70+ Shrimp Recipes for Easy Weeknight Dinners

Shrimp are little sea creatures that live on or around the ocean floor. They have a very hard outer shell made of segmented pieces, a softer underside, lots of little feathery legs, and a tail.

Discovering that I could cook shrimp straight from the freezer has to be one of the happiest accidents to come out of my kitchen this summer. You see, the resulting shrimp are so juicy and flavorful that I can hardly believe I’ve ever taken the time to thaw shrimp, however easy and short the thawing may be. Straight from the freezer to the sheet pan, these shrimp are coated with Cajun seasoning for a spicy, savory take on broiled shrimp.

The beautiful thing about shrimp is that, even if you’re starting from frozen, they don’t take but a few minutes to cook. Here’s how to cook shrimp quickly and easily in the oven — such a treat!

Making shrimp cocktail and classic cocktail sauce at home (rather than grabbing that deli platter) guarantees that you’ll have plump, juicy shrimp and cocktail sauce with just the right amount of pizzazz.

Fritters are best enjoyed immediately, but leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Quick-cooking shrimp make for easy weeknight meals, plus their mild flavor makes them incredibly versatile so that you don’t ever have to get bored.

While this recipe is worthy of being made year-round, I find it tastes even better in the throes of summer, when turning on a kitchen appliance is the last thing you want to do in grasps of the Georgia heat.

You won’t find any barbecue sauce in model/chef/restaurateur B. Smith’s dish of shrimp in spiced butter sauce: “Barbecue shrimp” is just the name Louisiana Creole cooks assigned to shrimp braised in wine, beer, or garlic-butter sauce.

This Mexican-spiced version cooks up with plump shrimp and tender orzo pasta in a creamy tomato sauce, all finished with some salty crumbles of cheese sprinkled on top. It might feel a bit like you’re eating risotto, but it takes less time and it doesn’t require you to be constantly fussing and stirring at the stove.

A simple pan sauce can elevate even the most basic meals. Here, a creamy Alfredo-style sauce with Pecorino cheese makes a sublime meal of linguine, asparagus, and shrimp.

Succulent shrimp and linguini are tossed with a super-quick tomato cream sauce — one that’s fragrant with aromatic garlic, shallots, and white wine.

This rice noodle salad streamlines that premise by using just five key ingredients: noodles, shrimp, coconut milk, mango, and chile peppers (although the toppings mentioned above are all viable swaps). The coconut milk’s sugar is balanced with a heavy dose of salt, which might seem like too much as you’re adding it, but it’s just right with the starchy noodles, sweet fruit, and fiery hot chiles.

This hot, steaming bowl of fragrant, spicy broth with noodles, prawns, and eggs is a common dish in Malaysia. The key component is the spice paste, which takes a bit of time, but once you’ve made it, you can keep it in the fridge for up to a month. Alternatively, there are very good store-bought pastes available.

This warm roasted shrimp salad tastes like the early days of spring. It’s bright and cheerful, thanks to plenty of tangy lemon juice and a heap of chopped fresh dill. The roasted shrimp and peas are paired with toothsome Israeli couscous, which is toasted to bring out its nutty flavor. The couscous matches up almost perfectly in size to the green peas, so you can scoop everything up in big, easy bites.

This dish has a bit of a kick to it, depending on the amount of chili flakes you use. I love it spicy and hot; it goes great with a cold beer! There’s a zing from the lemon in both the couscous and the shrimp, a hot punch from the chili flakes, and that sweetness from the basil. It’s so fast, so easy.

I dare you to find a quicker-cooking or more versatile dinner than grilled shrimp. Skewered shrimp and thin slices of lemon are brushed with garlicky melted butter and grilled until tender and pink. Eat them straight from the skewer as an appetizer, or serve atop a salad or tucked into a roll for the main course. Anyway you eat them, these citrusy garlic-butter grilled shrimp will be on your plate in mere minutes.

This recipe was adapted from Cook’s Illustrated by my brother-in-law, an excellent cook who has made this shrimp for our family many times. There are a couple of secrets that make it great: One, you brine the shrimp for about 30 minutes to help them stay especially juicy on the grill. Two, you serve them with melted garlic butter for dipping.

Shrimp on the grill is the very best shrimp there is — it cooks quickly and picks up smokiness and char. But you don’t have to limit yourself to simple shrimp skewers. Here, we’re taking inspiration from pasta and lemon garlic butter shrimp for a no-mess packet dinner you’ll crave all summer long.

Take a vacation south of the border on your lunch break when you pack yourself this chopped jicama and shrimp salad. It is a feast for the eyes, with a rainbow of cheery colors and textures.

This lovely, clean recipe epitomizes spring and summer cooking. It can be put together in less than 10 minutes, and it works brilliantly as either an appetizer or a light lunch.

Roasted shrimp, chunks of avocado and crisp romaine are wrapped up and dipped in a creamy miso-tahini dressing for a cool, satisfying summer lunch or dinner.

This recipe streamlines the paella process, making it a dish you can throw together any night of the week.

Warm lentil salads are always just the ticket when I want something satisfying yet light. Topped with some easy roasted shrimp, you now have a complete dinner that’s good any time of the year.

The bowl’s herbaceous and seafood elements make me think of summer, but the millet and almond’s roasty flavors and the shrimp’s substantial, crunchy panko breading make it stand up to cold weather, too. In fact, we’ve made this millet bowl three times this winter — about as high praise as I could give to any one meal.

Shrimp Tacos and Tostadas

Corn chowder is a classic soup bursting with the sweetness of corn. It’s oh-so-creamy and body warming. When you add quick-cooking shrimp, corn chowder not only tastes great and feeds the soul, but it is also transformed into a complete meal in a single bowl.

The key to this soup is to get the balance of sweet, salty, and tangy right, especially when paired with the richness of the coconut milk.

The star of this recipe is the flavor-packed broth. If you have time to peel the fresh shrimp, use their shells in the broth to extract every bit of their flavor, although it’s not a deal breaker if you use a package of frozen peeled shrimp instead.

The word étouffer means “smothered or braised,” and is a technique often used with crawfish, which come in season during the spring when rain floods the rice fields. Creole cooks make etouffée as well, and however much it may vary from Cajun to Creole and from cook to cook, one constant remains: serving it over a plate of hot rice.

This is the Vietnamese-inspired po’ boy that we fell in love with in New Orleans’ French Quarter and the one we’re sharing here today.

A deep-fried po’ boy is not usually something I’d attempt in my own kitchen, but this version of it — with quickly sautéed shrimp — is easy enough to throw together on a busy weeknight.

The tostadas are topped with quickly sautéed shrimp lightly seasoned with spices and lime juice. Last comes the do-it-yourself part: customizing each tostada with your favorite toppings.

These shrimp tacos here are an ode to those first ones. I like roasting shrimp in the oven because it’s easy and foolproof and Ina Garten-approved, though if you have a grill, by all means grill your shrimp instead.