Shrimp and Asparagus with Gluten Free Penne

Gluten Free Shrimp and Asparagus with Penne

This easygluten free Shrimp and Asparagus with Penne illustrates how quickly you canmake delicious complete meal with just a few simple ingredients.  There’s no need for fast food when you haverecipes like this in your arsenal that can be thrown together in mereminutes.  This dish also demonstrateshealthy eating at its finest.  Using alow calorie vegetable like asparagus, which is about 30 calories per cup, enablesyou to use a smaller amount of the pasta, which is closer to 200 calories percup.  But with the ratios in this dishyou’ll still be enjoying an abundant plate of food without feeling like you aresacrificing a thing.  And when you’reusing fresh vegetables in a recipe like this you’ll be getting a lot ofvitamins and minerals that would be missing in a dish like shrimp scampiservied with pasta and no vegetables.     
Shrimpand Asparagus with Gluten Free PennePreptime:  5 min Cooktime:  12 min
Ingredients 

• 8oz of shrimp peeled and deveined
• 4oz of gluten free penne
• 1bunch of asparagus
• 2cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 1tbsp butter
• 1lemon, juice and zest
• saltand pepper to taste   
• redpepper flakes, optional

Video Tutorial



Instructions

1. Put a pot of salted water on to boil.
2. Stir the shrimp together with thelemon zest, garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper and setaside. 
3. Rinse the asparagus. Remove anddiscard the bottom 1/3 of the stem.  Chopthe remaining portion into  2 inchlengths to mirror the size of the penne.
4. When the water comes to a boil add thepenne and stir for about 30 seconds to make sure they’re not sticking together. 
5. In a large nonstick sauté pan over amedium high heat, add the marinated shrimp and sauté for two minutes on thefirst side and 2 minutes on the second side then turn off the heat so theshrimp doesn’t overcook.
6. When the pasta is 2 minutes shy ofbeing done add the asparagus to the same boiling water with the penne. 
7. When the pasta and asparagus are bothdone drain them and add them to the pan with the shrimp then turn the pan backon to a medium low heat. 
8. Squeeze over the fresh lemonjuice.  Add the butter and stir until thebutter is melted and the shrimp is heated through and serve. 

Notes: In the recipe I used Sam Mills Penne Rigati which is a gluten free corn based pasta.  It had an outstanding texture that closely resembled the wheat pasta from my days before being gluten free.  Ifyou’re not following a gluten free diet, you can use regular pasta.