25-Minute Creamy Pesto Shrimp Recipe

This is creamy pesto shrimp, an unbelievably versatile meal you can serve with pasta, rice, vegetables, salads, and more. I love using homemade pesto, but your favorite store-bought version works too. It’s cheesy, flavorful, and satisfying—and ready in less than 30 minutes!

I made this creamy pesto shrimp about 6 months ago. Made it again 3 more times that month and about 45 times since then. Exaggeration? Never. I don’t share too many dinner recipes on this site, but a repeat recipe like this CAN’T go unannounced. I used frozen shrimp in the winter, but when the weather began to warm up, fresh shrimp worked like a charm. We love it over orzo, but I’ve served it with white rice, zucchini noodles, mixed with tortellini pasta, and even on cold crunchy salads.

Easy, quick, tasty, and versatile.

This Creamy Pesto Shrimp Is:

• Ready in less than 30 minutes
• Immensely flavorful
• Adaptable based on what you have/like
• Best with homemade pesto, but store-bought works too
• Cheesy, creamy, yet completely fresh-tasting
• Excellent on pasta, rice, veggies, salads, and more

Homemade Pesto

Let me use this opportunity to persuade you into making homemade pesto! Though store-bought is fine, homemade pesto makes this shrimp dinner infinitely better. (You need most of the pesto ingredients for the creamy sauce, anyway.) Quick and versatile, pesto can be used in a variety of recipes like my pesto pizza or pesto pull-apart bread, or mixed with cooked pasta, roasted vegetables, spread on sandwiches, artisan bread, and today’s shrimp recipe. From-scratch pesto is much easier than you think and tastes worlds better than store-bought. You need a food processor or blender and I have plenty of ingredient variations on my Homemade Pesto page, too.

Overview: How to Make Creamy Pesto Shrimp

This dish is made on the stove-top. Add everything in stages:

• Melt a little butter, add garlic, and some half-and-half. You can use a mix of whole milk and heavy cream instead, but using all heavy cream will make a very heavy sauce and using milk will make a very thin sauce. Keep this in mind if making a substitution.
• Add the shrimp, then some cherry tomatoes. Cook until the shrimp is nearly cooked through, then add more half-and-half, lemon juice, and parmesan cheese. The cherry tomatoes make this sauce a little brown.
• Remove from heat and stir in the pesto. I like adding the pesto after removing the dish from heat so that it retains some of its fresh green color.
• Sprinkle with more parmesan cheese and/or fresh basil if desired.

Possible Substitutions

• Tomatoes: You can use diced tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes or leave the tomatoes out completely. Or try throwing in a big handful of spinach instead!
• Shrimp: I love quick & easy shrimp recipes like my honey garlic shrimp. But instead of shrimp, you can try 1 lb of diced uncooked chicken. Add chicken to the skillet when you melt the butter. Cook it until almost completely cooked through, then add the garlic and 1/3 cup half-and-half. Bring to a simmer. Simmer for 3 full minutes, then add the cherry tomatoes, remaining half-and-half, the lemon juice, and parmesan cheese. Cook for 1 minute or until sauce has thickened and chicken is cooked through.
• Parmesan Cheese: Parmesan adds an extra layer of flavor, so I don’t recommend substituting or skipping it! In a pinch, though, you can substitute another cheese or leave it out.

Let me know if you try this! I have more dinner inspiration, too: