Shrimp recipes are ideal for fast and healthy meals! Here are the best shrimp dinner ideas that are easy and full of big flavor.

Shrimp recipes, shrimp dinner ideas

If you’re looking to eat a quick and healthy dinner, shrimp is where it’s at! Shrimp can go from zero to dinner incredibly fast: it cooks up in just 3 minutes! It’s also juicy, flavorful, and seriously satisfying. The best shrimp recipes for dinner play on the quick and simple nature of cooking this juicy crustacean. This list includes both healthy shrimp recipes and simple, crowd-pleasing spins (like pasta and scampi). Ready for our go-to shrimp dinner ideas?

Looking for the basics? Here’s how to make sauteed shrimp, boiled shrimp, grilled shrimp, and baked shrimp. Make these shrimp appetizers, or learn how to quickly thaw shrimp.

And now: our top shrimp recipes!

How to buy high quality shrimp: a few tips

Lastly, a little note about what to look for when buying shrimp. In researching how to buy sustainable seafood, we’ve learned a few pointers:

  • Look for wild caught if possible, or find a well-regulated farm. Fish that is wild caught in your country is usually a sustainable choice. There are also quality options in well-regulated farms; see Seafood Watch Consumer Guide.
  • Frozen shrimp is also high quality. A myth about fish is that “fresh is best.” As soon as an animal dies it begins to decompose; freezing suspends this process. If the shrimp is frozen when it was caught and stays frozen until it gets to your kitchen, it will be higher quality than a raw fish that has taken a week to get to your plate.
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Shrimp Scampi

40 Easy Shrimp Recipes


  • Author: Sonja Overhiser
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 5 minutes
  • Total Time: 15 minutes
  • Yield: 4 1x

Description

This shrimp scampi recipe is pure bliss and made in minutes! Sauté shrimp and toss with a luxurious lemony garlic butter sauce.


Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 pound medium shrimp*, deveined (tail on or peeled)
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt 
  • Fresh ground black pepper
  • ¼ cup finely minced white onion
  • 6 garlic cloves, finely minced
  • 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 4 tablespoons salted butter
  • ½ cup dry white wine (like Pino Grigio) or broth
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • To serve: 8 ounces Angel Hair Pasta** or pasta of choice, crusty bread, or rice

Instructions

  1. Thaw the shrimp, if frozen. Pat the shrimp dry. In a bowl, sprinkle it with ½ teaspoon kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper and stir to combine.
  2. Chop the onion, garlic and parsley.
  3. In a very large skillet, heat the olive oil on medium high heat. Add the minced onion and garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the shrimp in a single layer (without stacking it) and cook for about 3 minutes, turning halfway through, until just cooked. (The shrimp will continue cooking after removing from the heat.) Remove the shrimp to a bowl while making the sauce.
  4. In the same skillet add the butter, wine, lemon zest and parsley. Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes until slightly thickened. Add the shrimp back to the skillet and rewarm it for a few seconds. Serve immediately, with pasta on the side**, rice or crusty bread (drizzle spoonfuls of the sauce over the shrimp and the pasta on the side).

Notes

*To serve very hungry eaters, you can increase to 1 ½ pounds shrimp and ¾ teaspoon salt, using the same amount of other ingredients. You may have to sauté the shrimp in batches depending on the size of your skillet.

**Cook 8 ounces angel hair pasta for 4 minutes, then rinse in lukewarm water. Mix with 1 tablespoon olive oil and ¾ teaspoon kosher salt. Optionally, you can add ½ teaspoon garlic powder and ½ tablespoon each dried oregano and dried basil. We recommend serving the angel hair pasta on the side of the shrimp. Don’t mix it together with the shrimp in the pan: it is difficult to mix and it absorbs all of the butter sauce. (See Easy Angel Hair Pasta for more.)

  • Category: Main Dish
  • Method: Stovetop
  • Cuisine: Seafood
  • Diet: Gluten Free

Keywords: Shrimp Recipes, Shrimp Dinner Ideas, Best Shrimp Recipes for Dinner, Healthy Shrimp Recipes

About the authors

Sonja & Alex

Meet Sonja and Alex Overhiser: Husband and wife. Expert home cooks. Authors of recipes you’ll want to make again and again.

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3 Comments

  1. It would be very nice if you had a metric vs. US measurement converter for those of us who live abroad.
    I’d love to try some of your recipes, but the time to convert is quite time consuming.
    Just a thought, Maya