Is White Wine Always Necessary When Making Shrimp Scampi?

Shrimp scampi is a staple of Italian American seafood menus for good reason. It is a dish that's as simple as it is delicious: shrimp cooked in a garlicky, buttery, lemony sauce that is often served with bread or over pasta. For many, white wine is the key to making a truly fantastic scampi, adding both acidity and complex flavor to the simple sauce. A crisp, dry white wine plays up the citrusy tang of lemon while also highlighting the slight sweetness of the shrimp. It also allows you to deglaze your pan's fond (the crusty brown bits along the bottom), helping to release the residual flavor that has built up while cooking the shrimp. Chefs and home cooks alike would gladly die on the hill of white wine being crucial to a good shrimp scampi. But that doesn't mean you have to use it.

White wine plays a key role in this dish, but it's not irreplaceable. From adjusting ingredient ratios to swapping out your wine for something such as broth, there are myriad ways to make a great scampi sans white wine.

White wine is often seen as the spine of a good shrimp scampi. However this doesn't mean that you should give up on making the dish if you prefer to substitute the white wine in your cooking for something non-alcoholic, or you simply don't have any on hand. You just have to be a bit creative. The first substitution is simple: Add more lemon juice. Using a little extra lemon juice will lend more acidity, and deglaze your pan. This option is great for those who prefer tangy scampi — but lemon juice can lack the complexity that white wine usually offers. A white wine vinegar can also work in a pinch to add a little white wine flavor, while its trace amount of alcohol cooks off in the pan.

Another popular replacement for white wine in a scampi is broth. You can use a store-bought chicken broth, or a homemade seafood stock (You can enhance the flavor of your stock by roasting your shrimp shells). This will recreate some of the depth lost in omitting white wine. However, a broth or stock doesn't naturally contribute the same acidity that white wine does, on its own. Adding vinegar or lemon juice to your broth can highlight the flavors of the broth, along with providing an acidic tang. Save the vino for sipping. Any of these white wine substitutes — used on their own or in combination with one another — can produce a delicious scampi worthy of your crustiest bread, or biggest bowl of pasta.