If you want flavor FAST this honey sriracha shrimp recipe is THE one for you. Plump, juicy shrimp are served in a slightly sweet, spicy sauce and loads of aromatics. Serve it with white rice and you’ll have a quick meal on the table in 20 minutes.
Jump to:
Sriracha Shrimp That Puts Takeout To Shame
If you’re like me, you’re always looking for a way to mix up your weekly meal rotation. Fast and flavorful are two of my favorite adjectives by the time Wednesday rolls around. And that makes shrimp the PERFECT vehicle for this Asian-inspired sauce and one of my favorite proteins for weeknight cooking. We’re talking garlic and ginger, soy sauce and sriracha, runny honey, lime, and handfuls of sesame seeds and cilantro all enveloping plump, tender shrimp. A quick sauce that hits all the notes with a protein that cooks in less than 5 minutes? It doesn’t get any easier, folks! (FYI, you can always count on Asian sauces for fast flavor).
Ingredients
- Garlic: Fresh garlic is the best form of garlic to use; there aren’t a whole lot of ingredients in this recipe, so quality matters. A bit of minced garlic in water or garlic powder can work in a pinch.
- Ginger: Fresh ginger is a must to really bring a bit of zing to the Asian flavors in this dish. In my opinion, there is no substitute.
- Butter: I use unsalted butter in most of my recipes to have full control over the salt I add to things, but I grew up on salted butter being swapped for most recipes, so just taste as you add the soy sauce, fish sauce, and sriracha if that’s what you’re using.
- Soy sauce: If you are sensitive to gluten or soy, try coconut aminos.
- Fish sauce: Fish sauce is salty and umami-laden. A great way to bring flavor fast and it pairs so well with fresh lime juice. No fish sauce? No worries. Leave it out and taste to see if you’d like to add a splash more soy.
- Sriracha: Sriracha is a hot sauce that originated in Thailand. It’s made of chili peppers, garlic, vinegar, and sugar.
- Honey
- Lime: If you don’t have any fresh limes on hand, swap with rice wine vinegar.
- Shrimp: I used large shrimp in this recipe; you can use any size you’d like, but you’ll need to adjust cook time accordingly.
- Corn starch slurry: To help thicken up the sauce at the end of the cook time.
How to Make This Easy Shrimp Recipe
- Make the honey sriracha sauce! First melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat and add the 3 cloves of garlic and 1 tablespoon ginger to fry for 30 seconds or up to a minute or until fragrant. Then add in the other sauce ingredients: 2 tablespoons of lime, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 teaspoons of fish sauce, 3 tablespoons sriracha, and 3 tablespoons of honey.
- Cook the shrimp (in the sauce). Give it a stir and add the 2 pounds of shrimp, spacing them out as evenly as possible, in a single layer. Flip once and cook until the shrimp is curled up and no longer opaque. Meanwhile, the sauce will come to a simmer. Once the shrimp are cooked through, you can either serve as is with a runny sauce, or you can pour in the cornstarch slurry and let cook until it thickens, 1 minute or so.
- Et voila! Remove from heat and sprinkle in the tablespoon of sesame seeds and 2 tablespoons of cilantro. Serve over rice with a little extra sauce.
Variations and Substitutions
- Sriracha is too spicy: If black pepper lights your taste buds on fire, you can tone down the Sriracha or even omit it (although you’ll have more of a honey shrimp dish than sriracha shrimp). Otherwise start with half the sriracha and taste. Also, if you’re out of sriracha, you could try using gochujang or doubanjiang.
- Sriracha isn’t spicy enough: If sriracha isn’t spicy enough, you can add in some minced jalapeno or a few slices of Thai chili peppers to really bring the heat!
- Scallops for shrimp: Both cook fast and have the potential to be great!
- Add some red or green bell pepper when you fry up the garlic and ginger if you are looking to add more vegetables to your diet.
- Green onions for cilantro: Just in case you fall in the ‘cilantro tastes like soap’ camp.
Tips & Tricks
Use Fresh Aromatics (and Lime Juice): To pack a lot of flavor into just 20 minutes of cook time, I recommend using fresh ginger, garlic, cilantro (or green onion if you hate cilantro) and lime juice. One time-saving tip is to pre-mince garlic and ginger separately at the start of the week and to store them in airtight containers. They’ll stay fresh for almost a week and cut down on dinner prep by a LOT!
What Size Shrimp to Use for This Recipe?
This recipe can be made with any size shrimp. Keep in mind that the size of your shrimp impacts cooking time. It will be slightly longer for larger shrimp and slightly less for smaller shrimp. Because this is the main dish, I opted for large shrimp.
The shrimp I used pictured here was 31-40 size, which means there are approximately 31-40 pieces per pound. The higher the number, the smaller the shrimp. This size number is usually listed on the front of the package of shrimp.
Tail On or Tail Off?
You can cook this shrimp with the tail on or the tail off, tbh. If you leave it on, it can add to the visual appeal of the dish, and could add a little extra flavor to the pan sauce, but it makes eating it more of a hands-on dining experience. The real reason to leave the tail on would probably just be sheer “I don’t have time for that.” Otherwise, this is a saucy dish, where it would be difficult to pick out each shrimp and remove the tail before eating every bite, so I recommend removing the tail before cooking the shrimp. (Or having some poor, unsuspecting ‘sous chef’ do the work for you. Just sayin’.)
What to Serve with Honey Sriracha Shrimp
First thing’s first: I always serve this with rice. Coconut rice if I’ve got a can of unsweetened coconut milk on hand or brown rice if if I’m trying to be healthy-ish.
And if I’m looking to get dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less, I grab a bag of broccoli from the freezer and whip up some garlicky broccoli. If I’m feeling fancy, I’ll make an impromptu garlic oyster sauce. Any of your favorite vegetables would probably work great alongside this dish, though.
With more time and energy, a smashed cucumber salad would be top notch. And this is also fantastic with a cucumber, avocado, and mango pico de gallo. If you go the pico route, these would make a great shrimp bowl or amazing lettuce wraps.
Want More Weeknight Inspiration?
- Try this Asian Cod in Gochujang Broth with zucchini and tomoatoes.
- This Filipino Chicken Adobo in Coconut Milk is another one that requires very little hands-on work.
- And these YiBin Burning noodles are fast and spicy and a favorite of our from our time living in China.
📖 Recipe
20-Minute Honey Sriracha Shrimp
Ingredients
Sriracha Shrimp
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon ginger
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 lime juiced – 2 tablespoons?
- 2 tablespoons Soy
- 2 teaspoon Fish sauce
- 3 tablespoons sriracha
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 2 pounds large shrimp raw but shelled and deveined
Cornstarch Slurry
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 2 tablespoon water
Garnish
- Handful of Chopped fresh cilantro Optional 2 tablespoons to ¼ cup, chopped
- 1 tablespoon Sesame seeds
Instructions
- First melt the butter and add the 3 cloves of garlic and 1 tablespoon ginger to fry for 30 seconds to a minute or until fragrant. Then add in the other sauce ingredients: 2 tablespoons of lime, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 teaspoons of fish sauce, 3 tablespoons sriracha, and 3 tablespoons of honey.
- Give it a stir and add the 2 pounds of shrimp, spacing them out as evenly as possible. Flip once and cook until the shrimp is curled up and no longer opaque. Meanwhile, the sauce will come to a simmer. Once the shrimp are cooked through, you can either serve as is with a runny sauce, or you can pour in the cornstarch slurry and let cook until it thickens, 1 minute or so.
- Remove from heat and sprinkle in the tablespoon of sesame seeds and 2 tablespoons of cilantro. Easy peasy!
