Spicy Avocado Pasta With Tequila Shrimp

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For the ultimate fusion dish, look no further than this spicy avocado pasta with tequila shrimp! Featuring an ultra creamy avocado sauce with the perfect spice kick and punch of citrus, this Tex-Mex pasta is simple enough for cooks of all levels to prepare, and it takes less than 30 minutes to whip up. After one bite, you'll have a new favorite pasta.

Two bowls of spicy avocado pasta with tequila shrimp on a yellow napkin with cilantro to the side.

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Why You Need to Make This Recipe
Ingredients
Step-by-Step Instructions
Recipe FAQs
Expert Tips
Perfect Pairing
Love a Good Pasta Dish?
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Why You Need to Make This Recipe

Obsessed with avocados? Can't get enough pasta? This creamy avocado pasta is for you. Let's count the ways you need this dish in your life.

Oh-so creamy. Despite not requiring a drop of heavy cream, this avocado sauce is ultra luscious and decadent.
Quick and easy. Whip up the avocado sauce in under 10 minutes, cook the pasta and roast the shrimp. In less than 30 minutes, you have yourself one delicious, hearty meal.
Different from your average pasta. We all love your typical tomato, pesto and cream sauce pastas, but let’s give our taste buds a change of pace.
Tequila shrimp! After roasting, we pour tequila over the shrimp for an extra flavor boost. The margarita lover in you will rejoice.

Related: For more spicy pasta inspiration, check out my pumpkin-chorizo baked ziti and this creamy Cajun pasta from Pass the Sushi.

Ingredients

As you can see, the avocado pasta ingredients are straightforward and easy to find. How’s that for another reason to love this recipe?

For the pasta, I like fettuccine. Spaghetti also works. Since this is a thick sauce, I prefer a pasta with some body as opposed to an angel hair linguine.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Let's prepare our tequila shrimp for roasting by tossing them with olive oil and chili powder (photo 1). We pop the shrimp into the oven until they cook through (photo 2) and then pour tequila over the hot shrimp.

The shrimp in a white roasting pan before and after they've been cooked.

Step 2: Now we cook our pasta and prepare the avocado sauce while it boils. For the sauce, we toss avocado, garlic, olive oil, cilantro, cumin, cayenne, smoked paprika, lime juice, salt and pepper into a food processor (photo 3) and blend until smooth and creamy (photo 4).

A collage showing the sauce in the food processor and then after it's been blended.

Step 3: Once our pasta finishes cooking, we drain it, reserving some pasta water, and then toss with our avocado sauce (photo 5). The avocado sauce will be very thick, so after the initial toss, we pour in some of that reserved pasta water to give it the perfect consistency (photo 6).

A collage showing the pasta sauce before and after tossing in a mixing bowl.

Step 4: Now we top our spicy avocado pasta with our tequila shrimp and a little cojita cheese for an extra Tex-Mex kick. Go ahead and dig in!

Recipe FAQs

How can you tell if an avocado is ripe?

Choose a darkly colored avocado that yields to gentle pressure when squeezed without feeling mushy. We don't want avocados that aren't quite ripe. Even with a food processor, we won't get that wonderfully creamy texture if the avocados are still rock hard.

Another method is to remove the avocado stem. If the stem comes off easily and the area underneath it is green, you have yourself a ripe avocado.

How can you ripen avocados faster?

Store your avocados in a paper bag with a banana or apple, fold the bag to seal and let it sit overnight. This produces ethene gas, which helps break down the cellular structure to ripen the avocado. While this still requires a night of sitting, it's much faster than waiting several days for a hard avocado to ripen on the counter.

Expert Tips

Just before cooking, I like to pre-measure and prep my avocado sauce ingredients. This way, I feel less stressed while cooking, and it makes for low-key entertaining.
To keep the avocado sauce from turning brown, I recommend making it fresh as the pasta cooks.
Mix the pasta and avocado sauce as soon as you drain the pasta. Hot pasta makes it much easier to incorporate the sauce.
When adding the pasta water, start with a little at a time. We can always add more water, but we can't fix it if we add too much. I find 2-4 tablespoons generally does the trick, but it comes down to personal preference.
Feel free to add other mix-ins, such as bacon, sautéed spinach or roasted cherry tomatoes.

Perfect Pairing

With the creamy avocado and fettuccine, this isn't the lightest dish. A bubbly hefeweizen cuts through the spice and fatty avocado, and the citrus notes perfectly liven the tequila shrimp.

In that same spirit, a sauvignon blanc is a delicious match here. With its bright acidity, this crisp wine keeps our palate refreshed.

And, of course, we are talking Mexican-Italian fusion here. How about we get extra festive and enjoy this Italian margarita on the side? Trust me -- it's a good call.

For a dish like no other, I hope you try this spicy avocado pasta with tequila shrimp. You will love every decadent, creamy bite.

Cheers!

An aerial view of the spicy avocado pasta with cilantro and a fork to the side.

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Recipe originally published in May 2018 and republished in June 2021.

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