In Episode 031 Skillet Cajun Shrimp: Susie shares this 30 minute marinated shrimp that cooks in 4 minutes! Add some side dishes to make it a great dinner or serve as an appetizer with some Cajun Aioli and Jicama.
Transcript
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Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.
Susie Weinrich: Some of my very favorite flavor profiles in the kitchen are all included in Cajun cuisine. We’re talking smoked paprika. That’s probably in one of my top five spices outta my spice cabinet. Oregano, red pepper, lemon, onion powder, cayenne pepper. Doesn’t all of that sound so delicious?
Well, today for dinner, we are going to be making the easiest Skillet Cajun Shrimp. These shrimp are lightly marinated in all of these Cajun flavors, and then they get cooked hot and fast in a skillet. Then we’re going to add a few side dishes to make it a delicious dinner. Or you can add a Cajun aioli and have a fantastic appetizer.
Tips and Tricks: So let’s get started with a few tips on buying shrimp and getting started with this recipe.
When you buy shrimp for this recipe, you want to get a shrimp that is raw de veined, and shelled, but still has the tail on. Well, and actually you can have a tail on or tail off. It doesn’t matter. But you definitely want raw shrimp that has been shelled or peeled for this recipe. Now, when you’re looking at shrimp, it is sold by size, count, and pound, which is a lot all in one. But basically what you’re looking at is the number of shrimp per pound also refers to the size of the shrimp. So for this recipe, we call for an extra large shrimp, which then also turns into about 26 to 30 shrimp per pound. So I hope that makes sense.
I love to buy my shrimp for this recipe at Trader Joe’s. They have the perfect shrimp in their frozen section, and they call it just like a medium to large size shrimp because I think they kind of mix the sizes in the bag, but they are perfect. They come frozen, but they are raw, they’re deveined, they’re shelled or peeled, and they have the tail on. So it is perfect. I actually have a picture of the bag in the recipe post, so I will link that recipe of course in the show notes for you.
So since I’m buying frozen shrimp, and if you buy frozen shrimp, you’re going to need to thaw it for this recipe. There are two different methods that I use for thawing shrimp. There’s the overnight method and the quick method. A quick method is for those of you out there that always forget to thaw your meat, I am included with you.
So we’ll go over the overnight method first. If you know you’re going to have this the next day, you can take the shrimp package out of the freezer. I like to put it in some kind of bowl or dish so that if there’s any leakage, it gets caught in there and doesn’t run over all of your other food in the fridge. Pop that in the fridge overnight, and it should be thawed and ready to make for dinner the next day. Now if you forgot to do that and you need the quick thaw method, what you’re going to want to do is take the shrimp out of the package, pop them in a bowl, and run just a little bit of cool temped water over the shrimp until they are thawed. This will be like 15 minutes, so you can just let it kind of trickle into the bowl and keep it right in the sink. Now, before you move on to the recipe, if you use this method, make sure you give the shrimp a good pat with paper towels to dry them.
The only other tip before we get started with this recipe is for your paprika.
Paprika comes in, I don’t even know. I’m going to Google it right now. Hold on. How many different varieties of paprika are there? I’m going to find out. Okay. It says there are only three varieties of paprika, but I know that’s not true. They say there’s hot paprika, sweet paprika, and smoked paprika, but I know there’s also regular paprika. I’ve seen bitter paprika and bittersweet paprika. Then there’s also Hungarian paprika. So they are lying, whoever wrote that post. But what we are looking for in this recipe is smoked paprika. It has such a very specific flavor profile that’s delicious by the way. It’s slightly smokey, but not offensively smokey, and really earthy flavor. So make sure you get smoked.
Skillet Cajun Shrimp Recipe: Let’s get to making your Skillet Cajun Shrimp. You’re going to start with one pound of raw deveined shelled tail-on or tail-off shrimp. That is around 26 to 30 shrimp per pound. Now we’re going to get that marinating. To mix your marinade, just do it in like a little bowl or a Ziploc baggy, add two tablespoons of olive oil, two minced garlic cloves, one and a half teaspoons of smoked paprika, and one teaspoon of dried oregano. You can also substitute dried thyme if oregano is not your jam. One and a half teaspoons of red pepper flakes. If you like it a little spicier, you can definitely add more red pepper flakes. Half a teaspoon of lemon zest and that is going to be the zest of a fresh lemon. A quarter teaspoon of black pepper, a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt, a quarter teaspoon of onion powder, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. You can absolutely add more. Again, if you want more heat, more spice. Give that a really good stir and then you’re going to add the shrimp in there and stir that up to coat all of the shrimp. You’re going to marinate it for at least 30 minutes and you can marinate it for up to six hours, but I would not marinate it any more than six hours because it can start to break down the actual shrimp.
Now, once that’s all marinated and you are good to go, in a large skillet over medium-high heat, add one tablespoon of olive oil and one tablespoon of butter. Once that’s nice and hot, you’re going to add half of the marinated shrimp. You’re only adding half because you want to really like pan-fry the shrimp. If you crowd all of that shrimp in there at one time, you’re actually going to steam the shrimp instead of pan-frying. So we’re going to do two batches.
Hop half that shrimp in the hot skillet. Cook for two minutes on the first side, and then grab a pair of tongs and flip all of the shrimp and cook for two minutes on the other side. These cook hot and fast. Then you’re going to remove all of that shrimp to a plate. Set it aside, and then you’re going to repeat all of that for the second half of the shrimp. Then remove your skillet from the heat, and add all of the shrimp and all of the juices back into that pan. You’ll squeeze in two fresh lemon wedges all over the shrimp and give it a good stir. Any little bits that are stuck to the bottom of the pan, kind of scrape those up because that’s really delicious flavor.
You have a couple of options when you’re serving this shrimp. You can absolutely serve this as just an appetizer. I have an excellent Cajun aioli recipe on Mom’s Dinner that I will link in the show notes for you. If you’re serving this as an appetizer, I highly recommend putting some jicama sticks on the side. They’re nice and cooling and perfectly paired with the spicy Cajun shrimp. It’s kind of like when you serve celery with hot wings.
But if you want to serve this as a dinner, then let’s talk about some side dishes. If it’s a weeknight and you want to keep this just fast and easy, then I highly recommend just getting a box of Zatteran’s Dirty Rice or Cajun rice and serving that on the side. If you have a little bit more time, I have such a good recipe for dirty rice and beans. It’s just a Skillet of Dirty Rice and Beans, so you can make it right on the stovetop next to your Cajun shrimp. That would be a perfect side dish. It’s got that beef-smoked sausage in it. Mm. You love it. If you like grits, excellent choice. Like shrimp and grits that you get at fancy restaurants? Perfect. Or you could serve cheesy rice. I have an excellent recipe for Cheesy Rice that I will also link in the show notes. Add a little bit of roasted broccoli, and dinner is done.
As always, I will link all of these recipes that I talked about in this episode right in the show notes for you, so you can make this for dinner whenever you want.
If you are loving these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you rate and review this show in your favorite podcast player that will just help other people find this show too.
Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier.
Tips Shared
When buying shrimp they are sold by the size/pound/weight all together. Confusing, right? They are calculated by 1 pound… how many shrimp are in that pound and obviously the larger the shrimp the less there is per pound.
In this recipe we need 1 pound of shrimp that are extra large, giving you about 26-30 shrimp per pound.
You also want to make sure you use SMOKED paprika. There are a lot of varieties of paprika as we discovered in the episode. So make sure you are using SMOKED since it has the light smoky flavor profile you want in this Cajun dish.
Recipes Mentioned
- Skillet Cajun Shrimp
- Skillet Dirty Rice and Beans
- Cheesy Rice
- Red Lobster Copycat Garlic Biscuits
- Cajun Aioli
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