The Unconventional Ingredient To Add A Deeper Flavor To Tomato Sauce

Pasta is a blank canvas where you can get creative and showcase many different flavors. Not only can pasta be added to soups or stews, or used as the main vehicle in a casserole, but when served as the main, it can be accentuated with a litany of different sauces. From classic alfredo cream sauce to pesto, arribiata, vodka sauce, puttanesca, or a simple marinara, no matter what flavors you like, it's possible that pasta can come into the equation for a meal.

If you're ready to enjoy your next pasta dinner, you might be considering what kind of sauce you want to use. And even if you are using a sauce from a jar, you can always add some homemade ingredients or kitchen scraps to zhuzh up the flavor. It's not uncommon to add fresh onion, garlic, or herbs to a pasta sauce, but there's a secret add-in that can really make your next dish sing.

If you are a shrimp lover, you might think of shrimp shells and shrimp tails as a nuisance. After all, peeling shrimp means you have to wait longer to eat it. With that said, adding shrimp tails to your next pasta sauce can really give it a boost of umami flavor. 

According to LifeHacker, adding shrimp tails to your sauce will give it a rich flavor that is mildly similar to adding anchovies to a sauce. And adding a bit of a question mark to your dish that leads guests to ask what's in it can be great fun. To get a little mischievous with your next batch of pasta sauce, Life Hacker suggests placing your shrimp tails in cheesecloth or tying them together so you don't have to fish them out of the sauce before serving and letting them sit in the sauce for a bit while it simmers. 

Food 52 offers another suggestion of putting shrimp tails into the pasta water, which you can add to your sauce before serving. AllRecipes notes that shrimp tails can flavor a stock in as little as 30 minutes, so you don't have to leave them in the pot long to impart your dish with great shrimp flavor.

You can add the shrimp meat to your pasta dish, or use shrimp tails from last night's dinner. Bon appétit!