A quick and easy 15-minute spicy garlic shrimp recipe made with shrimp, garlic, snow peas, and a sweet and spicy sauce. Perfect for a lazy evening.
I'm terrible with eating veggies, which means I almost always never make them. I have always been a meat and potatoes kind of girl but it's never too late to turn over a new leaf right? Baby steps.
So I came up with a very easy to make spicy garlic shrimp dish with some greens. It's spicy and sweet (my favorite flavour combination) and it's crunchy from the quick saute snow peas. Even though the spicy shrimp is my favorite part of this recipe - the greens are good too. 😛
INGREDIENTS
For this spicy garlic shrimp recipe, you can find almost all of these ingredients at a local supermarket. If you can't find oyster sauce or hoisin sauce, you can definitely can find them at your local Asian supermarket.
For the cooking rice wine, it can also be found at at Asian supermarket if you can't find it at a local grocery store but to keep things simple you can substitute this with any cooking wine such as dry sherry or white wine.
For the shrimp, I used frozen shelled shrimp. I thawed it out by running it under cold water for a few minutes. You can use fresh shrimp as well 🙂
Peeled or unpeeled? That's your preference! Some people enjoy it with the shells on and some find it easier to eat without the shells. I personally like using shrimp with shells on because I find the shrimp doesn't shrink as much during cooking.
PUTTING IT TOGETHER
To start we will pre-mix the sauce. Mix the 1 tsp of corn starch with 1 tbsp of cold water. Once it has been mixed together, add in the hoisin and the oyster sauce and combine it together and set it aside.
Tip #1: When you are making a corn starch slurry, use cold water to mix your corn starch. Warm or hot water causes the corn starch to clump up and makes it very hard to mix well together, which can make your sauce clumpy when you use it to thicken it.
You're probably wondering why we had to do that extra step of mixing the water with the corn starch first and why we can't just throw it all together at once?
In this case, it is because corn starch doesn't mix well in thick sauces directly (hoisin and oyster sauce), so we need to pre-mix the corn starch in cold water, before mixing it with the thicker sauces.
Add the oil and garlic on medium heat, add in the shrimp and cook it for a few minutes, add in the snow peas and cook it for a few seconds (yes seconds!), add in the starchy sauce mix and voila! Dinner is served. You can serve this up with rice, noodles, potatoes anything goes! 🙂
Tip #2: Snow peas only need to be cooked for a few seconds. When it turns a nice vibrant green, it maintains its crispness and crunchiness. Besides who loves soggy veggies right?
Asian Chilli Garlic Prawns with Snow Peas
Ingredients
- 20 shrimp (fresh or frozen - Thaw in warm water if it is frozen.)
- 1 lb snow peas
- 4-6 cloves garlic (finely minced)
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon oil (any oil, except olive oil)
Spicy Sauce
- 3 tablespoons Sriracha chili sauce
- 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
- 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
- 1 teaspoon Chinese rice cooking wine (or dry sherry or white wine)
- 1 teaspoon chilli flakes (red pepper flakes)
Corn Starch Slurry (Sauce Thickener)
- 1-2 teaspoons corn starch
- 1-2 tablespoons cold water
Instructions
Preparation
- If you are using frozen shrimp, soak them in cold water for 15-20 minutes until it has thawed. I personally like to keep the skin on my shrimp, but you can peel it once the shrimp has thawed. Set aside the shrimp once they are thawed.
- Wash the snow peas and cut of the tips that have a stem on it (if it isn't already removed for you). Set aside the snow peas once you are done.
Making the Spicy Sauce
- Mix the corn starch with the cold water and set aside
- Mix in the hoisin, chilli flakes, oyster sauce, and sriracha together in a small bowl until everything is combined. Then pour in the corn starch slurry from the step above into the sauce and mix everything together. Set aside
Putting it Together
- Set the stove to medium heat. Add a bit of oil into a frying pan and wait for it to get hot.
- Once the oil is hot and shimmering, add in the butter and garlic and toast it for a half a minute
- Add in the shrimp and cook it until it is pink (approximately 5 minutes)
- Add in the snow peas and cook it for 1 minute until it is vibrant green. Careful not to overcook it - we want it crisp!
- Add in the sauce and mix it around until it thickens (approximately 1-2 minutes)
- Enjoy! 🙂
Nutrition
*Nutritional information is calculated using online tools and is an estimate*
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highly recommend, but I would prefer you buy your items locally to support your stores (and chances are they are cheaper locally!) 🙂
Monica | Nourish & Fete says
I love the bright colors in this, and the snow peas go beautifully with the spicy sweet shrimp!
Karen @ Seasonal Cravings says
I love quick meals like this for weeknight dinners. It's a great way to get kids to eat their veggies. And yes I've wondered about that cornstarch issue!
Beth says
This looks and sounds so delicious! I love snow peas and shrimp! And spicy and sweet together! My perfect recipe!
Emily says
Shrimp and snow peas make such a great combo!
Josie says
Another delicious nice recipe for dinner (easy to cook follow your way of ingredients). Healthy dish. Will cook for my family tonight. They all love shrmps and snow peas ---- will say ya!!
Joyce says
Thank you! Hope you enjoy it and I'm happy the instructions are helpful to you! 🙂
Neena | Paint the Kitchen Red says
I love the way you present your ingredients for the recipe - makes the recipe more approachable. This looks amazing - I am saving this for after the holidays!
Joyce says
Thanks Neena! I usually find it easier to follow instructions when people break it down and explain things to me so I thought I would do the same for my blog to make it less overwhelming to re-create these! 🙂 I am so happy to hear that this approach works for you too! 🙂
Alyssa @ A Bite of Inspiration says
This recipe looks amazing!! Love the colors in this dish! It's so smart to do a quick stir fry on the snowpeas so they retain their crunchy texture and pretty color (I prefer my veggies raw too, so this is perfect for me)! The Forest Feast Gatherings cookbook looks amazing too-- I'll have to look into it. Thanks for sharing!
Joyce says
I love crisp and crunchy veggies too! 🙂 Glad you like this Alyssa! 🙂 Trying to eat more greens, we will see what happens in the new year 😉