The absolute best shrimp marinade made with garlic, herbs, spices and lemon. You can cook your marinated shrimp on the grill, stove top or in the oven for perfect results every time.
I love a good shrimp dish, I often whip up some shrimp salad or garlic butter shrimp for a quick and easy meal. This marinated shrimp is so full of flavor; my family requests it every week, it’s just that delicious!
There’s nothing like a bold and zesty marinade to infuse your food with plenty of flavor. This shrimp marinade contains a variety of savory ingredients that blend together to make the perfect seasoning for fresh shrimp.
How do you make shrimp marinade?
This recipe is a blend of olive oil, soy sauce, lemon zest, honey, herbs, garlic and seasonings. Everything gets whisked together in either a large bowl or a resealable plastic bag. Add your shrimp, then refrigerate them until it’s time to make dinner.
How long do you marinate shrimp?
I recommend marinating your shrimp for at least one hour, or up to 8 hours. This particular marinade does not contain any citrus juice, only lemon zest. If you’re working with a different marinade that does contain citrus juice, you’ll want to marinate your shrimp for no more than 2 hours, as the acid in the juice can actually cook the shrimp.
Tips for shrimp marinade
- This marinade can be made in advance and stored in the fridge for up to 3 days before you plan to use it.
- You can leave the tails on your shrimp, or remove them, it’s totally up to you. The tails make for a nicer presentation but it’s a little more work to remove the tails right before eating.
- You can make this marinade gluten free by substituting tamari sauce for the soy sauce.
- I recommend using the largest shrimp you can afford for the best flavor and presentation.
- For an extra special meal, you can also put some steak in my skirt steak marinade for a surf and turf dinner!
How do you cook marinated shrimp?
These shrimp can be baked, broiled, grilled or sauteed. Regardless of the cooking method, you’ll want to cook your shrimp for about 2-3 minutes per side, or until they’re pink and opaque. Larger shrimp will take a little longer to cook.
How to peel and devein shrimp
I typically buy my raw shrimp with just the tail attached, but many shrimp also come still in the shell. If your shrimp have shells on them, you can easily remove them by pulling the main part of the shell off with your fingers, then removing the tail end of the shell. You may also need to devein your shrimp. If you see a dark line running across the top of the the shrimp, you can remove it by using a paring knife to cut a slit along the top of the shrimp, then use a knife or wooden skewer to remove the vein.
This shrimp marinade can be used on other types of seafood such as scallops, salmon, swordfish or halibut. It’s one of the very best ways to enhance the flavor of fresh seafood.
More great shrimp recipes
Shrimp Marinade
Ingredients
- 1 pound shrimp peeled and deveined, leave tails on for a nicer presentation
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
- 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 2 teaspoons fresh parsley leaves chopped
- 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 3/4 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1/4 teaspoon chili flakes optional
Instructions
- Place the olive oil, honey, soy sauce, lemon zest, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper in a bowl. Whisk to combine.
- Reserve 1 tablespoon of the marinade for later use. Add the garlic and chili flakes to the bowl.
- Add the shrimp and marinade to a resealable freezer bag and seal. Shake to coat the shrimp with the marinade.
- Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, or up to 8 hours.
- At this point you can broil, grill or saute the shrimp for 2-3 minutes per side or until pink and opaque.
- Drizzle the reserved marinade over the cooked shrimp, then serve.
Has anyone tried this with chicken instead of shrimp?
Chicken will work!
Can one use the marinade on thawed cooked shrimp? Need to know soon. Using it this Wednesday
Yes you’d just want to be careful to make sure you don’t reheat the shrimp too long, because pre-cooked shrimp can get rubbery if they’re reheated for too long. Also check to see if any salt has been added to your pre-cooked shrimp. If there’s added salt you’ll want to omit the salt in this recipe.
This is a great marinade! I use it all the time for shrimp and I’ve let them sit for an hour and longer. Just marinading for an hour gives GREAT flavor. This is my go to recipe now. I leave out parsley and thyme just because I don’t normally have it on hand. Thank you for sharing!
loved this recipe. Can this marinade be used on chicken?
Yes that will work!
This recipe was amazing. I accidentally forgot to add the lemon zest, but no one noticed.
Delicious, and so quick an easy to throw together! My family loved it! It will be a regular at our house!!
Best marinade ever! My family loved it.
This is an excellent marinade! I use it all the time. I serve as a protein with pasta. Thank you for sharing!!
This really is a delicious marinade! I’ve used it many times now & it’s always a hit 👍
Just delicious! A really great, simple and simply yummy marinade recipe. Within the last week, I’ve already made this twice with shrimp and once with scallops. I used low sodium soy, omitted the salt and cooked it on the stove. Thank you so much for this recipe!
Your supposed to set the extra marinade aside at the beginning , not use the marinade that had raw shrimp in it 😒
This is literally the best shrimp, marinade ever… I use it all the time, and often make extra to use as a sauce after marinating the shrimp. The directions say to save a little bit, but it’s so delicious that I want to save a little more. I could almost eat it with a spoon.
Delicious umami of heat, salt, and sweet! But, I’d skip the salt completely because there’s plenty of salt in the soy sauce! Can’t wait to make it again!
This is the best marinade ever. I could drink it. I love it on shrimp and salmon, but imagine it would complement just about anything. Thank you for sharing.
This was really delicious, and easy. I skewered and grilled my shrimp. If you’d like the lemon to stand out more, (mine was rather background noise and not very noticeable), you might want to add more zest, or maybe even juice? Beware the note on using juice and marinade time. It is simple and beautiful, and tasty!
Loved the flavors, complimented the shrimp without overpowering it. I’m suggesting that you remove the suggestion to use the marinade on the cooked shrimp since the raw shrimp was soaking in it. Will definitely make this again!
I actually liked that suggestion! I poured the extra over the cooked shrimp and the starch (brown rice) I had with the shrimp, so the extra juice got soaked up by the rice, which was delicious! –
Everybody at my home liked this! These recipe are simple to make up just very tasty. Incredibly tasty!