Save Those Scraps for This Spicy Pasta

Shrimp tails belong in your pan, not the trash

Everything old is new again, and no-waste cooking — a method used in previous centuries for the primary purpose of “not starving” — is enjoying a newly-refurbished moment in the sun. Trends aside, there are virtually endless ways to recycle leftover ingredients and cooking scraps into new forms. I’ve written about making stock from a rotisserie chicken and soup from miscellaneous items in the fridge, and there are modern cookbook classics like Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal that detail all the ways one can cook frugally; there is Natasha Pickowicz in Grubstreet extolling the virtues of a never-ending “soup mother,” and, of course, the legendary Jacques Pepin making magic out of wilted greens and old onion knobs. All of this to say that the possibilities for no-waste cooking are limitless.

Today I’m spotlighting a simpler way to “upcycle” an ingredient normally bound for the trash can: shrimp tails. I’ve been making this fra diavolo (read: spicy) pasta dish for a few weeks now, in which shrimp tails are sautéed in olive oil (then removed) to impart an oceanic umami flavor; this is in addition to lots of garlic and Calabrian chili, as well as tomato passata and a variety of tinned fish. It all comes together to form a decidedly-inexpensive seafood pasta that leverages both your pantry and your freezer — perfect for a weeknight meal.