are simply loving it. All of your recipes are so special and so yum!
This is a 5 star recipe! It’s absolutely delicious. We are simply loving it.
Thank you for sharing this keeper of recipe. All of your recipes are so yum!
So good! My son likes tomatoes
Just made this dish and it was SOOOO good! We added a little bit of crushed red pepper flakes for some spice, but other than that, you don’t need to stray from the recipe much. Our orzo was a little soupy too (after reading another review), but after a little more Parmesan and more time on the stove, it ended up being the perfect consistency. A really good combination and another recipe to save for later!
Oh. My. Gosh!
So delicious, so simple, and really makes you feel like you are winning at life when you whip this up in the time it takes to rewatch an episode of Schitt’s Creek 👌🏻
The staple food in my country is rice, I think I can make a dish similar to yours.
C’était délicieux! The shrimp were so good, and my kids like them too. I somehow didn’t get the orzo right, but maybe next time will be better. Maybe I missed something… but cooking while taking care of a 3 year-old, a 23-months old and a baby, it’s something! Anyway, we’ll definitely do it again! Merci – Karine (from Québec)