These New Orleans-Style BBQ Shrimp are so buttery, spicy, and good. Fresh shrimp are baked in a sauce flavored with lots of spice, garlic, lemon juice, and green onion. Serve with crusty French bread for an out of this world appetizer or meal. An accompanying cold beer is a must.
My favorite restaurant in Charlotte, The Cajun Queen, has a too-die-for BBQ Shrimp Appetizer. This one is almost as good.
The most important thing about eating BBQ Shrimp is the sauce. You need lots of it. And lots of crusty French bread to mop it up with.
Also, make note that you will get your fingers very messy and greasy peeling the shrimp. It’s not pleasant, but it’s unavoidable.
For me the key to good New Orleans-Style BBQ Shrimp is lots of butter, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce. Ironically BBQ Shrimp has nothing to do with the barbecue. It is either cooked stove-top or in the oven. I prefer oven-baked BBQ Shrimp. The shrimp have a little longer to linger in the sauce and pick up the flavors.
It’s important to cook the shrimp in the shells. Yes, it’s messy to peel them, but the shells really help keep the shrimp tender and moist and they flavor the sauce.
Tips for making New Orleans-Style BBQ Shrimp
- This is a fairly salty dish. If you want it to be less salty, try using reduced-sodium Worcestershire sauce or a reduced-sodium Creole seasoning.
- You may want more heat. If so add a little extra cayenne pepper or serve it with Tabasco sauce.
- If you can get your hands on shrimp with the heads still on, use them for this recipe. The heads will add even more flavor to the sauce.
Watch the video below to see how easy it is to make New Orleans-Style BBQ Shrimp
New Orleans-Style BBQ Shrimp
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tablespoon Creole seasoning
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 3 green onions, sliced
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 lemon, sliced
- 2 pounds medium to large fresh shrimp, unpeeled
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine all ingredients EXCEPT shrimp in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat. Taste mixture and add a little salt if needed.
- Place shrimp in a 9X13-inch baking dish.
- Pour butter mixture over shrimp.
- Bake 15 to 20 minutes, stirring once.
- Serve with French bread to mop up the liquid.
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I made this with some black tiger shrimp I picked up at Aldi. Thawed shrimp under cool running water, patted dry, then tossed in a brine of 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp baking soda for an hour prior to baking. After that I followed the recipe exactly and this turned out SO GOOD. I will absolutely be making this again and again. Thank you for sharing!
We charcoal grilled chicken wings and huge shrimp and used the sauce to dip/smother . Totally YUMMY . Many uses!!!: Will make this over and over
Wow-this recipe is absolutely incredible. Don’t bother with any other recipe. Absolutely scrumptious!
Awesome Recipe
This recipe is next level! Restaurant quality. Whole family loved it. I made it with Argentinian shrimp so they’re a little extra sweet.
Great dish
This was the best recipe ever. We had this style shrimp in New Orleans a few years ago and couldn’t find a restaurant outside NO that served them. It was just as I remembered. Easy and Delicious!! Keeper!!
This recipe is easy peasy and got rave reviews. It’s delicious! I made it as a main course.
There are 2-things I’ll do differently next time I make it. I’ll add 1 or 2 more cloves of garlic and shell the shrimp. It was fun peeling and eating our way through the dish, not so much the next day for leftovers. I’ll add the shells to the sauce and let it gently simmer and strain it before I add it to the shrimp. This should extract that extra flavor nicely.
Thank you for such a fantastic recipe.
Best recipe ever. I don’t usually measure. But this is perfect! Best shrimp you will ever eat!!!!
Cold and rainy Saturday morning in upstate NY, so I was watching a cooking show on the Food Network that featured Deanie’s in NOLA where this dish is one of their featured dishes. Googled it, and came across your recipe – I’ve been to NOLA multiple times for business and I did not know there was such a thing as “BBQ shrimp” that had nothing to do with “BBQ”. I love to cook, I was looking for ideas for my wife, youngest son and me for dinner, and thought, “This looks good”.
OK, I’m a chemist, so I have mess a little bit, and I did. I sautéed a red bell pepper, half a sweet onion and deglazed with about 1/2 cup of cooking sherry. Then, I followed the recipe as you presented it and served it over brown rice with fresh French bread.
I know this is a family channel, so I will try to watch my language here…OMFG, this was AWESOME…total keeper. Our middle son and his GF come over about twice a month for dinner, and this one is next on the menu. Easy, very messy to eat, but well worth the buttery fingers and the clean-up.
Thank you!!!
I used this recipe because I couldn’t find my old o e after the move. Then it occurred to me that my old recipe was Paul Prudhommes. When I found the cookbook it was the same except he adds rosemary and uses beer instead of wine.
The “to” in “to die for” is “to,” not too. Sorry to be a pain.
how ridiculous of you.
Christin, I really appreciate you sharing this recipe. I am always looking for creative new dishes, and this seems perfect. A great way to spice up some shrimp.
Made this tonight and we loved it! Followed your directions to a tee. Will definitely make again. Delish!
Loved this! Such an easy dish, but the taste seemed like it took me hours…
This recipe is amazing! Easy and by far the best NOLA BBQ! I actually prefer the shells off since I’ve tried it both ways. I double up on the sauce. Yum!
We fix this often. Only substitute is Old Bays for the Creole. Love it.
I will never eat shrimp any other way. Had it for the first time in Nola, tried to copy from what I remembered than I came across this fantastic recipe.
After putting off making barbecue shrimp for years because it took forever with the traditional recipe, I made this last night and it is wonderful! Very happy with it, really didn’t change anything about the recipe, I used really good shrimp and served it with garlic bread and a side if steamed zucchini and yellow squash, with rice pilaf. Delicious and easy!
I am using uncooked frozen shrimp… do I need to cook them first?
Just thaw them first.
This is the recipe I have always used, but this time I didn’t realize until I was tossing everything in the pan, that I was out of Worcestershire sauce! I improvised by using 1/4 cup of Shrimp Cocktail sauce and 5 dashes of Tabasco sauce. Because of the Tabasco, I didn’t add the cayenne pepper. I also substituted 1/4 tsp onion powder for the green onions and only used 2 tbsp olive oil. I loved the changes and will do it this way from now on. Baked for 18 minutes, but next time will go 16 minutes as they were slightly overcooked.