This 20 minute honey garlic shrimp is a reader favorite recipe. It’s extra quick, very simple, and delivers big flavor. Served with brown rice and vegetables or over a salad, this healthy dish is sure to join your regular dinner rotation.
Are you looking for a super quick, yet flavorful dinner this week? We have it right here for you. This saucy shrimp owes a lot of its flavor to a bold marinade of honey, soy sauce, and garlic, which is music to everyone’s taste buds. For a little extra flavor, we add some minced fresh ginger, but that’s entirely optional.
Video Tutorial
Tell Me About This Honey Garlic Shrimp
- Flavor: The marinade is loaded with flavor, but our favorite part of this dish is the beautiful caramelized bits of honey and garlic stuck to the pan and edges of the shrimp. Scrape it all up to serve because you don’t want to miss those flavorful bites.
- Ease: Regardless of your skill level, this is a very easy dinner recipe. Prepare the marinade, use half for marinating the shrimp, then use the rest as the sauce for cooking the shrimp. It’s convenient that the marinade is also the sauce—we do this for our maple sesame salmon and honey garlic soy glazed salmon recipes too.
- Time: The shrimp takes 5 minutes to cook on the stove, while the marinating takes another 15. You’ll have this unbelievably tasty and simple meal on your table in about 20 minutes.
Choosing the Right Ingredients for Honey Garlic Shrimp
- Shrimp. You can use fresh or frozen raw shrimp. Thaw the shrimp completely before starting. Be sure to peel and devein the shrimp first. You can leave the tails on or remove if desired. If using already cooked shrimp, see recipe note below.
- Honey + garlic + soy. This marinade/sauce is packed with so much glorious flavor and is inspired by some wonderful flavors often used in Asian cuisine. (We also LOVE this honey soy glazed salmon from Omnivore’s Kitchen.)
- Green onions. This optional garnish adds freshness and a nice color contrast.
Overview: How to Make 20 Minute Honey Garlic Shrimp
The full printable recipe is below, but let’s walk through it so you understand each step before you get started.
- Make your marinade.
- Marinate the shrimp. Combine marinade and shrimp and marinate for at least 15 minutes or up to 8-12 hours. We usually only marinate it for about 15 minutes and during this time, you could prepare your side dishes such as steamed vegetables and instant brown rice.
- Cook the shrimp. Cook shrimp in a little olive oil, then flip and pour in the remaining sauce until cooked through.
- Garnish. Top with green onions and serve.
More Favorite Dinner Recipes
- Pesto Shrimp
- Baked Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken
- Sausage Stuffed Peppers
- Walnut Crusted Chicken
- Crab Cakes
- Cilantro Lime Chicken
- Creamy Garlic Chicken
- Zucchini Fritters or Corn Fritters
- Apple Cider Chicken
- Baked Lemon Garlic Salmon
Description
This 20 minute honey garlic shrimp is a reader favorite recipe. It’s extra quick, very simple, and delivers big flavor. Served with brown rice and vegetables or over a salad, this healthy dish is sure to join your regular dinner rotation.
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1/4 cup soy sauce (we usually use reduced sodium)
- 2 garlic cloves, minced (or 1 teaspoon jarred minced garlic)
- optional: 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
- 1 lb medium uncooked shrimp, peeled & deveined
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- optional for garnish: chopped green onion
Instructions
- Whisk the honey, soy sauce, garlic, and ginger (if using) together in a medium bowl. You will use half for the marinade in step 2 and half for cooking the shrimp in step 3.
- Place shrimp in a large sealable container or zipped-top bag. Pour 1/2 of the marinade/sauce mixture on top, give it all a shake or stir, then allow shrimp to marinate in the refrigerator for 15 minutes or for up to 8-12 hours. Cover and refrigerate the rest of the marinade for step 3. (Time-saving tip: while the shrimp is marinating, we usually steam broccoli and microwave some quick brown rice.)
- Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Place shrimp in the skillet. (Discard used marinade.) Cook shrimp on one side until pink, about 45 seconds, then flip shrimp over. Pour in remaining marinade/sauce and cook it all until shrimp is cooked through, about 1-2 more minutes.
- Serve shrimp with cooked marinade sauce and a garnish of green onion. The sauce is excellent on brown rice and steamed vegetables on the side.
Notes
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowls | Skillet
- Thicken the sauce? Some readers add 1 teaspoon of cornstarch to the second half of the sauce that will be used for cooking in step 3. This thickens the sauce so it isn’t as watery. To do this, use a fork to mix 1 teaspoon of cornstarch with 1 teaspoon warm water. Once cornstarch has dissolved, stir this into the sauce before using it in step 3.
- Garlic: If using fresh garlic that you mince yourself, use 2 cloves. If using refrigerated jarred minced garlic, use 1 teaspoon (or more, to taste).
- Shrimp: You can remove the tail or leave it on. We recommend using fresh shrimp, but you can use frozen. Thaw before marinating and cooking. If using frozen cooked shrimp, thaw, marinate, and cook as directed. You’ll really just be heating the shrimp up in the sauce.
- Consuming leftover marinade is a debated topic. While you could boil it to rid any contamination, the flavor could possibly change. Do what you’d like. In this recipe we only use half of the sauce for the marinade so we have more for cooking. (We discard the used marinade in step 3.)
Reader Comments and Reviews
This recipe missed the mark for my family. Just sweet shrimp….
This is a crowd-pleaser at my house. I also use the marinade for chicken, which some family members claim is even tastier.
This recipe is delicious and very easy to make.. I mistakenly used teriyaki sauce instead of the soy sauce and it was still very good. I will be making this again. Thank you for sharing.
I love all your other recipes, puddings , pies, so I’m excited to make this recipe.
I make this easy and delish recipe on repeat for my family.
Excellent receipe easy but with lots of flavor. Served it over pasta cause I had rice last 3 days
The whole family loved this recipe- even the picky eaters!
Love!! So good. We like spice so we added some red pepper flakes to give it a little kick! Will definitely be making the family this again, very soon.
This recipe has become one of my family’s favorite! We always double the sauce to ensure we have enough…it’s so delicious!
I made the Honey Garlic Shrimp & it was delicious!
The marinade would be good on just about any meat. My husband loved it. Will definitely make it again.
Great recipe! I made a larger batch (over 3 lbs of shrimp), so I doubled the marinade recipe using regular honey to marinate, then made a separate double batch of marinade using Hot Honey to cook with. Added a spicy note that was delicious.
This recipe is quick, easy, and flavorful.
not sure if i missed it. where is the nutrition
We don’t usually include nutrition information as it can vary between different brands of the same ingredients. Plus, many recipes have ingredient substitutions or optional ingredients listed. However, there are many handy online calculators where you can plug in and customize your exact ingredients/brands. Readers have found this one especially helpful: https://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076
This is a favourite in our house. I serve over basmati rice, which I start in the rice cooker while the shrimp marinates. I use cooked shrimp, so I just use all the marinade for both marinating and cooking. I definitely use cornstarch to thicken. I didn’t get the shrimp fully defrosted as I was impatient, and skimped on marinating time tonight, and had not quite enough soy sauce left, and no ginger, but it was still very good!
Good morning, Sally and Team ~ I wanted to mention how helpful it is for me to have you “revisit recipes ” through listing some in a grouping. Example: We loved the Honey Garlic Shrimp recipe when I made it several months ago . . . and then I forgot about it in the midst of all the other new recipes to try! I made it for dinner last night ~ and, YES, it was just as delicious as we remembered it! Because I had a spaghetti squash that needed to be cooked, I served it with seasoned spaghetti squash (also added sauted broccoli and shredded carrot to the seasoned spaghetti squash . . . delicious! Thank you!
Everyone loved it. Added Sesame seed oil, ground ginger, and two huge garlic cloves. I added the water and thickener to the sauce for step 3.
I added sesame oil as well! Toasted sesame oil, so I was careful not to overdo it.
Huge hit, everyone loved it. QUICK AND EASY AND DELICIOUS!!
This recipe was simple, flavorful and my family loved it!
Great recipe. It was easy and fast. It’s definitely a “keeper “
SUCH A GREAT AND EASY RECIPE!
Delish, easy and the whole family enjoyed it! Used frozen cooked shrimp, added a little sesame oil, chili flakes and 1/4 cup honey. Added some onions and mushrooms to the shrimp and the sauce. Served over angel hair to make lo mein / fabulous!! Thanks for this recipe!
This was an extremely easy and fast midweek meal. After reading the reviews, I followed the advice of other reviewers by adding cornstarch to thicken the sauce, along with sesame oil, lime juice, red pepper flakes and stir-fried veggies. Delicious!
This was yummy with the brown rice and roasted broccoli. Will definitely make again. Marinade is great!
Great flavor and so easy!
Great dish, the glaze is delicious. We chopped up some chicken for the kids and used the same sauce and they gobbled it up.
Delicious & so easy! I added sliced mushrooms, green beans, sesame seeds & sliced colorful sweet peppers! Sesame oil dash.
Thanks so much for the recipe!!
We love this dish. Made this according to the recipe with the cornstarch. Perfect.
Delicious and easy to make. I added chili peppers to spice it up. Also sprinkled cayenne on shrimp before adding to marinade. I sautéed mushrooms and onions, microwave bag of broccoli florets. Added corn starch as suggested. Thanks.
I loved this. Made it tonight!
This was a delicious and easy recipe! We increased the sauce and stirred in microwaved broccoli crowns. We made brown jasmine rice for a perfect accompaniment!