Shrimp Boilwith corn / red potatoes / green salad
A shrimp boil is a festive and fun mid-summer meal. It's a little bit messy so is great to serve outside if the weather cooperates. Just boil everything together, spread out on a serving platter or newspaper-lined table and enjoy. Check out this video from the first time we featured the meal in 2017 to see how it's done.
Smarts: A classic shrimp boil uses both shrimp and sausage, but feel free to skip the sausage if you'd prefer.
Ingredients
- Shrimp, large and unpeeled - 1 lb
- Onions, medium - 1, quartered
- Sausage, any smoked or pre-cooked (opt) - 8 oz, cut into 3” / 7.6 cm pieces (like smoked andouille)
- Corn - 4 ears, husked and sliced into 4” / 10 cm pieces
- Lemons - 1, halved
- Old Bay seasoning - 2 Tbsp + 1 tsp (sub any other seasoning mix like Cajun)
- Potatoes, red - 1 lb, halved (sub new potatoes)
- Butter - 3 Tbsp
- Dipping sauces of choice - for serving (like cocktail sauce for shrimp or sour cream for potatoes)
- Tomatoes, roma - 3, chopped
- Lettuce, romaine - 1 heart, chopped
- Honey - 1/2 tsp
- Vinegar, red or white wine - 1 1/2 Tbsp
- Oil, olive - 3 Tbsp
Nutrition Facts
Prep
- Shrimp - Defrost shrimp.
- Onions / Sausage (if using) - Prep as directed. Store separately. (Can be done up to 5 days ahead)
- Corn - Remove husks and use a sharp knife to slice into 4” / 10 cm pieces (no need to be exact, but the corn will fit more easily in the pot in pieces). (Can be done up to 2 days ahead)
- Tomatoes / Lettuce / Lemons - Prep as directed.
Make
- Fill a large stockpot with water. Season generously with salt and add first part of Old Bay. Squeeze juice from lemons into water and then drop lemon rinds into water. Bring to a boil.
- While water is coming to a boil, slice potatoes in half. Leave peels on the shrimp but slice the shrimp down the back and remove veins (this may have already been done by the fishmonger).
- When water is boiling, add potatoes and onions. Boil for 10 minutes, until potatoes are starting to turn tender.
- While potatoes are boiling, in a large mixing bowl whisk together honey, vinegar, and olive oil. Add lettuce and tomatoes to dressing. Wait to toss until right before serving.
- Return to shrimp boil and add corn and sausage (if using) to potatoes and continue to boil until corn is tender, 7 to 8 minutes more.
- Add shrimp and continue cooking until shrimp is opaque, 2 to 3 minutes more.
- Drain shrimp boil and transfer to a large serving platter.
- Melt butter in the microwave and stir in second part of Old Bay. Drizzle butter over shrimp boil.
- Toss salad. Serve shrimp boil with dipping sauces of choice and salad on the side. Enjoy!
Reviews
This meal has 22 reviews
This was so tasty! We subbed veggie sausage for the real sausage, increased the Old Bay, and enjoyed getting messy with this delicious dish for a couple of days in a row. We didn't end up making the salad in this recipe, but just using some random stuff we had around for a salad.
Wow, what a treat! This was so good. Use the big jumbo shrimp. Easy to prepare, but took me longer than the stated time... probably because my 5-year old daughter wanted to help me prepare dinner tonight. (It is a good meal to prep with kids.) I was surprised to see my kids going for seconds... we all loved this meal! Saved to favs and will make this next time we have company for dinner.
I didn't make the salad, but the shrimp boil was a hit even with the kids.
This was hit but the dressing seemed a bit off.
Chose to make my own “Old Bay” because I can’t handle much heat. Worked great and results were delicious. Will absolutely make this again!
I did this in the Instant Pot because it was really really hot and it worked pretty well. I used the Cook Smarts ingredients (minus the shrimp) and 1 can of beer (stock of water would work too) for 5 minutes on high pressure, and then added the shrimp for 1 minute more. The flavors were awesome.