The absolute best shrimp marinade made with garlic, herbs, spices and lemon. You can cook your marinated shrimp on the grill, stove top or in the oven for perfect results every time.
I love a good shrimp dish, I often whip up some shrimp salad or garlic butter shrimp for a quick and easy meal. This marinated shrimp is so full of flavor; my family requests it every week, it’s just that delicious!
There’s nothing like a bold and zesty marinade to infuse your food with plenty of flavor. This shrimp marinade contains a variety of savory ingredients that blend together to make the perfect seasoning for fresh shrimp.
How do you make shrimp marinade?
This recipe is a blend of olive oil, soy sauce, lemon zest, honey, herbs, garlic and seasonings. Everything gets whisked together in either a large bowl or a resealable plastic bag. Add your shrimp, then refrigerate them until it’s time to make dinner.
How long do you marinate shrimp?
I recommend marinating your shrimp for at least one hour, or up to 8 hours. This particular marinade does not contain any citrus juice, only lemon zest. If you’re working with a different marinade that does contain citrus juice, you’ll want to marinate your shrimp for no more than 2 hours, as the acid in the juice can actually cook the shrimp.
Tips for shrimp marinade
- This marinade can be made in advance and stored in the fridge for up to 3 days before you plan to use it.
- You can leave the tails on your shrimp, or remove them, it’s totally up to you. The tails make for a nicer presentation but it’s a little more work to remove the tails right before eating.
- You can make this marinade gluten free by substituting tamari sauce for the soy sauce.
- I recommend using the largest shrimp you can afford for the best flavor and presentation.
- For an extra special meal, you can also put some steak in my skirt steak marinade for a surf and turf dinner!
How do you cook marinated shrimp?
These shrimp can be baked, broiled, grilled or sauteed. Regardless of the cooking method, you’ll want to cook your shrimp for about 2-3 minutes per side, or until they’re pink and opaque. Larger shrimp will take a little longer to cook.
How to peel and devein shrimp
I typically buy my raw shrimp with just the tail attached, but many shrimp also come still in the shell. If your shrimp have shells on them, you can easily remove them by pulling the main part of the shell off with your fingers, then removing the tail end of the shell. You may also need to devein your shrimp. If you see a dark line running across the top of the the shrimp, you can remove it by using a paring knife to cut a slit along the top of the shrimp, then use a knife or wooden skewer to remove the vein.
This shrimp marinade can be used on other types of seafood such as scallops, salmon, swordfish or halibut. It’s one of the very best ways to enhance the flavor of fresh seafood.
More great shrimp recipes
Shrimp Marinade
Ingredients
- 1 pound shrimp peeled and deveined, leave tails on for a nicer presentation
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
- 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 2 teaspoons fresh parsley leaves chopped
- 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 3/4 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1/4 teaspoon chili flakes optional
Instructions
- Place the olive oil, honey, soy sauce, lemon zest, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper in a bowl. Whisk to combine.
- Reserve 1 tablespoon of the marinade for later use. Add the garlic and chili flakes to the bowl.
- Add the shrimp and marinade to a resealable freezer bag and seal. Shake to coat the shrimp with the marinade.
- Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, or up to 8 hours.
- At this point you can broil, grill or saute the shrimp for 2-3 minutes per side or until pink and opaque.
- Drizzle the reserved marinade over the cooked shrimp, then serve.
Wonderful marinade! Shrimp sauté up tender and flavorful. I used just the fresh thyme and it was delicious. We have bees and are always open to a good recipe with honey in it. I shared the recipe with my sister and she and her family love it too. It’s in the keeper file now.
Really yummy and so quick. I pan fried the shrimp and they were great. A real winner. Thanks
I used this marinade for our fondue shrimp and it was fantastic! It was better every consecutive day! Thank you!
this is absolutely the best i’ve tasted ..i doubled it cause i had massive shrimp and honestly i could have made 100’s more to take to a party and they all would be devoured immediately!!
Easy and delicious shrimp marinade. The flavor is point on!
Easy! And very, very good!
I needed a quick recipe for shrimp and these were in a marinade in less than 20min. A few minutes to saute and we had dinner.
Fantastic marinade for shrimp. Really delicious. One thing I will comment on that I don’t agree with is 1 tsp lemon zest for 1 lb of shrimp. I time and a halfed this recipe EXCEPT for the lemon zest because I made 2 lbs of shrimp. Even 1 tsp of the fresh lemon zest stood out a little too much. It had a candied lemon flavor to me. Maybe it’s just me, though I do love lemon, so I still gave the recipe 5 stars. Will make it again, just less lemon zest. 🙂
Perfect! I have ALL of these ingredients to hand so I cannot wait to whip this marinade up.
I made these and added them to my salad. The perfect blend of spices and flavors.
This marinade has the perfect balance of sweet, zesty, and savoury for crazy delicious shrimp! And it’s so easy to make from ingredients that I already had in the house. Will definitely make it again!
This Shrimp Marinade is fantastic! It adds wonderful flavor to the shrimp and is so easy to prepare. Perfect for grilling or sautéing. Thanks for sharing this great recipe!
Delicious! The shrimp was packed with so much flavour and freshness from that lemon and parsley. Loved it!