5 All-Time Favorite Grilled Shrimp Recipes You’ll Love

piri-piri prawns, spiced up with fiery malagueta chiles. The Spanish pay exorbitant sums for carabinieros, briny crimson shrimp fished from the cold deep waters of the Bay of Biscay. Venetians thread their gamberoni onto skewers to be dusted with breadcrumbs and grilled kabab style. No Indian feast would be complete without yogurt- and spice-marinated tandoori shrimp.

Regional Shrimp Varieties in the U.S.

But which shrimp? If you live on the southeastern seaboard, you eat delicate Carolina shrimp. If you come from Down East, you raise your fork for sweet white Maine shrimp. Down my way, in south Florida, we grill succulent Key West pinks. Californians and Hawaiians eat spot prawns (so named for the black eye-like carapace on the side of the shell.

Quite miraculously, in this age of global supply chains, shrimp remain mercifully regional, and each variety has its own distinct texture and flavor.

Buying Shrimp: Fresh, Farmed, or Imported?

But what if you don’t live near the coast? Seafood farms from around the globe (especially Southeast Asia) provide shrimp in all sizes as prices so modest, you wonder how they can do it.

The short answer is don’t ask. The longer answer requires uncomfortable questions about dubious labor and environment practices. Whenever food comes cheap, you pay the price in other ways. But ask to sniff the shrimp before buying it: if it smells like bleach, don’t buy it.

For this reason, I always try to buy fresh local domestic shrimp. When in doubt, I buy from a store merchant that vets the provenance of its seafood, like Whole Foods, or I check with the Marine Stewardship Counsel.

Why Shrimp Is Perfect for Grilling

But my main job is to whet your appetite, not suppress it, and shrimp possesses many qualities that endear it to us grillers.

First, it’s quick to grill, delivering pure protein and superb taste in a matter of minutes. It readily absorbs spice, marinade, and smoke flavors, without losing its briny uniqueness. Speaking of taste, it has one of those flavors that seems to appeal to everyone—without the squeamishness often associated with sea urchin, oysters, or other shellfish.
Did we mention that it’s available everywhere and as seafood goes, mercifully affordable?

Five Key Questions Before Grilling Shrimp

But before you fire up your grill, you need to ask 5 key questions.

Does size matter? As in the bedroom, not really. Shrimp range in size from the diminutive Dutch garnall (so tiny you can fit a dozen in a tablespoon) to the Kenyan King (a single shellfish tips the scales at 3 pounds—split and grill as you would lobster). Here in the U.S., shrimp are sold by the “U” size—for example a U-16 means that there are 16 headless shrimp to a pound. When making kebabs, I use extra-large shrimp (U 16s). When grilling individual shrimp, I use U8s or U10s—also sold as “colossal.”

Head on or head off? In much of the world, people grill whole shrimp (that is with heads on). I’m down with that. Head on shrimp look cool and there’s a lot of flavor in the head. To paraphrase how Louisianans eat crawfish: suck the heads and pinch the tails.

Shell on or shell off? Both. I like grilling shrimp in the shell. Fire-charred shells add flavor and keep the meat moist. I like grilling peeled shrimp because they’re quicker and easier to eat. There’s time and occasion for both.

Tails on or off? Toss up here. A lot of restaurants leave the tails on (perhaps to remind you that the creature you’re about to heat once swam in the ocean). That fire charred tail adds a bit of flavor. But it also adds another step come time to eat the shrimp, so you can omit it with a clean conscience.

Should shrimp be deveined? Large ones yes. A visible black vein in a cooked shrimp is unsightly and can taste acrid. With smaller shrimp (or shrimp with no visible vein), I don’t bother peeling. Unless my wife is watching. Then I always peel shrimp.

How to Devein Shrimp (3 Easy Methods)

Tip: There are three ways to devein shrimp.

1. Get yourself a shrimp peeler and deveiner. Insert the deveiner in the fat end of the shrimp and push. Vein removed QED.
2. Butterfly the shrimp, that is make a V-shaped cut along the back of the shrimp to cut out the vein and flesh immediately surrounding it. Advantage of this method: the shrimp curls into an attractive butterfly shape as it cooks.
3. The lazy way to devein a peeled shrimp: Insert the tine of a fork in the rounded part of the back under the vein and gently lift. Most of the time, the vein will pull right out.

How to Grill Shrimp

In a nutshell, direct grilled over high heat. I grill small shrimp kebab style (threaded on a bamboo or metal skewer). The skewer should pass through the head end and tail end so each shrimp lays flat on the grate. For the real monsters, I split them in half through the belly side, butterfly them open, and grill them as I would lobster.

Our 5 Favorite Shrimp Recipes

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