A keto shrimp scampi recipe! Because when you put your mind to it, anything can become a pasta noodle. To keep the carbs low and transform traditional shrimp scampi into a healthy meal, we replaced linguine noodles with summer squash. Yep, that's right; squash noodles.
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How to make summer squash noodles
First thing's first, you're going to need a spiralizer tool of some sort to cut your squash into noodles. If you want to turn a vegetable into a noodle, there's no way around it. There are tons and tons of different spiralizers on the market: handheld, stand-alone, and even KitchenAid attachments.
For something like summer squash, you can get away with a handheld spiralizer. The veggie is long and skinny, making it easy to twist out noodles by hand. They're quite a bit cheaper than the heavy duty stands and attachments, so if you're just testing the waters, you might want to go this route before investing in a more elaborate set-up. I have this one that's usually around ten bucks on Amazon; best handheld spiralizer I've tried!
Pro tip: If you're a veggie noodle fanatic, then entirely without a doubt upgrade yourself to a stand-alone! You can tackle the wider, larger vegetables. I can even do shredded cabbage with mine! Worth it.
Once you cut your noodle shapes from the summer squash, I spread them out over paper towels and salt them to draw the moisture out. Summer squash tends to be moist, and if you don't take this step first, the dish will become watery as it cooks. Just let the noodles sit for a good 15 minutes to a half hour, then blot away the water before cooking. They don't take long to cook! Simply toss them in the pan for a few minutes.
![Keto Shrimp Scampi Recipe [Low Carb, Gluten Free]](https://ketogasm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/keto-shrimp-scampi-recipe-01.jpg.webp)
Carbs in summer squash
Summer squash is a great choice for keto pasta noodles. In 100 grams of summer squash, there are only 2.88 grams of net carbohydrate! Summer squash is a good source of potassium and Vitamin A, which is excellent when battling keto flu and managing electrolytes. It also manages to be incredibly filling while clocking in low in the calorie department, making summer squash a diet-friendly winner on all counts. Oh yeah, it's also DELICIOUS.
The Keto Shrimp Scampi Recipe
Super easy! First, you cut up the squash noodles as described above. Then, you get started on the sauce. The sauce is straightforward: melted butter, a bit of chicken broth (you can use wine though!), red chili flakes, and some lemon juice. Add in your shrimp, shell on or off - up to you, and simmer until they start to turn pink. Drop the heat, season to taste with salt and pepper (which if you're anything like me, loosely translates to "season generously"), then throw the rest of the ingredients in the pan. Give the noodles and parsley a good toss in the sauce, get the shrimp spread out nice and evenly throughout the dish. Voila! Keto shrimp scampi!
Looking for more keto shrimp recipes?
Try one these!
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 summer squash
- 2 tbsp butter unsalted
- ¼ cup chicken broth
- 2 tbsp lemon juice or white wine ?
- ⅛ tsp red chili flakes
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 pound shrimp deveined
- 2 tbsp parsley chopped
- 1 clove garlic minced
Instructions
- Cut summer squash into noodle shapes using a spiralizer tool. Spread noodles out on top of paper towels. Sprinkle with salt and set aside for 15-30 minutes. Blot the excess moisture away or lightly wring out with dry paper towels.
- In a saute or frying pan, melt butter over medium heat and sauté garlic. Add chicken broth, lemon juice (or wine), and red chili flakes. Bring to a light boil, then add in shrimp. Simmer until shrimp begin to turn pink and reduce heat to low.
- Taste the sauce, then mix in salt and pepper to your liking. Add the summer squash noodles and parsley to the pan and toss to distribute the shrimp and coat the noodles in sauce. Remove from heat and serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Hi, I'm Tasha–nutritionist, recipe developer, and multi-published cookbook author.
Shrimp scampi without garlic?!! Not in my world.
Who says you can't ADD some garlic all by your little old self?
Good grief! I always doctor recipes to add more flavor, if I think a recipe calls for it.
Garlic IS shrimp scampi. Without it, this is just a shrimp dish. Not scampi. Sorry.
Your wish is my command. 😝
By my calculations, 110mg of the sodium in the recipe is from the chicken broth, so I'm curious to find out where the other 1818mg of sodium is coming from?
I was a little puzzled when I went back in to look at the individual values for the label calculations. I use a plugin for the site to auto calculate the nutrition label, but sometimes there are mistakes. Unfortunately, I've yet to find the absolute perfect one and I've been looking for years now! 😵
It looks like the shrimp was the culprit this time, it listed a sodium value of over 3500 mg! I manually changed it based on the USDA nutrient database info (https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/15270?man=&lfacet=&count=&max=25&qlookup=shrimp&offset=&sort=default&format=Abridged&reportfmt=other&rptfrm=&ndbno=&nutrient1=&nutrient2=&nutrient3=&subset=&totCount=&measureby=&Qv=1&Q330903=16&Qv=1&Q330903=3.0) -- 16 oz of shrimp has 539 mg instead of the 3500 mg the software originally defaulted to. Thanks for the heads up, I'm sure that was confusing for many people!
Sodium is definitely not a bad thing on the keto diet, but I always try my best to make sure the nutrition values shown are on point.
Sodium breakdown for the entire recipe:
Summer squash: 7.84mg
Butter: 202mg
Chicken broth: 110mg
Lemon juice: 0.3mg
Red chili flakes: 4.1mg
Salt & Pepper: varies to taste
Shrimp: 539mg
Parsley: 4.26mg
Really hope that helps and I apologize for the confusion!
That’s absolutely fine! It flagged up when I saw it (I’m a nutritionist) and it didn’t make a lot of sense. Sodium definitely isn’t a bad thing, but even too much of a good thing can be harmful 😊
I appreciate the heads up, it's frustrating when the nutrition info goes wonky on me! 😂I have started calculating the nutrition outside of the recipe card plugin using Cronometer, then transferring the info over to the recipe card on the site. It's a little more work, but A LOT more reliable. I haven't had the opportunity to update all of the older recipes with the Cronometer info just yet (slowly but surely), but updated this one today with the addition of ingredients.
I hope it's more helpful to everyone! ❤️
This was a simple fresh recipe. For me, even better with the addition of a quick minced garlic saute before adding the broth. Fabulous!
This was maybe the VERY BEST thing I've tasted since beginning keto and I would make this in place of the REAL thing. My husband and I are both Italian and have missed pasta for the last 4+ weeks. I have never wanted to even try summer squash as an alternative. Blasphemy!! We finally got desperate enough and tried it. WOW! This recipe is my personal favorite. Period. So much easier than boiling water for your pasta and making sure it gets al dante. No, this is easier and tastes beyond delicious. If you don't add minced garlic, you are evil. Add it. I did after the liquid to avoid burning. Oh my goodness!! I would make this even if I wasn't on low carb. Yes. I think this is definitely in the weekly rotation. I could eat it daily. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
Hahaha! The added garlic certainly does boost the flavor. I should update the recipe to include it as an option, everyone wants that garlic!
I used the white wine instead of the chicken broth and the whole recipe wasn’t too tart. It seemed like the lemon juice and wine could be interchangeable, not the broth.
You're correct! Thank you for the comment, I had the swap listed incorrectly in the ingredients section, but written out correctly (lemon juice/wine, as you've indicated) in the instructions. I've updated the ingredients list to reflect the correction. I appreciate the heads up!
I like the recipe, Tasha. I greatly appreciate the tip on drying the squash noodles!
I would like to suggest one variation that I discovered from Alton Brown. I enjoy the flavor that the garlic-parsley paste gives the dish. It was my "go to" recipe for Scampi back during the pasta days. Here is his recipe:
Alton Brown's Shrimp Scampi V2
Servings 2
Ingredients
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb jumbo shrimp (headless)
2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1⁄4 teaspoon salt, to taste
1⁄4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1⁄2 lemon, juice of
Directions
Chop the garlic togethe with the parsley until it almost reaches a paste like consistency.
Heat the sauté pan and, when hot, add the oil. Add the shrimp and toss. When halfway cooked, about 1½ minutes, add the tomatoes and toss for 30 seconds to 1 minute more. Add the garlic and parsley mixture, the salt, pepper, butter, and lemon juice and toss one last time. Turn out onto a plate and serve.
~ bon appétit Y'all ! ~
That does sound amazing! Thank you for the detailed instructions and tweaks, much appreciated!
I just made it today and Boy!
It was great!
Added minced garlic is a plus.
Next time I do it,will add few sundried tomatoes.
Thumbs up!
I'm definitely adding in garlic as an option for the recipe. I originally left it out to keep the carbs a bit lower for keto, but people love, love, love their garlic in shrimp scampi. I don't think the trace amount of carbs from garlic is going to ruffle any feathers!
What’s the difference between summer squash and spaghetti squash? Aren’t both good for you? Trying to get around buying another appliance so my husband doesn’t divorce me haha jk
They are a bit different, both are good! Spaghetti squash comes as a big oval squash that you can cook and scoop out the stringy insides. Some people use them for noodle replacements and I think it would work really well in this dish. Summer squash is more like zucchini, where it comes as a long, skinny squash. You can cut the squash into noodle shapes just like you can with zucchini noodles. The choice is up to you!
The nutrients provided by each are a bit different. The carb count in spaghetti squash is a tad higher at 6.98g total per cup, 5.48g net. Here's the link to the full spaghetti squash nutrition data (raw). Summer squash has 3.79g total carbs per cup, 2.59g net. Here's the full nutrition data for summer squash (raw).
Hope that helps!
Yum 🤯
I made this last night and it was so good! I did add garlic though... and sprinkled fresh parmesan cheese just before serving. Really good!! ...and didn't take long!!
Thanks for a delicious recipe!
Thank you for the feedback! Adding garlic to the recipe card right now! 🙂
Made with spiraled zucchini. Absolutely delish!!!!