Squid Ink Linguine Pasta

I was extremely apprehensive about this recipe. I wasn’t totally certain where the Squid Ink was going to come into the meal and crossed my fingers that it was not going to be a little bottle I needed to pour into the pan.

Luckily for me, there was no actual squid ink involved, just pasta that had been dyed with the ink prior to making it to my home.

Despite my initial concerns, this is probably one of my favorite Blue Apron recipes these far. Most of the past dishes I’ve made involved quite a bit of prep, chopping and dicing an assortment of items into the proper sizes before getting started with the actual cooking. The typical recipe claims that the cook time is under an hour, but unless I’m extremely motivated I’ve found that they usually take a bit longer if only one person is cooking.

The Squid Ink Linguine recipe (and all those from this weeks order) was surprisingly very easy to prep, requiring only a slicing the tomatoes and garlic before starting the meal. After slicing, we heated the garlic and tomato paste in a skillet before adding tomatoes and water. This combo was left to simmer while the pasta boiled in another pot.

The pasta itself cooked similar to most pastas found at the store. From what I can find, Squid Ink pasta is usually homemade if not purchased directly from a speciality pasta shop. As a result, it’s unlikely I’ll be making this recipe in it’s entirety again.

Once the pasta was cooked, it went into the skillet with the tomato sauce and shrimp and left to combine flavors and thicken. Making a pasta sauce from scratch was surprisingly easy and had a much better flavor than anything I’ve ever purchased in a jar.

Once the flavors had combined and the linguine was well covered in sauce it was time to dig in. I was very surprised to discover that the squid ink only impacted the color of the pasta and not the flavor. I loved how this dish came together and will likely make at least the sauce portion of this dish again in the future.

**My opinions are my own. I was not in anyway compensated for my opinion. I am a paying customer of Blue Apron.