Thanks to quarantine and the last four months of working from home, I’ve had more flexibility and more time to finally get to a lot of recipes I’ve been wanting to try out and have been digging into my recipe bookmarks and Evernotes to see what has been on my list. One of the dishes was spaghetti aglio e olio with shrimp (pasta with garlic, olive oil, and shrimp). It’s a simple, less-than-30-minute meal, and it uses the shrimp shells and infuses their delicious glutamates into the olive oil to reveal an even shrimper, more sea-like flavor in the overall pasta dish. I’m trying to be all about creating less waste, and before this recipe, I’ve been using my shrimp shells as part of making stock in my Instant Pot. But this gave me yet another use for my shrimp shells rather than discarding.

The result was simple, quick, fast, and delicious, and the ingredient list was so, so short. With an extra sprinkling of red pepper flakes and grated parmigianno reggiano, this could easily become a staple in our household.