15-minute Beer Battered Shrimp

This 15-minute beer-battered shrimp recipe comes together quickly with baking mix and your choice of beer.  This is an awesome standalone recipe that won’t heat up your kitchen or as a great complement to steaks or burgers off the grill.  Or, just live it up as a great party food!  This post contains affiliate links. 

I was flipping through an old cookbook called Desperation Dinners, because the book title so spoke to me.  Haven’t we all been there?  When I came across this recipe, my initial thought was “How desperate are you if you’re willing to hand batter some shrimp?”  I mean you should see some of the “desperate” dinners I’ve served, yikes.  But I kept thinking about the recipe and I thought I’d at least give it a try.  Guys, after I popped one of these shrimp in my mouth I wanted to pretend like we were robbed and that’s all they took so that I didn’t have to share them with anyone else.  They’re that good.

Disclaimer here:  I did run time trials to make sure you could accomplish this in 15 minutes without running around your kitchen Iron Chef style, and you so can.  One caveat is that does depend on you having a big enough skillet to fit all the shrimp in at once.  If you’re interested in an electric skillet, this is the exact skillet I use and the whole bag fit perfectly in one batch.  Otherwise, you will definitely be enjoying shrimp in 15 minutes, you may just have a few more batches to do.

Beer Battered Shrimp Recipe How-to

First up, grab your bag of raw shrimp.  I went with the 12 oz. bag of peeled and deveined shrimp with the tails on from the local Walmart (I’ve also tried it with Aldi shrimp and it was equally good).  In what is becoming my signature move, I did not completely plan ahead and didn’t defrost these the night before.   No problem, I followed the instructions on the bag and ran them under cool water in a strainer for about 5 minutes and they were all set.  

Next, put 1/4 cup of baking mix in a ziploc bag and shake the shrimp up in there to get a crumb coat. This step is important, without it the beer batter doesn’t stick at all.  

How do you make a beer batter?

It’s way easier than I would have guessed!  Put an egg in a bowl and whip it up.  Add a 1/2 cup beer (I just used Aldi brand, nothing fancy), 3 T of milk, a 1/4 t of salt and 1 c of baking mix.  Now typically I’m not a salt measurer, but I did measure it exactly for my first batch, and eyeballed it for my second and for whatever reason 1/4 t is like the magic flavor equation for this batter.  Mix everything all up and make sure to mix out as many of the lumps as you can.  The final mixture needs to be a little thicker than whipping cream, kind of like a thin pancake batter.  Add additional beer, a little at a time until you get the right consistency. You can dunk each shrimp in the batter, or just toss them all in the bag at once to coat them and then drop in the oil one at a time.  

Beer Battered Shrimp Fry Up Time!

Fill the bottom of your skillet with vegetable oil and get it nice and hot before you add the shrimp.  I set my for 325°.  Fry them on each side about 3 minutes (give it an eyeball for when they turn pink, your final time will depend on the exact size of the shrimp).

Put them on a paper towel covered plate to drain a bit and that’s it!  Like I said, I don’t think this is necessarily a speedy weeknight dinner for us, but it is a fun weekend/entertaining dish where you can make something really wowza, but still enjoy the party too because it comes together so fast.

Need a few more ideas to round out your cookout?  Beer Battered Shrimp pairs really well with an Easy clean-up S’mores Bar, Easiest Ever Wine Slushies, Crockpot Corn on the Cob and a Sizemore Pie. I hope you enjoy giving these Beer Battered Shrimp a try and I’d love to hear about it in the comments!  

15-minute Beer Battered Shrimp

2018-04-23 14:27:14

A quick and easy standalone dinner that won't heat up your kitchen or a great complement to burgers and steaks on the grill.

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Prep Time

10 min

Cook Time

5 min

Total Time

15 min

Prep Time

10 min

Cook Time

5 min

Total Time

15 min

Ingredients

1. Vegetable oil for frying
2. 1 12 oz. bag of shrimp, peeled and deveined (tails on or off)
3. 1 c. baking mix, divided
4. 3-4 T milk (I used whole)
5. 1/2 c. beer (I used Aldi brand)
6. 1/4 t salt
7. 1 egg

Instructions

1. Heat up your oil in your biggest skillet to 325°. Place 1/4 c. of baking mix in one Ziploc bag and add the shrimp, giving them a shake to give them a crumb coat for the batter to stick to.
2. Then, put an egg in a bowl and whip it up.  Add your beer, milk, remaning baking mix and salt (the measurement on this is really important to the final taste). Mix it all up and make sure to mix out as many of the lumps as you can. The final mixture needs to be a little thicker than whipping cream, kind of like a thin pancake batter, so add additional beer, a little at a time until you get the right consistency. You can dunk each shrimp in the batter, or just toss them all in the batter to coat them and then drop in the oil one at a time.
3. Fry up the shrimp for 3 minutes each side (or until they turn pink, the final time depends on the size of the shrimp.) Drain on a paper towel and enjoy!

Notes

1. These reheat really well in the toaster oven, just pop them in at 425° for seven minutes!

By Carissa Nelson

Adapted from Desperation Dinners

Adapted from Desperation Dinners

Spoonful of Easy https://spoonfulofeasy.com/

Amazon tools I used to make this Beer Battered Shrimp Recipe: