Stir-Fries: The OG One-Pan Dinner
Shrimp make the best stir-fries. One of the trickiest things about cooking shrimp is that they can overcook easily, and overcooked shrimp is a real bummer. But! Cooking shrimp in a stir-fry is a natural fit for these juicy little crustaceans. A fast fry is the easiest way to cook them. Sautéed quickly over high heat, with a flavorful sauce and some veggies, this recipe is all but guaranteed to produce perfect shrimp every time. It’s healthy and quick, but it’s also a fun dish to throw together for friends—using shrimp makes it feel a little special, and it’s easy to make it gluten-free so it accommodates a lot of dietary preferences.
Meet the King of All Stir-Fry Sauces: Garlic Sauce!
This healthy, easy shrimp with garlic sauce stir-fry is brought to life with the super-savory garlic stir-fry sauce that you’ll sauté the shrimp and veggies in.
- Soy sauce. You can substitute gluten-free tamari if you’d like to make this into a gluten-free shrimp stir-fry.
- Sesame oil. We prefer the nuttier flavor of toasted sesame oil, but either toasted or untoasted will work just fine.
- Chili sauce. We usually reach for the straightforward chili-heat of sambal oelek, but you could use sriracha if that’s what you have on-hand. Or, if you’d like to make your garlic shrimp stir-fry more mild in flavor, just leave it out.
- Brown sugar. A little sweetness is key, and helps to balance all of the big flavors that are at play in this garlic stir-fry sauce.
- Garlic. And lots of it! We call for six fresh cloves of garlic.
- Cornstarch. This may seem like a weird ingredient, but cornstarch is the magical stir-fry sauce ingredient—it makes the sauce a little bit thick and helps it to coat the shrimp, asparagus, snow peas and peppers in just the way you want it to.
How to Make Garlic Shrimp
Newsflash! You don’t need a wok to make a great at-home stir fry for dinner. All you really need is a frying pan, but here are a few tips to get any stir fry just right:
- Choose a large skillet with a rounded or flat bottom—you want to have plenty of room to keep the ingredients moving around in the pan as you cook, which is the key to a good stir-fry. For crisp veggies and perfectly-cooked shrimp, it’s important not to overcrowd the pan. Having a larger pan makes that easier to do.
- Use medium-high heat for this shrimp stir-fry—it gives the veggies enough time to get nicely tender, without getting burned or becoming soggy. Medium-high is just right for cooking the shrimp quickly, too, which helps them stay juicy and tender.
- When you’re prepping the shrimp, asparagus, bell peppers and snow peas, think about size as you chop. Making sure your veggies and shrimp are roughly the same size will help ensure even cooking.
- If you’re wondering how long to fry shrimp, the main thing to do is to WATCH. It’ll happen fast—as in three minutes-ish—and so once you add the shrimp to the pan, stir it constantly and keep watching. Once it turns pink, it’s probably done.
Tools You’ll Need:
- Small bowl for mixing.
- Large skillet.
- Sturdy heat-proof spatula for moving the shrimp and veggies around in the pan.
- Sharp knife.
More Shrimp Recipes We Love
Healthy, low-carb, fast and easy, shrimp is one of our favorite ingredients to work with. Here are four shrimp recipes that are always a hit in our house:
Stir It Up!
Did you love this easy, fast garlic shrimp recipe? Snap a photo of your garlic shrimp with veggies and maybe even a video of the beautiful people you feed it to. Tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper. Happy eating!
