Instant Pot Cajun Sausage and Shrimp Pasta–a creamy sauce envelopes curly pasta, sliced sausage bites and tender shrimp. A recipe with amazing flavor that rivals anything you could order at a restaurant.
Instant Pot Cajun Sausage and Shrimp Pasta
I was too excited about this cajun pasta recipe to wait any longer to share it with you. It could possibly be the best pasta I’ve ever made. If you’re a fan of shrimp and cream cheese and general deliciousness you’ll love this dish.
When I left for an appointment yesterday my Instant Pot was practically full. When I got back it was half full. I asked my kids what happened to the food. Skyler sheepishly said, “Mom, I had 3 bowls.” Good thing he has the fastest metabolism of anyone I’ve ever met. I can’t say I really blame him. Every bite of this pasta is perfect.
I hope that you try out this recipe and agree with me. I cannot wait to have the leftovers tonight. I might not make it until tonight.
A few notes about the ingredients:
Pasta: I really love the shape and texture of cavatappi pasta. I buy mine at Winco in the bulk section or at Smith’s (Kroger) and it is their store brand. You can also use penne pasta for this recipe (and probably lots of other kinds of pasta).
Sausage: I used Hillshire Farm Roasted Garlic Chicken Smoked Sausage. This was very tasty. If you want your pasta to have a little more heat then use the andouille cajun sausage.
Mushrooms: I love mushrooms and had a handful left so I decided at the last minute to throw them in. I was so happy I did. They added one more awesome component to this recipe. I love the size and shape of mushrooms that are quartered so that’s what I did. This is also good because if you have mushroom haters in your family they can easily pick them out.
Fire roasted tomatoes: I used these tomatoes for a bit more flavor but you can also use regular diced tomatoes.
Shrimp: I found this bag of shrimp at Smith’s/Kroger and it was so perfect for this recipe! I didn’t have to peel the shrimp or devein it. I just threw the shrimp into the pot frozen. Look in the frozen section of your grocery store.
More Instant Pot creamy pasta recipes you’ll love…
Instant Pot Creamy Beef and Penne
10 Instant Pot Macaroni and Cheese Recipes
Instant Pot Creamy Mock Lasagna Noodles
Instant Pot Tuscan Chicken Pasta
What Pressure Cooker Did You Use?
To make Instant Pot Cajun Sausage and Shrimp Pasta I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*. I love this Instant Pot because it has the yogurt making function which I use almost weekly. It has two pressure settings (high and low), and there are also little slots in the handles so that you can rest the lid there instead of putting it down on your counter-top.
Instant Pot Cajun Sausage and Shrimp Pasta
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 4 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
Description
A creamy sauce envelopes curly pasta, sliced sausage bites and tender shrimp. A recipe with amazing flavor that rivals anything you could order at a restaurant.
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup diced onion
- 3 large garlic cloves, minced
- 3 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth
- 1 (13 oz) package andouille sausage or smoked sausage, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces (see note)
- 1–2 cups sliced or quartered mushrooms
- 1 pound uncooked cavatappi or penne pasta
- 1 Tbsp cajun seasoning
- 1 (14.5 oz) can fire roasted tomatoes
- 1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
- 1 bell pepper, cored and thinly sliced (I used orange but green or red work too)
- 1 (12 oz) package frozen cooked shrimp–tail off, peeled and deveined (see note)
- 1 cup shredded or grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Saute: Turn your Instant Pot to the saute setting. Once the display says HOT add in the olive oil and swirl it around. Add in the onion and saute for 3-4 minutes. Then add in the garlic and saute for 20 seconds. Add in the broth and scrape the bottom of the pot.
- Layer in the pot evenly: sausage, mushrooms, pasta, cajun seasoning and fire roasted tomatoes. Don’t stir.
- Pressure cook: Cover the pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 4 minutes. When the time is up you can perform a quick release. If foam starts coming out of the pot then move the valve back to sealing and wait a few seconds and try again. Remove the lid.
- Stir in the cream cheese, peppers, and shrimp. Cover the pot again and let the hot pasta warm the shrimp through, cook the peppers and melt the cream cheese. Let the pot sit for about 5 minutes (just on the warm setting). Then open the pot and stir in the cream cheese until it is incorporated. Stir in the parmesan cheese.
- Serve the pasta and enjoy!
Notes
I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*.
I used Hillshire Farm Roasted Garlic Chicken Smoked Sausage. This was very tasty. If you want your pasta to have a little more heat then use the andouille cajun sausage.
I found a bag of cooked and deveined shrimp at Smith’s/Kroger and it was so perfect for this recipe! Look in the frozen section of your grocery store.
Cajun seasonings vary from brand to brand. My Kroger store brand seasoning wasn’t very spicy. Others have stated that 1 Tbsp was way too spicy for them. You may want to start with less spice and then add more to taste.
- Category: Pasta
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: Cajun
*Karen Petersen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.
I made this tonight using the 1/2 portion recipe. It came out so good! I decided to not add the Cajun seasoning and added a different season in place of it ( so it wasn’t too spicy). The flavor was great and I’m definitely adding this to my book of quick dinner recipes.
★★★★★
Thanks for the 5 stars Quin!
Hi! Making tonight, what do you think about using half and half instead of cream cheese?? If so how much?!?
Try adding in half a cup!
I made this tonight and it was a winner. It was a little bit intense getting all the chopping done, and I had to take the tails off the shrimp because I could not find any frozen shrimp with out tails. However in the end it was all worthwhile. It does make a lot, but my boys did some serious damage to it. Love all your recipes. I even started printing them out and making my own Instant recipe book with your recipes. To think I had my IP for about 6 months before I even starting using it. I give all the thanks to you, and your simple directions on how to use it. Waving at you from Charlotte NC.
★★★★★
Thanks Gail, you are so nice!!! Hope you are doing well in NC!
I made this tonight and it was delicious! (Also wanted to say hello neighbor…. I’m in Winston-Salem!) 🙋🏻♀️
This has to be my family’s favorite IP recipe! Because it’s a little indulgent we don’t have it too often but when we do, we just love it. SO good. I have had trouble finding those exact shrimp though. I’ve been to many stores, including Fred Meyer (our Kroger) and no luck. Butchers have told me that you cannot find cooked shrimp with the tails off so I always have to settle for tails on. We just bite the meat off when eating them. No big deal but wish I could find those you have. Oh well. Adore the recipe anyway! Thanks so much!
★★★★★
I think I may have gotten them at Costco. But I can’t remember for sure.
Well Happy Birthday. Turns out you’re just about a month older than our oldest son.
Thank you Frank! It’s a good year to be born apparently 😊
Happy Birthday, Girl! Today is my birthday as well….except you’re a spring chicken & I came over on the ark! Hope you had a good one.
haha Kim! Happy birthday to you too!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! 40 isn’t bad…..try 71…..that got my attention! lol
haha Sharon!!
Happy Birthday Karen!
Every recipe I have made from your website has been a 4 or 5 star. I look forward to your emails and all the different recipes.
Thanks for all you do.
Thank you Trisia. 🙂
Do you think this would freeze well?
★★★★
I feel iffy about that. I am not sure how the pasta would do after being frozen.
Can i use fresh uncooked shrimp? If so is there anything different i should do?
Thanks
I bet you could. Just make sure it’s pink and cooked through. You could even saute on stove and then add it into the pot.
The nutritional information indicates that the sodium is 1430.9. Is this correct? I was going to fix this dish until I saw the amount of sodium per serving.
Yes that’s right. I would use lower sodium ingredients that will help a lot!
One more little tip…I only had regular diced tomatoes but I discoved you can add a good sprinkling of Trader Joe’s Umami seasoning to the tomatoes to boost the flavor like fire roasted. Soy sauce or liquid aminos are said to work also. All the flavors were fantastic!
★★★★★
I love that idea! I wish I had a trader joe’s close to my house!
I made this tonight and it was fantastic! I used uncooked deveined tail off shrimp I had on hand..actually over 16 ounces, whole wheat penne and andoui sausage I always have and dehydrated bell pepper from Costco (I figured a bit less than a cup would work) I used the tip of placing the cream cheese package on top of the IP to soften while cooking and scraped blobs into the pot to mix in. The shrimp cooked a bit longer but with the whole wheat pasta holding up very well, it was all perfect and the bell peppers rehydrated perfectly. We are happy with smaller bits of peppers..TRULY AMAZING! We love Cajun!
★★★★★
Great! It sounds good to me 🙂
Hi Karen, this recipe sounds great, I can’t wait to try. I am cooking for 8 so I was thinking 2x scale. I am a novice cook at best and have 2 questions before I try this. 1) will 2x scale work in a 6 qt pressure cooker? 2) my shrimp are large frozen uncooked peeled, deveined, tail-off (2 lbs), do I need to make adjustments to the cooking instructions?
Thank you
I don’t think it will fit in the pot if you 2x the recipe. It would probably work if you 1.5 times the recipe. I would add the uncooked shrimp on top in step 3. Since the frozen shrimp will make the pot longer to come to pressure I would cut the pressure cooking time down to just 2 minutes. Let me know how it goes!
My husband and I loved this recipe. We made it last night. We swapped out the shrimp for chicken thighs and seared them prior. It was great, thank you for the recipe!
★★★★★
that sounds so good! I will try that next time 🙂
Loved this! Slimmed it way down with less sausage and cream cheese and used a seafood mix, and it was still excellent!
★★★★★
Good ideas! Thanks for sharing Maggie.
Hi! Is there a non dairy substitute for cream cheese? Would love to make this but one of my kids has a dairy allergy. Thanks!
I’m really not sure. You could leave it out. won’t be creamy but it’ll still be tasty.
Can you recommend a KETO appropriate pasta? I would like to share with some family members who are now on this diet.
I really have no experience with KETO pasta. I’ll ask in the FB group and see if anyone else does.
I made this tonight. It is very good but a little too Spicy for me. I would 1 tsp of Cajun seasoning rather than 1 Tbl
★★★★★
I’m thinking that there is a big difference between different kinds of cajun seasoning. Mine wasn’t spicy at all. I’ll have to write that is the recipe notes.
Delicious! Truly tasted restaurant quality! I will share two thoughts. When adding the cream cheese, it looks lumpy and weird but keep stirring! And second, it didnt hurt to add the peppers into the pasta while cooking. (I wanted to avoid any possibility of crunchy peppers) They basically cooked to nothing but the flavor was still amazing!
★★★★★
Thanks! Good tips!
Making it tonight. I had the same creme cheese question. I think in the 2nd to last question. So if we take the word “in” it makes sense. Then open the pot and stir the cream cheese until it is incorporated. Sorry to be nitpicky.
okay will be correcting this!
It was great! Thank you. I will add 2 tablespoons of cajun spice and a hotter sausage next time. It was a great consistency .
★★★★★
So glad you liked it!
This recipe was amazing. Made it tonight for dinner. A few modifications. But it was great. I doubled the sausage and added more Cajun seasoning. I like the heat. Great job and great recipe.
Thank you.
★★★★★
Eric, those ideas sound great! Yum!
We have shell fish allergies. What would be a good substitute for the shrimp that would do well w pressure cooking?
you could do chunks of chicken breast uncooked, cubed
My family absolutely loved this recipe! Will definitely be making it again, thanks so much!!
★★★★★
Glad you and your family enjoyed it!
Fixed for dinner this evening. It was great. This recipe will definitely be added to my regular dinner rotation.
★★★★★
So glad you liked it Polly! It’s a good one 🙂
Did you put the shrimp into the IP frozen? Or thaw them first?
Silly question, but thanks!
I put the shrimp in frozen but you can run cold water over them to help them thaw first if you’d like.
I made this last night for dinner. It was one of the best instant pot meals I have made and very easy to prepare. My husband says he would like me to fix it again next week.
Cindy I am so glad you made it. I can’t stop thinking about this pasta! It was soooo good.
If I sub 1″ cubbed chicken and add it while im sauting how much time should I cook it before I add the sausage and pasta? I was thinking 4 minutes. So itll be 8 total minutes under pressure plus the saute. What do you think?
Chicken cooks so quickly I would just pressure cook for the regular amount of time as stated in the recipe.
Hi Karen so I don’t have an instant pot but I have a crock pot could I still do this with that or would it be better on the stove?
It’d be fairly fast and easy on the stove. That’s what I would do!
I would not cook shrimp in a crock pot
Have not tried the recipe yet, but it says to stir in the cream cheese twice. Is that a mis-print?
I guess I wasn’t clear but what I meant was that you stir in the cream cheese. Then let it melt. Then stir it again until it is incorporated and creamy. Make sense?
I have a 8 quart instant pot. How would I adjust the ingredients according to that size if pot.
Thanks
Jackie
I would do everything the same except use a 3 minute pressure cook time instead of 4.
I will make it for sure on the weekend. It looks great but I don’t want to buy a n Instant cookpot .I could probably cook it in another pot.
Love your recipes Karen Thanks
I bet you could easily make it on the stove.
I am beginning to think that creme cheese is the bacon of IP cooking. Everything tastes better with creme cheese.
I AGREE!