Bourbon Shrimp are coated in a sweet and salty sauce flavored with bourbon, honey, and garlic. It’s basically the shrimp version of the delicious Bourbon Chicken you get at the mall food court. Only bourbon is actually an ingredient and not just the name.
Bourbon Shrimp can easily be made in less than 20 minutes for a delicious weeknight meal. Serve them over rice with some steamed broccoli for a full meal or they also work great as a party appetizer.
How To Make Bourbon Shrimp
To make Bourbon Shrimp, first mix together all the sauce ingredients in a bowl: bourbon, water, brown sugar, low sodium soy sauce, ketchup, apple cider vinegar, ground ginger, red pepper flakes, garlic, and cornstarch.
For bourbon, I like to use Maker’s Mark. It has a nice, smooth flavor. But use any bourbon that you enjoy.
Cook some medium shrimp in a tablespoon of oil. Once the shrimp are just cooked, remove from the pan and add the sauce to the pan. Simmer it until thick and add the shrimp back in and toss to coat them. Sprinkle with green onions and serve.
Tips For Cooking Shrimp
Shrimp cook very quickly and can easily be overcooked. They really only need a couple of minutes to cook. Cook them too long and they will be rubbery.
You can use frozen shrimp. Defrost them in the refrigerator overnight.
More Shrimp Recipes
- Spicy Beer Shrimp
- Bubba Gump Copycat Shrimp
- Copycat Bang Bang Shrimp
- Easy Shrimp Creole
- Calabash Shrimp
- Crab Cake Stuffed Shrimp
Bourbon Shrimp
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup bourbon
- 1/3 cup water
- 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons ketchup
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 1/2 pounds medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1 green onion sliced
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together bourbon, water, brown sugar, soy sauce, ketchup, vinegar, ginger, red pepper flakes, garlic cloves, and cornstarch. Set aside.
- Heat oil in a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Add shrimp and cook just until cooked through. Remove from pan and set aside.
- Add sauce mixture to the pan and cook until thickened. Return shrimp to pan, remove from heat and stir to coat the shrimp in sauce.
- Sprinkle the green onions on top.
Nutrition
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Originally posted September 2, 2018.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Amazing!
Yum, these are amazing! Quick to make and full of flavor. Thanks for sharing.
This was amazing!! Not too spicy even for my husband but spicy enough to make ME happy. It presents well, love the scallions scattered over the top of shrimp swimming in a beautiful red glaze!
I removed the tails because it’s easier to to eat them and with all that glaze it would be all over your fingers. Of course “finger licking good” could apply here!
My family loved it. Simple recipe, quick preparation, and very delicious.
Very good. Served it with rice, scallions and chopped pecans. Would also make a great Hors D’oeuvre for a cocktail party.
I want to make this as an appetizer for a party. Would I serve it hot or cold? If hot how would you suggest I keep it warm? Do you think it would get rubbery in a crockpot?
I used your recipe but adapted it making it keto friendly with swerve brown sugar and sugar free ketchup. It still taste amazing!
Easy to assemble and most all ingredients are on hand already.
Weird question- can you freeze the sauce and then defrost and add the shrimp and scallions?
Absolutely
I’m not a very good cook so I’m always looking for easy, flavorable dishes. This was super easy and I used the Bourbon I already had on hand and wow, yum
This is a wonderful shrimp dish and so easy to make!
This is absolutely delicious. I used regular soy sauce and it was fine. I did it with summer squash and shrimp.
I made it for dinner and was delicious, served over rice with broccoli florets. This will be a go to for quick meals. I used jumbo shrimp and loved it.
This turned out really good! Even though I realized too late I didn’t have low sodium soy sauce. It’s a tad salty but when you put it over rice and add steamed broccoli you can’t tell. Thanks for this recipe!
Love the bourbon flavor!
Now that is a shrimp meal fit for King. Makers Mark was a great choice for a bourbon, also. Found 7 lbs of shrimp in my freezers on Monday. Who Knew? Time to thin the herd a little.
Will be making again!
Everyone loved it!
That prawn dinner is definitely fit for a king. Another excellent option for a bourbon was Makers Mark. On Monday, I discovered 7 pounds of prawns in my freezers. Who was aware? It’s time to somewhat thin the herd.