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The next time you’re craving a bowl of gourmet pasta, you might want to skip the fancy restaurants and head on over to your local Trader Joe’s instead. With just a few Trader Joe’s ingredients and about 30 minutes of your time, you can whip up a surprisingly easy lobster pasta that’s currently taking the internet by storm.
This viral recipe relies on a genius hack that repurposes Trader Joe’s Lobster Bisque as the base for the pasta sauce. Because the bisque is made from lobster stock, cream, butter, and real pieces of lobster, it mimics many of the flavors and textures you might find in a creamy lobster pasta from a bonafide restaurant.
Though it’s not clear who originally came up with the idea, dozens of videos have popped up on TikTok in recent weeks showing creators testing out the hack and raving about the results. Anyone interested in trying the dish will, at the very least, need to purchase pasta, cherry tomatoes, basil, a container of the bisque, and either frozen shrimp or frozen langostino tails (a crustacean with a similar taste and texture to lobster meat).
One of the simplest ways to prepare the pasta, as shown in a December 2023 TikTok from @nutritionbymia, is by sautéeing the cherry tomatoes in a pan until they’re soft and then adding the langostino tails to heat them through. Next, boil your preferred pasta according to the package instructions, drain it, and then toss the cooked noodles with the bisque, chopped basil, cooked tomatoes, and warmed langostino tails. The TikToker described the end result as “creamy, hearty, and flavorful.”
Other TikTokers who’ve jumped on the lobster bisque pasta trend have been adding their own unique touches by introducing extra ingredients or tweaking the preparation method. The TikToker @eatsbyrachel, who whipped up the dish in a recent video with more than 640,000 views, sautéed chopped onion and garlic before adding in the cherry tomatoes. She also seasoned the pasta with extra salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes and then topped it with grated cheese before digging in.
“This recipe was so easy to make but your guests don’t need to know that,” she said.
In another video with more than 320,000 views, @seafood_network was able to speed up the cooking process even more by heating Trader Joe’s No Boil Noodles directly in the lobster bisque. The TikToker also swapped out the langostino tails for Trader Joe’s Wild Raw Argentinian Red Shrimp, which she said were “a little bit cheaper” but still had a similar texture to lobster.
Judging by the comments on these viral TikTok videos, other Trader Joe’s shoppers are already rushing to the grocery chain to scoop up the ingredients for the buzzworthy dish.
“Looks so good. Definitely making this!” one user commented on @eatsbyrachel‘s video.
“Had this last night and it was AMAZING,” another wrote.
Zoe Strozewski
Zoe Strozewski is a News Writer for Eat This, Not That! A Chicago native who now lives in New Jersey, she graduated from Kean University in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Read more about Zoe
