Copycat Olive Garden Shrimp Scampi just like the restaurant favorite to enjoy at home!
A thin pasta is tossed with bell peppers and onion in a lemon garlic scampi sauce and topped with shrimp.
This post contains affiliate links.
I really love finding restaurant dishes that I love and trying to recreate them at home as close as I can, especially with Copycat Olive Garden recipes.
But I want it to be pretty darn close to the restaurant dish, and this shrimp scampi recipe is!
I have been wanting to find and make a great scampi sauce for quite some time now.
But all of the recipes I tried and all of the variations I came up with were missing something.
There would be too much lemon, not enough butter, etc, and so I started a quest to find a perfect balance.
And the Olive Garden Shrimp Scampi was the recipe that I kept thinking back to.
How close is this Copycat Olive Garden Shrimp Scampi to the real thing?
I played around with trying to create the Copycat Olive Garden Shrimp Scampi recipe for a while.
There are so many sauce variations out there: cream or no cream? Lemon or no lemon? Wine? Thicken with flour?
But ultimately this is the version I landed on and when I tried it side by side with the real thing via takeout, WOW. It is pretty darn close.
I also made Copycat Olive Garden Chicken Scampi which includes a copycat Olive Garden chicken that they serve in house with that thin coating.
Now Olive Garden used to serve shrimp scampi with the vegetables I have listed here, which are the same as the chicken. Bell peppers and red onion.
But it looks like now they are using asparagus and tomato. So use whichever vegetable mixture you prefer!
Use more or less of the vegetables and shrimp as you prefer to make it your own!
I love to double up on the vegetables and reduce the pasta to one pound for a vegetable forward meal.
Shrimp does not reheat well because it gets rubbery when overcooked, so I recommend cooking shrimp as you need it for leftovers (if there are any!).
Copycat recipes from Olive Garden to enjoy at home! This Copycat Olive Garden Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo is one of the most popular recipes on the site every year! Now discontinued, make this favorite recipe at home. A fresh, vegan pasta recipe, this Copycat Olive Garden Capellini Pomodoro is packed with fresh tomatoes and basil. The popular Copycat Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana soup is made with sausage, potatoes, cream, and kale. The favorite Copycat Olive Garden Fettuccine Alfredo sauce recipe is maybe even better than the restaurant! The popular Copycat Olive Garden Tuscan Breeze Vodka Cocktail recipe is perfect for summer, packed with tropical flavors of orange, pineapple, and banana. This Copycat Olive Garden Chicken Scampi tastes JUST like the restaurant version! Tossed with a butter garlic sauce, peppers, and lightly breaded chicken.Copycat Olive Garden
Copycat Olive Garden Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo
Copycat Olive Garden Capellini Pomodoro
Copycat Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana
Copycat Olive Garden Fettuccine Alfredo
Copycat Olive Garden Tuscan Breeze Vodka Cocktail
Copycat Olive Garden Chicken Scampi
Equipment
- Skillet
Ingredients
- 1 pound shrimp size of choice, more or less as desired
- 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil for frying
- ½ red bell pepper cut into strips
- ½ yellow bell pepper cut into strips
- ½ green bell pepper cut into strips
- ½ medium red onion sliced
- 12 ounces angel hair pasta
- salt to taste
Scampi Sauce
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- ½ cup yellow onion diced
- 2 Tablespoons garlic minced
- 1 cup white wine
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 2 Tablespoons lemon juice (approximately 1 large lemon)
- 1 Tablespoon dried parsley
- 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1/4 pound unsalted butter (8 tablespoons, one stick)
Instructions
- Heat a large pot of water over high heat until boiling. Salt the water to your preference and add the pasta. Cook until just shy of al dente (the pasta will finish cooking in the sauce later). Save 1 cup of the pasta water for the end in case you need to thin the sauce. Drain the pasta and set aside.12 ounces angel hair pasta
Make the Scampi Sauce
- While the water is heating, make your sauce. Heat a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add 2 Tablespoons of butter until melted.2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- Add the onion and garlic to the butter and cook until just soft but not brown, approximately 3 minutes.½ cup yellow onion, 2 Tablespoons garlic
- Add the white wine and simmer to burn off some of the alcohol and reduce 2 minutes. Scrape up any bits from the bottom of the pot while simmering.1 cup white wine
- Add the chicken stock, lemon juice, parsley, and crushed red pepper. Simmer 5 minutes.1 cup chicken stock, 2 Tablespoons lemon juice, 1 Tablespoon dried parsley, 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- Remove the sauce from the heat and whisk in the remaining 8 Tablespoons (1/4 stick) of butter until incorporated. Set aside.1/4 pound unsalted butter
Vegetables and Assembly
- Put the large pot from the pasta back on the stove (or a new large pot - but one less thing to clean!). Add 1 Tablespoon of oil and heat over medium heat.1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
- Once hot, add the peppers and red onion and cook until just beginning to soften, approximately 3-5 minutes.½ red bell pepper, ½ yellow bell pepper, ½ green bell pepper, ½ medium red onion
- Add the sauce into the pot with the shrimp. Cook until the shrimp are cooked through (time will vary with size). They are done when they are pink, starting to curl, and looks white not gray along the back (side edge).1 pound shrimp
- Season the sauce to taste with salt and pepper.salt
- Add the pasta to the pot (see note). Gently toss to coat and combine (be very gentle to help prevent the pasta from breaking - once the pasta meets the warm sauce, it will start to loosen up and unstick). Use the pasta water if needed to loosen the sauce and make it saucier as desired.
- Serve the pasta in one large dish or as individual portions.
Not a creamy sauce. Not like olive garden at all. Never making this again. Unpin.
Hi Ashley,
It sounds like you are thinking of the wrong sauce. Scampi is not creamy – it is a lemon butter sauce. Side by side, this is just like the restaurant. Maybe you are adding a lot of cheese at the restaurant and it makes it appear creamy? Hope you find the recipe you are thinking of!
One can never go wrong with shrimp scampi, especially from Olive Garden!
This shrimp scampi was SO delicious. Easy to make, and tasted just like the one from Olive Garden, maybe even better.
Wonderful! So glad you liked it
It was very dry and plain the first time, so the next go around I doubled the recipe (minus the pasta and asparagus) but added 2 tablespoons olive oil in place of 2 tablespoons butter and it was much closer to the Olive Garden one. I sure do appreciate the recipe though as it gave me a good starting point!