Cajun Shrimp With Garlic Cajun Butter
By Isabella Quinn
Servings
4
Level
Easy
Make the Cajun butter sauce in advance. Rinse and season the shrimp right before cooking to save time during preparation. Cooking and sautéing the Cajun shrimp takes only a few minutes. Homemade Cajun shrimp is easy to cook for planned meals.
Use fresh larger shrimp, peeled or unpeeled as desired. Softened butter allows the chopped cilantro, garlic, and Cajun seasoning mixtures to blend and coat the shrimp. Fresh parsley can be used in place of cilantro if you prefer. You can buy packaged Cajun seasoning or make your own. Common ingredients in homemade Cajun seasoning include hot and sweet paprika and chili powder, thyme, sugar, and sea salt.
Cook shrimp in a pan at high heat until almost done, then take them off the heat. Ideally, there will be a generous thick layer of good-quality butter sauce on top of the shrimp in the pan rather than beneath them. The main mistake people make when preparing this dish is timing, they should add Cajun butter at the end, as instructed in the recipe.
Serve shrimp with rice or grits or in tacos. Cilantro lime rice is a suggested rice side dish. To serve with pasta, remove the shrimp, cook pasta, coat it with the butter sauce, add some pasta cooking liquid, and warm over low heat, then add the shrimp.
Why we keep this one around
- Cajun butter can be made ahead of time and refrigerated. All that needs to be done at serving time is to season the shrimp, cook them in a pan, and mix in the butter.
- Making butter separately means that any remaining shrimp can be used in other recipes, including rice and taco or pasta dishes, without altering your original shrimp recipe.
- Large and jumbo shrimp can be purchased either with or without tails for various serving styles.
- Rinsing shrimp in saltwater before cooking them in a skillet allows other meal-preparation activities to happen during shrimp cooking time and helps the shrimp cook evenly.
- Reheat shrimp quickly because butter is added only after the heat is off, and quick reheating helps keep shrimp from getting tough.
- Individual-sized meal packages from the freezer are convenient because the shrimp are cooked in a Cajun butter sauce.
- Thawed shrimp from the individual packages may be slightly firmer than other shrimp.
Ingredients
- •jumbo or large shrimp (fresh; tails on or removed)
- •Cajun seasoning (store-bought or homemade)
- •butter (softened)
- •1 clove garlic (finely grated)
- •cilantro (optional; parsley may be substituted)
- •salt (for salting the shrimp before cooking)
Instructions
- 1
Stir the Cajun seasoning, finely grated garlic, and cilantro into softened butter to make the Cajun butter.
- 2
Toss the shrimp with a bit of salt and let them sit in a colander for a few minutes.
- 3
Rinse the shrimp.
- 4
Cook the shrimp in a hot skillet.
- 5
When the shrimp are just about cooked, turn off the heat and swirl in the Cajun butter until it melts into a silky sauce that coats the shrimp.
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