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
Just ok, a bit sweet for our taste
Loved the recipe. Tastes great. I received alot of compliments from my dinner guests.
This is a go to healthy dinner that my family just loves. I follow the recipe exactly. It’s quick and easy as well. Thank you!
I’m not even a huge shrimp fan, and this was one of my favorite meals I’ve had in a long time! Used frozen local shrimp we headed several months ago. Used generic honey & soy sauce. We made brown rice, garlic roasted broccoli, diced cinnamon roasted sweet potatoes, a bag of frozen peas/carrots, and a Caesar salad on the side. It was incredible!! The flavor on the shrimp was incredible, as were the seasonings on everything else and it paired so well together! I had leftovers the next day of everything but the salad, put it all in one container together, and it was AMAZING. Thank you for this recipe!
it was 8 oclock and i wanted something quicky, easy but still DELICIOUS!
and i can say that this hit JUST the spot!! super good!
Although this recipe says it takes 20 minutes, is very misleading as author says to marinade the shrimp up hours upon hours. The recipes, good tasty however, I think the author should change the title.
Sorry but no name change required, just more thorough reading by some! It literally says in the description and recipes instructions that you can marinate the shrimp for as little as 15 min up to 8-10 hours and that the author opts for 15 min herself. Unlike chicken, beef and other proteins, fish & seafood don’t require long marinating times.
I just did 15 minutes (if that!) and it was perfect!
I substituted teriyaki sauce because of its flavor to supplement
Delicious! I made this with a side of fried rice with vegetables, spring roll and carrots.
This is now my favorite dish! I did make small changes. I added broccoli & sliced carrots right before adding the rest of the marinade. The marinade from the shrimp I poured into yellow rice for flavor. Plated up it looked as good as it tasted! Thanks for the recipe!
my husband asked for this to be put in the rotation after his first bite….really yummy recipe!!
Loved this recipe! It was super easy. I let the shrimp marinate in the refrigerator for about 5 hours before cooking. As suggested, I served over brown rice with cooked broccoli. It was delicious!! I recommend making extra marinade for serving.
This was good and very easy to make. I did think it was too sweet so next time I would probably try using 1/3 cup soy sauce and 1/4 honey. I decided to try using hot honey, which was good, but I like a little more spice than that. Would add some red pepper flakes or sriracha next time to spice it up. I also used a slurry of 1 tablespoon corn starch to 1-2 tablespoons of cold water and that seemed to thicken the sauce up very nicely. Overall good, but I would tweak a few things next time for my taste.
So tasty, second time I made this!
Tried recipe fam loved it
I added a dash of seasame oil, fresh lime juice and spicy chili crisp to the marinade. It came out amazing
One of the best shrimp dinners I’ve ever cooked. It was quite easy and delicious! I will be making this again and again.
I found my shrimp was freezer burned so I used chicken. I’m sure it’s gonna be amazing
I love it! I think with a few tweaks, it has the potential to be 5 stars! I always read the reviews before making any meal I found online. Because of this, I reduced the honey and because I love garlic, I doubled the garlic. I think the honey was a good choice but I still found it a tad salty. I may decrease the soy next time. I definitely added cornstarch and I’m glad I did because without it, it may have been a runny sauce. Overall a good starter recipe!
What are the calories per portion? Anyone know??
Hi September! 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
I made the 20 minute shrimp but found the sauce too runny. I did add cornstarch/water to thicken it up but was still too runny. The taste was good but it was watered down. How can I improve it so the sauce sticks to the shrimp.
Hi Mae, you might try cooking the sauce for a bit longer after the shrimp are cooked through. Remove the shrimp and then continue to simmer the sauce until it thickens to the desired consistency. Then, add the cooked shrimp back in to coat. Hope this helps!
Served this to guests and everyone loved it so much that they all went home with the recipe.
We tried this recipe for a quick weekend dinner and it turned out great! Marinated the extra large shrimp for about 3 hours in half the sauce. We doubled the sauce but I did not double the honey after reading some of the comments about the amount of honey making the sauce too sweet. This definitely would have been the case if I had doubled the honey. I added broccoli in with the shrimp and sauce and served this over white rice along with homemade egg rolls. Great dinner!
The honey garlic recipe is great,I’ve included it in my favorite list
This is so yummy I will be making this one again. And it’s husband approved
All I have to say is … AMAZING RECIPE
Way too much honey.
I hope someone reads this before making. In the tips it says take 1 teaspoon of cornstarch to 1 teaspoon of warm water thats wrong it has to be cold water other wise it will be clumpy. We doubled the marinade we put the amount stayed for the shrimp & the extra with the rice. I also seasoned the rice with broth, garlic, salt, pepper, 1 or 2 drops of sesame oil & any assortment of Asian spices that u like.
Good point about adding the Tsp of cornstarch to COLD water, not warm water.
I plan to make this recipe someday soon, and think I will like the marinade a bit thicker, like a sauce for the shrimp, broccoli and rice
We loved this. So easy and delicious
This was perfect with an ear of corn and summer salad!
This recipe is a keeper! I didn’t have fresh ginger so I chopped up a couple tablespoons of pickled ginger and added it to the marinade. Gave it a little tang, which brightened it up. Also thickened it with a little cornstarch. We’re not brown rice lovers, particularly, but with this dish it worked! Delicious!