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
Great, easy and delicious recipe. I added a tiny bit of sesame oil and chili flakes to spice up the asian flavor. Thank you for the great recipe!
Just the right amount of flavor!!! Easy and delicious!
I cooked a few large shrimp as directed. 1 1/2 minute on first side, and about the same on the other. Very hot steel sautè pan, tsp. olive oil. They are almost over cooked. I got NONE of the browning on the edges of the shrimp that your photos show, and ZERO caramelization. Now, I’ve never actually cooked shrimp before, so I’ll know to be even more careful not overcook next time. But I’m definitely not new to cooking, and I do not understand how you get anything to caramelize in less than three minutes on the stove? They do taste great.
Tried this tonight! Awesome, easy & delicious! Thank you!
How many calories is in each serving of this recipe?
Hi Alicia! 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
Excellent recipe! Fast and easy. My family loved it and requested I make it again. Going for round two tonight!
While I enjoyed the flavor combo- I believe the recipe should include the cornstarch to thicken or it will be very thin.. But easy and quick;)
OMG this was amazing! Marinated it yesterday and while it was soaking in all those fabulous flavors I made baked wild rice pilaf and roasted asparagus. We put the shrimp over our rice and had the asparagus on the side. The guys asked me on the middle of eating would I please make this again soon haha! YES I WILL! Just delicious and perfectly cooked! Thank you for that recipe
I made this recipe for dinner last night. Everyone had seconds until it was all gone. My whole family loved it. I do not understand the other comments saying the sauce was to thin or watery. when you cook it, it reduces and becomes thicker but I love how it absorbs into the rice. This sauce is a game changer!
Wonderful easy and flavorful recipe. Thank you!
Terrible recipe. Marinade is so watery it never thickens into a sauce in time before the shrimp overcook.
This is what happened to me, I expected the sauce to thicken up but instead I just got watery shrimp.
It clearly states in the recipe to thicken with cornstarch if you would like a thicker sauce in the helpful hints part of the recipe but it’s also common sense. After 3 minutes I take the shrimp out place on a plate while I finish thickening the sauce like I do with almost all shrimp recipes since shrimp cooks so fast
Delicious and so easy!! Whole family loved it.
Great quick recipe. I added broccoli and everything have amazing flavor.
Amazing recipe! I can’t believe the simplicity of it. Everyone in my family loved it and we decided it would be great on chicken as well. thank you!
Wonderful flavor, and very quick and easy to make. I will definitely make this again.
Great recipe. Will make it again
I’m not seeing the nutrition breakdown
Hi Mazy, 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 was awesome hands down meal changer! The only thing I did diff was doubled the marinade /sauce bc we like a lot of juice other than that it was perfect ty
A keeper!
So easy and yummy
My family loves this honey garlic shrimp recipe! I have made it many times and it is a fan favorite. At the end of the day it is a healthy, quick, and delicious dinner.
I made this for dinner tonight and it was fabulous ! I was afraid it wouldnt be enough sauce but for two of us it was the perfect amount ! Will make this again & it will be a regular in our meal lineup!
This was a huge hit with my family! My kids are picky eaters and they devoured this. Definitely will be making again!
This is delicious! Thank you for the recipe.
Delicious and easy!
Wow! This recipe is a big game changer. The shrimp was awesome! I added the corn starch because I lovee sauces. This is definitely a must try recipe.
This recipe is easy and delicious! I served it with cauliflower rice, stir fried with onions, garlic, and shredded carrots. I loved that there was plenty of extra sauce to pour over everything. Yum!
Made this week for Valentine’s Day, my husband loved this dish. Will absolutely add to my recipe rotation of favorites.
We just ate this tonight! It’s an outstanding recipe! I got creative and added an additional 1.4 cup of fresh squeezed orange juice to the marinade, because we had some left over from breakfast, and it was absolutely YUMMY!
This was delicious. I threw in a handful of chopped walnuts at the very end.
Also very good the next day (leftovers, there are only 2 of us)
Daughter LOVED this so much. I am allergic, so I couldn’t try, but I did try the marinade and it was so tasty. She added a splash of sesame oil to it and omitted the ginger. She also put the sauce on her rice and asparagus and says she wants it weekly!
Yes you can do corn starch in hot water, whisk until dissolve. Pour into hot scrimp(not lumpy that pouring hot into hot). I always prepare my corn starch separate before putting IN any dish.