Carrabba’s Shrimp Scampi
Carrabba’s Shrimp Scampi is the appetizer that makes you forget the bread basket even exists, and this copycat version tastes identical to the restaurant. Big, juicy shrimp roasted with Italian seasoning, then drowned in that bright, garlicky Carrabba’s lemon butter sauce and finished with Parmesan. Here’s the best part: it’s the same sauce from our Carrabba’s Chicken Bryan, so if you’ve made that one, you’re halfway home! We love shrimp scampi so much that we try it at every restaurant we walk into.
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Recipe at a Glance
Carrabba’s Shrimp Scampi
Oven-roasted shrimp swimming in Carrabba’s bright lemon butter sauce with garlic, parsley and Parmesan, served with easy garlic toast.
Total time: 25 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Best for: Date night appetizer, holiday app spread, or dinner for 2 over pasta
Best Tip: Use fresh lemon juice and take the extra step to clarify your butter. That’s the whole secret.
Copycat Secrets Uncovered
Two things make this taste like Carrabba’s instead of every other shrimp scampi on the internet. Fresh lemon and clarified butter. That’s it. Skip either one and you’ve got perfectly nice garlic shrimp, but not THE shrimp.
Fresh Lemon Only, Hussy
Put the bottle down! Fresh lemon juice just tastes better. Bottled can taste a little chemical, and it doesn’t have those little pieces of lemon or that bright, fresh flavor that makes this sauce pop. Since lemon is half the sauce, this is not the place to cut corners.
A good citrus juicer makes this painless, and this one separates the juice from the seeds so nobody’s crunching on a lemon seed.
Clarified Butter Is the Whole Ballgame
Yes, clarifying butter is an extra step. Do it anyway! Butter is made of fat, water and milk solids, and clarifying pulls out the water and solids so you’re left with pure, golden butterfat. Those milk solids are what brown and burn, so without them your onion and garlic cook gently with no brown specks and no scorched taste. The sauce stays clean, bright and buttery instead of cloudy.
Then the 2 tablespoons of cold butter you swirl in at the very end is what makes the sauce silky. Clarified butter for the cooking, cold butter for the creamy finish. Teamwork!
Same Sauce as Chicken Bryan
Carrabba’s uses this lemon butter sauce on more than one dish, and it’s the same base as our Carrabba’s Chicken Bryan. Master it once and you’ve got two restaurant favorites in your back pocket.
Carrabba’s Shrimp Scampi Ingredients
- Shrimp. Large raw shrimp (about 25 to 30 per pound), peeled, deveined and tails removed. Tails off means nobody’s fishing them out of the sauce with their fingers. Raw is a must because they roast in the oven, and precooked shrimp turn rubbery fast.
- Italian seasoning, coarse sea salt and black pepper. This is a simple seasoning for the shrimp before they roast, so the shrimp have flavor of their own and aren’t just a sauce delivery system.
- Butter. You need butter two ways. 6 tablespoons get clarified for the sauce base, and 2 tablespoons stay cold for swirling in at the end. Keep that second batch in the fridge until you need it.
- Yellow onion and garlic. Both minced fine. The onion gives the sauce a little sweetness underneath all that lemon.
- Fresh lemon. One large lemon, juiced (about 1/3 cup). Our lemon gave almost 1/2 cup and we used every drop. If your lemons aren’t large, use 2. Fresh only. See above.
- Dry white wine. Just 2 tablespoons, so open whatever you like to drink and pour yourself a glass while you’re at it.
- No wine in the house, or just not a wine family? Use the same 2 tablespoons of chicken broth instead.
- Kosher salt and white pepper. A pinch each in the sauce. White pepper keeps the sauce looking clean with no black flecks.
- Fresh Italian parsley and Parmesan. For the finish. Grated Parmesan melts right into the hot sauce.
How to Make Carrabba’s Shrimp Scampi
Roast the Shrimp
Rinse the shrimp and pat them dry with paper towels. In a medium bowl, toss the shrimp with the salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and olive oil until they’re coated. Spread them on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes.
Clarify the Butter First
Preheat the oven to 400º. Melt the 6 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Once it’s melted, take it off the heat and pour it into a glass measuring cup. Let it sit for several minutes so the milk solids settle to the bottom. Then skim the clear, golden butter off the top and toss the sediment.
Quick tip: most of the solids sink, but a few always float. Grab a small spoon and skim off any that stay on top so your clarified butter is nice and clean.
Build the Lemon Butter Sauce While the Shrimp Bake
As soon as the shrimp go in the oven, start the sauce, and the timing works out. Add the clarified butter, onion and garlic to the same small saucepan and sauté until transparent, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Add the lemon juice, wine, salt and pepper. Simmer 4 to 5 minutes to reduce the liquid.
Take the pan off the heat and swirl in the remaining 2 tablespoons of cold butter until the sauce is smooth and emulsified. Off the heat is the key here. Cold butter plus a hot burner is how sauces break.
Fixing a Broken Sauce
If your sauce goes greasy and separated (it looks like melted butter with lemon juice hiding underneath), don’t panic. Carrabba’s own recipe notes that a broken sauce still tastes the same, it just looks greasy. It usually happens when the pan is too hot when the cold butter goes in, or when the sauce gets reheated over high heat.
To bring it back, keep it off the heat, add a teaspoon of cold water or another little piece of cold butter, and whisk like you mean it.
Finish and Serve
Pull the shrimp out of the oven and place them in a small serving dish with rimmed sides, so none of that sauce escapes. Pour the sauce over the shrimp, then sprinkle with the Italian parsley and freshly grated Parmesan. (Don’t buy the pre-grated! It’s got a coating on it and just doesn’t taste the same!) Serve with garlic toast.
Easy Garlic Toast
This is the easiest side you’ll make all year. Italian sourdough, butter and a sprinkle of garlic salt. That’s the whole recipe. Pop the bread in the toaster, butter it while it’s hot and sprinkle on the garlic salt. Use it to drag through every last drop of that lemon butter sauce.
Making It Dinner for Two
This recipe is meant to be an appetizer, with 3 shrimp per person, but turning it into dinner for 2 is easy. Cook 1/2 pound of angel hair or spaghetti, toss it with the sauce and pile the shrimp on top. Date night, sorted!
Storage & Freezing
Storing Leftovers
Keep leftover shrimp and sauce in an airtight container in the fridge. The FDA’s food storage chart puts cooked seafood leftovers at 3 to 4 days in the fridge.
Reheating Shrimp Scampi
Microwave for about 45 seconds and stop there. Shrimp shrink up and get tough if you reheat them too long, so warm them just until they’re hot.
Freezing
Skip it. Shrimp are hard to reheat without turning rubbery, and freezing makes that worse. Make what you’ll eat. With 3 shrimp per person, that’s an easy math problem!
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Carrabba’s Shrimp Scampi
Ingredients
- 6 tbsp butter
- 12 large raw shrimp tails removed, peeled & deveined
- 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp yellow onion minced
- 2 tbsp garlic minced
- 1 large lemon juiced (1/3 cup)
- 2 tbsp dry white wine
- Pinch kosher salt
- Pinch white pepper
- 2 tbsp cold butter
- 1 tsp fresh Italian parsley finely chopped
- 2 tbsp parmesan cheese grated
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400º.
- In a small sauce pan, melt butter over low heat. When melted, remove from heat and pour into a glass measuring cup. Set aside for several minutes to allow the milk solids to settle to the bottom. Skim the clear (clarified) butter from the top, and discard sediment.6 tbsp butter
- Rinse shrimp and pat dry with paper towels. In a medium bowl, add shrimp, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and olive oil. Toss until coated.12 large raw shrimp, 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning, 2 tsp olive oil
- Place shrimp on a cookie sheet with a baking rack and bake for 10 minutes.
- In same small sauce pan, add clarified butter, onion and garlic. Saute until transparent, about 2-3 minutes.2 tbsp yellow onion, 2 tbsp garlic
- Add lemon juice, wine, salt and pepper. Simmer 2 to 3 minutes to reduce liquid.1 large lemon, 2 tbsp dry white wine, Pinch kosher salt, Pinch white pepper
- Remove from heat and swirl in remaining 2 tbsp cold butter until sauce is smooth and emulsified.2 tbsp cold butter
- Remove shrimp from oven and place in small serving dish with rimmed sides. Pour sauce over shrimp. Sprinkle with Italian parsley and Parmesan cheese. Serve with garlic toast.1 tsp fresh Italian parsley, 2 tbsp parmesan cheese
