Ten minutes is all a pound of shrimp needs. A hot cast iron skillet toasts the garlic, a full stick of butter melts in behind it, and the shrimp cook in that sauce with red pepper flakes and a squeeze of lemon.
Count on bread. You’ll want plenty to drag through the pan, and the recipe works as well on a camp stove or grill as it does on the kitchen range.
Table of Contents
- Save This Recipe ✉️
- 🔪 Ingredients for Easy Garlic Butter Shrimp
- 📝 How to Make Easy Garlic Butter Shrimp
- 🔄 Substitutions
- 💡 Meat Nerd Tips
- 🍽️ What to Serve with Easy Garlic Butter Shrimp
- 🧊 Leftovers and Storage
- More Shrimp recipes you need to try
- Save This Recipe ✉️
- Easy Garlic Butter Shrimp Recipe
- Quick Summary
- ❓ FAQs
🔪 Ingredients for Easy Garlic Butter Shrimp
- Shrimp: shells on keep the shrimp juicier and add flavor to the butter; large (31/40) or extra-large (26/30) are a good size here.
- Butter
- Garlic: freeze-dried or fresh
- Italian seasoning
- Lemon pepper
- Red pepper flakes or hot sauce
- Salt
- Lemon
- Fresh parsley or basil
Equipment
- 10-inch cast iron skillet (14-inch to double the recipe)
- Long tongs
📝 How to Make Easy Garlic Butter Shrimp
- Heat the skillet over high heat until it just starts to smoke, then move it to lower heat (indirect heat on a grill or campfire).
- Add the garlic and toast about 30 seconds, until fragrant.
- Add the butter and swirl to coat the pan.
- Add the shrimp, seasonings and red pepper flakes or hot sauce. Cook 2 to 3 minutes, until pink on the bottom.
- Flip and cook 3 to 4 minutes more, moving the shrimp around, until pink and opaque all the way through.
- Take the pan off the heat, add the herbs and lemon, and serve from the skillet.
🔄 Substitutions
- Peeled shrimp in place of shell-on (shave a minute off the cook).
- Ghee in place of butter for Whole30 (check spice labels for sugar).
- Old Bay or Cajun seasoning in place of the Italian seasoning.
- Fresh garlic in place of freeze-dried.
💡 Meat Nerd Tips
- Done shrimp curl into a loose C and turn opaque to the center. A tight O means overcooked and rubbery.
- Pat thawed shrimp dry before they hit the pan so they cook in butter, not water.
- Toast the garlic before the butter goes in, and watch it. Thirty seconds builds flavor; a minute burns it.
- Many lemon pepper blends are salted. Taste the butter before you add the salt.
🍽️ What to Serve with Easy Garlic Butter Shrimp
- Crusty bread or toasted baguette for the butter
- Pasta tossed in the pan sauce
- Rice
- Grilled steak for surf and turf
More shrimp from the skillet: gambas al ajillo, New Orleans BBQ shrimp and shrimp saganaki. For taco night, go with Cajun grilled shrimp tacos, or browse all our shellfish recipes.
🧊 Leftovers and Storage
Refrigerate up to 2 to 3 days. Reheat gently over low heat just until warm; skip the microwave, which turns shrimp rubbery.
More Shrimp recipes you need to try
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Easy Garlic Butter Shrimp
Recommended Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 lb shrimp shells on, thawed (large or extra-large)
- 8 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp freeze-dried garlic or 4 cloves fresh garlic, minced
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1 tsp lemon pepper
- 1 tsp Red pepper flakes or hot sauce
- 1/2 tsp salt taste first if your lemon pepper is salted
To Serve
- Lemon
- Fresh Parsley or basil
Instructions
Preheat the Pan
- Heat a cast-iron skillet over direct heat until just smoking.
- Remove and slide to indirect heat.
- Carefully add the garlic to the pan and toast for 30 seconds until fragrant.8 tbsp butter
- Add the butter to the pan, and with long tongs, or a wooden spoon, swirl to coat.1 tbsp freeze-dried garlic
Cook the Shrimp
- Add the shrimp and spices to the skillet. If using hot sauce, add a few dashes now.1 lb shrimp, 1 tsp Italian seasoning, 1 tsp lemon pepper, 1 tsp Red pepper flakes , 1/2 tsp salt
- Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, as the shrimp turn pink, flip and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, until pink and opaque all the way through, shuffling as needed to make sure none become more overexposed to heat than others.
Garnish and Serve
- Remove the skillet from the heat, sprinkle the parsley on top, and squeeze a lemon wedge over top to add a bright fresh acidity to the dish.Fresh Parsley or basil, Lemon
- Serve immediately. Allow everyone to serve directly from the garlicky butter-drenched skillet.
- Peel the shells from the shrimp as you eat them hot.
- Spoon more spicy garlicky butter over the top as desired.
Video
Notes
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Quick Summary
Cast iron skillet heated until it just smokes, then moved to gentler heat. Garlic toasted 30 seconds, 8 tbsp butter melted in, 1 lb shell-on shrimp and seasonings cooked 2 to 3 minutes, flipped and cooked 3 to 4 minutes more until pink and opaque, then finished off the heat with herbs and lemon. Serves 4. Prep 5 minutes, cook 10 minutes, total 15 minutes.
❓ FAQs
Both work for this recipe. Just make sure that the raw shrimp are deveined and thawed before cooking. Unless you’re buying shrimp off the boat fresh, the shrimp you buy thawed at the seafood counter have most likely already been frozen and thawed. Keeping frozen shrimp on hand allows you to whip this easy recipe up whenever you want. Cook’s note: you can use pre-cooked shrimp for this recipe. Follow the recipe exactly, only decreasing the time the shrimp are cooking in the butter to not overcook the shrimp. However, we feel starting with raw shrimp deepens the overall flavor of this dish.
Fill a large bowl with cold water and place the shrimp in a bag in the water. Rotate the bag every few minutes and shake the shrimp loose to make sure they are all thawing evenly. They thaw in under 30 minutes.
Check the label on the bag to determine the size of the shrimp. If you’re serving this as a main dish, I would go for large or extra-large shrimp. They will be labeled large with the number 31/40 or 26/30 on the bag. That number is a rough estimate of how many shrimp to expect per pound. Keep the jumbo shrimp for bbq skewers and small shrimp for stirfry.
3 oz is the standard serving size for shrimp, whether they are small or colossal. However, that can be hard to guess, especially with as easy as it is to snack on these. We recommend doubling down and serving at least 6 to 8 oz garlicky shrimp per person.
Images for this post were taken by the ever-talented duo of Forged From the Wild.
This recipe is gorgeous and so easy to do. Just control the temperature. Too bad I didn’t know the recipe earlier. Best shrimps I ever had. 😋😋😋 😋😋 .
This is so good!! I had to make a fresh loaf of http://reallifewithdad.com/artisan-sourdough/ to go with it 😋
Yes!
This is on the calendar (a figure of speech, I’m not that regimented in the kitchen, sometimes I don’t know what I’m making until I’m finished cooking!).