Best Shrimp Marinade Grilled Shrimp Marinade

Published 1/19/2024 • Updated 3/17/2024 We love using this as a grilled shrimp marinade because the flavors from the marinade mixed with the charred flavor from the grill are incredible (speaking from experience 😉). This herby, citrusy shrimp marinade is savory with a hint of lemon and garlic. It a great all-purpose shrimp marinade for grilling, baking, or pan frying. We love marinating our proteins (hello steak marinade and chicken marinades) because it infuses your meat or seafood with so much juicy flavor. Marinated shrimp is pretty dang delicious however you want to cook it. We love it on the grill or sauteed in a pan. It pairs wonderfully with baked potatoes, quinoa salad, or roasted asparagus. So, whip up this shrimp marinade and let your shrimp (we recommend uncooked!) marinate for around 30 minutes to 1 hour. Any longer and the citrus in the marinade may start the cooking process.

What is in this shrimp marinade recipe?

You only need a handful of ingredients in order to infuse your shrimp with incredible flavor.

Lemon juice Worcestershire sauce Garlic Dijon mustard Honey Salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes Olive oil Fresh cilantro

How long should you marinate shrimp for?

You want the shrimp to absorb the flavor and the oil of the marinade, so we suggest letting raw shrimp for 30 minutes to 1 hour. If you let your shrimp marinate for longer than 1 hour, it will likely come out tough and chewy because the acid will begin to cook the shrimp after a while.

Best Type of Shrimp for Marinating

Pretty much any uncooked shrimp works for this recipe –> small, medium, jumbo, etc. We recommend buying shrimp that’s deveined and peeled so that you don’t have to do it yourself. You can buy tail-on or off raw shrimp.

Can I use pre-cooked shrimp for marinating?

You can use pre-cooked shrimp, but we don’t recommend it because you’ll likely overcook your shrimp when you go to grill or pan-fry it.

Shrimp Marinade Variations

Oil

Oil is essential to any marinade. Oil helps preserve the seafood and/or meat that is being marinated. Oil also helps whatever is marinating retain its moisture while it’s being cooked. And? Nobody likes when their food sticks to the grill, so be sure to oil your meat/seafood AND the grill (or tin foil) You just can’t beat it. We prefer to use olive oil in our marinades and for cooking, but most oils would work!

Grapeseed oil Avocado oil Sesame oil

Citrus

Adding lime juice, lemon juice, or orange juice to any chicken or fish adds brightness and an amazing flavor to any marinade. Like other recipes, you need balance when it comes to this grill shrimp marinade recipe. Balancing the olive oil with a little bit of citrus will take any recipe to the next level. We also like to add citrus to marinade recipes because it is a great substitute. No, really! Replacing some salt with a little bit of citrus really helps!

Spices and Herbs

Hop on the flavor train when you make any marinade. For this shrimp marinade, we used a combination of spices and fresh herbs. So simple, but the perfect flavor combination. Just think of your favorite flavor combinations in other dishes and try to make a marinade out of that!

Lemon + Ginger Thai Chili (chili paste and soy sauce) Cajun Seasoning BBQ (yes, you can marinate things in bbq sauce!)

PS: check out our 6 chicken marinades here for more inspiration!

Ways to Cook Marinated Shrimp

Grilled Shrimp

What is the best way to grill shrimp? Shrimp grills so fast compared to things like burgers, chicken, or veggies. We like to put our shrimp on skewers so it’s easy to flip the shrimp in large numbers, but feel free to grill the shrimp free of skewers, too. Don’t have skewers? You can always create a little tin foil boat that you plop right on the grill to cook your shrimp in. Or, you can even bring your cast iron pan out to the grill and cook them in there.

How long to grill marinated shrimp?

Grill your shrimp for about 2 minutes on each side making the total cook time just 4 minutes. You know your shrimp is done cooking when it firms up and turns pink on both sides. Check out our grilled shrimp tutorial.

Pan-Fried Shrimp

Looking to keep things simple by pan-frying your shrimp? It’s super simple!

Top Tips for Marinating Shrimp

Keep it Fresh

The best shrimp is the freshest shrimp! Now, don’t get me wrong you can buy raw, fresh shrimp. Just be sure that when you thaw the frozen shrimp to use it immediately.

Grey vs. Pink Shrimp

Remember, if the shrimp is grey it is uncooked and if the shrimp is pink, it’s already cooked. I love buying fresh shrimp from the butcher. Just make sure to ask the butcher how old the shrimp is and when you should use it by!

Black line down the middle?

If you buy shrimp and it has a black line down its back, that is the shrimp’s vein. Generally, shrimp comes peeled and deveined, but if not you’ll have to do it yourself! Use your fingers or a spoon and gently drag the spoon across the vein until it is removed. #yougotthis

Let them Sit, but not too long

Short Cook Time

Shrimp cooks extremely fast no matter how to plan to prepare it. If you’re making grilled shrimp or shrimp in a frying pan, you only need to cook it for around 1-3 minutes on each side depending on how big your shrimp is.

How to Serve this Shrimp

After you’ve cooked the shrimp, feel free to serve it as a shrimp salad or next to cooked vegetables such as sauteed green beans or roasted broccoli. Thermoworks Thermapen Another fun idea for cooking this shrimp is making our bacon-wrapped shrimp after your shrimp is done marinating!