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
20 Minute Honey Garlic Shrimp
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: serves 4
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Cooking
- Cuisine: American
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
Yummy! And easy!
Calories?
Hi Dawn! 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
Great recipe!! So yummy…My husband is to a not a fan of Asian Cuisine and he loved this recipe. Definitely a monthly repeat…Looking forward to Sally’s new cookbook!!
I loved this! And it was so easy! Thank you for sharing.
I will be making this again.
Yummy!
Wonderful flavor and simplicity. Used gluten-free San-J Organic Tamari. Served the shrimp with sauce over a two-cup bed of refried leftover brown rice with microwaved broccoli.
This was a quick and easy weeknight dinner. The only changes I made were to sauté onion, red bell pepper and kale before the shrimp in sesame oil rather thank olive oil for added flavor (and veggies). Served over pasta, it was delicious!
5 stars. This was so simple and so delicious. I took the advice of some others and added a little bit of red pepper flakes. Next time, I’m going to increase the amount of the sauce; it was so tasty but not enough to pour over the shrimp and rice. I served this over brown rice with steamed broccoli on the side.
My daughter turned me onto your emails and website a few years ago. I’m so glad she did. I’ve tried many of your recipes with great success. Thanks Sally.
I love all these recipes that help me cook something different and helps with church brunches.
Thank You
I made this tonight for myself and my husband. I immediately shared the recipe with my children. It’s amazing!! It’s so easy to make and I had all the ingredients on hand. The flavor was fantastic!! Thank you for sharing!!
We made this recipe for dinner. It was delicious. It is now our go to shrimp recipe.
How many calories are in the honey garlic shrimp?
Hi Karen, 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 has become one of my go to sauces. I’ll occasionally add chili flakes to add some spice. Or even just some black pepper.
The whole family approves.
Thanks for sharing.
I made it with sugar free honey for a lower carb version
I’m allergic to soy, Is there something else I can use in place of it?
Hi Diane, cocoanut aminos are a common soy sauce substitute.
I made about a dozen of your cookie recipes over the holidays but this was my first dinner recipe. It was delicious! I will definitely be putting this in the regular rotation but might add some red pepper flakes just for some spicy fun. I also added the 1 tsp of cornstarch as mentioned in the notes and feel this helped the sauce stick to the shrimp. I served with rice and roasted broccoli.
Really good. So easy. Making it again tonight. Serving over riced cauliflower.
I loved this recipe I’m learning to cook and it was great !! It was fast, easy and best of all delicious!
Suggestion to substitute Soy sauce?
Thank you
Hi Joy, cocoanut aminos are a common soy sauce substitute.
This is very easy and very good
I just found this recipe and just finish making it. I served it with mashed potatoes and corn.
Aloha, Sally
If I wanted to add a little cornstarch on the reserved batch of marinade, how much cs would you recommend?
I’d like to have extra fixed sauce to put over the rice.
I just found your gorgeous site with all of your beautiful mouthwatering recipes and I’ve saved so many to my notes. I can’t wait to start trying your desserts, your dinners and other fabulous delights.
Major kudos two to your website. It’s really easy to save things to navigate through it so thank you very much.
Hi Sian, thank you for trying this recipe! See recipe note #2: “Thicken the sauce?”
Delicious! Added some siracha on the side for a little kick. Will definitely make it again.
This is such an amazing recipe. I thought I was not a shrimp fan but THIS is wonderful. I am changing up heavy meal for the holiday and THIS is what I am preparing.
This looks delicious! I meal prep for my sister. What would be the best way to prepare/reheat it so the shrimp doesn’t go rubbery?
Hi Lisa! You can gently reheat shrimp on the stove.
Fantastic recipe. Easy and convenient to prepare. Had enough leftovers for lunch.
Perfect recipe! I was looking for a health recipe, as my husband is on a low sodium diet, and I came across your s via. Google search. I did did cut the soy sauce in half, then added 2 tablespoons of orange juice to bring it back up to 1/4 cup. 1/4 teaspoons of red pepper seeds gave it just a hint of spice to the dish. I will be making this again!
This is my first recipe with you and I loved it. Easy and tasteful
Made this a couple weeks ago and my family loved it. Made it today with chicken thighs and it was awesome as well.
This recipe was great! It was easy to make and I served it with brown rice and broccoli. The only substitute I made was to use the coconut soy sauce substitute because we prefer much lower sodium.
Winner winner tasty shrimp dinner! My family loved this recipe, it’s definitely going into the rotation. Plenty of marinade for 1.5 lbs of shrimp. My sons were fighting over the last of the shrimps. Thank you.