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
This is quick and what a wonderful meal. Will make this often, family and company included.
How many calories does this dish have?
Hi Sharon! I’m unsure of the nutritional info of this recipe, but there are many great online calculators like this one: https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp
This was a huge hit in my home! My husband loves seafood, me not so much! We didn’t grow up eating a lot of seafood. I can cook collard greens and anything that involves a gravy. I am not good with seafood. This was so simple and so good. Our son licked his plate!!!! Thank you
I made this tonight for my husband and son. They both gave this rave reviews. Thanks for the great recipe, Sally. I look forward to making the garlic honey ginger salmon next.
-Sheila
I made this tonight (June 10) This has to by far be my favorite shrimp recipe. It was awsome and then some. Wow! I made a lot of the marinade amd had some leftover. I dipped slices cucumbers in it. The best!!!♀️
I love this recipe! It is so quick to make and delicious! I always turn to this recipe for a quick weeknight recipe that is always a crowd pleaser. Wilmington, DE
This dish is a 10 too bad there’s only 5 stars!! Excellent dish and so easy and fast to make and tastes so yummy , this is my 4th time making it !! Thank you so much for this amazing recipe!!
Best shrimp dish we’ve tried. Thanks so much for the recipe.
Best dinner and delicious sauce!!! We make it all the time.
I came home from shopping at BJs one day And was tired but hungry .
Had all the ingredients in my kitchen…
Tried this recipe for the first time and LOVED it! Quick, Easy and Satisfying!! Thank you! Will be making this recipe a lot!!
I sub coconut aminos to make it gluten free. It’s so tasty. Thank for this easy peasy and delicious recipe that makes week night cooking a breeze.
Thanks so much for putting this recipe up for all of us! It was one of quickest, most enjoyable dishes I have had in a long time. I am only sorry it went so fast couldn’t even get a picture, can’t wait to make it again! Thank You again!
Made this for dinner and the flavor was great. Quick recipe too.Will make again.
My daughter and her boyfriend made this last night and it was delish! A definite hit and I will try making it with chicken breast strips as well. Extra sauce on the brown rice and broccoli was the ultimate!
This was my first time ever cooking shrimp and I am thrilled with the result. Many thanks!
This was a hit in my house! I served with steamed broccoli and fried rice. Next time I’ll double the shrimp as I have hungry boys who absolutely loved it. I also added a cornstarch/water slurry to thicken it up. Sooo yummy! My boys are already requesting it again
Quick, easy and delicious! Can’t get better than that!
This was fantastic! The ginger, in my honest opinion, is a must!! The shrimp were so flavorful and juicy. The sauce is gooey and addictive!
My BF is not a big Broccoli fan but pour this sauce over it and he has been converted!!
I will be making this recipe for years to come!
Thank you!
KS
My husband is a food snob and is the chef in our family. I made it tonight and we both loved it. We had all of the ingredients on hand too. It was simple, fast, and delicious! I never comment but I I just had to because it was so good. I will definitely make this again!
This an absolutely wonderful recipe. From start to table 25 minutes. The second time I made it I had the shrimp marinating 6 hours. We all liked it. Yummy!
I made this great dish tonight for dinner. The recipe was very easy and I had all ingredients on hand. I like the flavor of the sauce and it gave the rice a good taste. I’ll use the sauce recipe with other dishes in the future.
Made this tonight and it was delicious!
Loved it! Next time I will make even more sauce!
This was amazing!! My husband loved it! Added about a teaspoon of sriracha for some heat. Would also be great with chicken. Will make again!
This was absolutely delicious! I doubled the recipe (2 teenagers – lol) and they were still fighting over the final servings! A definite keeper. 🙂
Made this for dinner tonight. Enjoyed every bite! Easy to make & DELICIOUS. Thanks for sharing
Thank you for sharing this recipe! You have made me wife of the year. Wonderful flavors & so easy to make. Next time we will try it with chicken.
Made this last night and it was really delicious! My shrimp didn’t really get the awesome caramelization on it like your pretty pics did. Any suggestions on how to get that?
Turn the heat up a little higher– that will help!
Sally, what a fantastic recipe! Not only was this a tasty meal, but so quick and easy to fix. This recipe is a perfect hectic, week-night meal. I added a tablespoon of cornstarch at the end to thicken the sauce just a bit so it really clung to the shrimp. I’ll definitely be repeating this recipe. Thanks for sharing.