Rebecca Flint Marx
Shrimp recipes are a dime a dozen. Here are the best of the best.
Kat Thompson is the associate editor of Eater at Home, covering home cooking and baking, cookbooks, and kitchen gadgets. She likes shrimp both deep-fried and dipped in tartar sauce or raw with spicy Thai dressing.
In the vast sea of shrimp recipes, it can be a challenge to know which ones to try. Shrimp tacos can be prepared a million ways. Seafood chowder recipes are as numerous as they are inconsistent. And what do you do when you want a shrimp recipe that’s a little different than the same-old same-old? Here, five Eater editors have done the work for you, tracking down the best shrimp recipes we can find — from the old but still good standbys to the new greats.
Governor Shrimp Tacos
Pati Jinich
Pati Jinich is my favorite source for Mexican dishes, and I discovered these tacos when testing recipes for a blurb about her latest cookbook, Treasures of the Mexican Table. They’re easy enough to tackle on a weeknight while offering a real depth of flavor from ingredients such as chipotle, poblano, tomato, and Worcestershire sauce. I love how the pan crisping step makes them almost quesadilla-like, and I’ll take any excuse to add Oaxacan cheese to my shopping list. — Missy Frederick, cities director
Easy Seafood Chowder Recipe
Farideh Sadeghin, Vice
I wouldn’t classify most chowders as “delicate,” but most chowders I’ve eaten don’t have the nuanced layers of flavor this seafood chowder has, which you build by making your own clam broth, cooking carrots and onions and fennel in it, and then adding white wine. This recipe is a great catch-all for whatever seafood looks good at the store, but I never skip the shrimp — cooking them for just a few minutes in that aromatics-infused cream ensures bouncy, slightly sweet shrimp that are my favorite bites in what is always a big bowl of perfect things. — Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter
Kung Pao Shrimp
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Wok: Recipes and Techniques
It’s rare that a cookbook inspires in me a massive lifestyle change, but in the months since getting J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s cookbook The Wok my partner and I have devoted ourselves to cooking our way through the book. We haven’t even made it to fried rice or noodles yet, but the kung pao shrimp was an instant hit. Kung pao shrimp is not even my normal order at most Chinese American restaurants, but Lopez-Alt’s technique of marinating shrimp in baking soda and salt to keep it plump and juicy is a revelation, and its seasoning of Sichuan peppercorns, honey, and Shaoxing wine creates a tingling, sweet sauce that I now want to eat with everything. Like many wok dishes, it comes together almost instantly, and is inspiring me to keep a lot more frozen shrimp around so I can make this a regular part of my diet. — Jaya Saxena, correspondent
Fish Sauce-Marinated Fresh Shrimp with Spicy Lime Dressing
Leela Punyaratabandhu, Simple Thai Food
This dish, known as goong chae nam pla in Thai, is like Thailand’s version of ceviche — though with little to no curing time. Raw, butterflied shrimp is topped with an acidic, lime-forward fish sauce dressing that is both spicy and rich in umami. Because this dish is consumed raw, it’s important to source sashimi-grade shrimp for it (alternatively, you can cook the shrimp and toss it with the dressing, but I personally love the squelch of raw shrimp). Punyaratabandhu’s version crowns each shrimp with a slice of fresh garlic as well as mint leaves, which freshens the whole bite. Complete the meal with a frosty beer and sticky rice to sop up the excess dressing. — Kat Thompson, associate editor, Eater at Home
Shrimp Fried Rice
Eric Kim, NYT Cooking
I usually eat shrimp one of two ways: chilled and accompanied by cocktail sauce, or in Eric Kim’s shrimp fried rice. I first came across this recipe a year or two ago, when I was searching for something to do with a bunch of leftover rice. It’s since become a frequent favorite, thanks to both its relative ease and absolute deliciousness. You begin building flavor with the first step, which calls for sautéing the shrimp in olive oil; after you remove the cooked shrimp from the pan, you add some sliced onions and frozen vegetables to the oil, followed by the rice. To this you add soy sauce, and then make room in the pan to fry some eggs that are then folded into the rice. All of this would be great on its own, but Kim has you make some aptly named Yum Yum Sauce to go with it, and I’ll just say that the combination leaves your dopamine receptors as fried as the rice. — Rebecca Flint Marx, Eater at Home editor
