Blackened Shrimp with Remoulade Sauce

These blackened shrimp are perfectly spiced and packed with flavor, plus they come together in about 5 minutes. With an optional remoulade sauce for delicious dipping, these blackened shrimp are also perfect on salads, in tacos, or any other time you need flavorful shrimp and fast!

What Makes This Recipe So Good

• It’s SO quick and easy! Mix up a little sauce, stir up a few spices, and toss the shrimp in the skillet for 3 minutes max. You’ll have dinner on the table in no time at all!
• The seasoning forms a slight crust on the cooked shrimp, which gives them a beautiful crispiness without having to deep fry anything!
• Both the blackened shrimp and the remoulade are low calorie, low carb, and keto-friendly! Perfect if you want to keep things light without sacrificing flavor.
• The remoulade sauce is out-of-this-world INCREDIBLE! It’s totally optional so you can skip it if you want, but you’ll be missing out. Trust me. It’s creamy and a little spicy, and it goes so, so, so well with seafood and, really, fried foods in general. Even if you skip it with your blackened shrimp, be sure to bookmark this page for the next time you have crab cakes or fish sticks or even fried pickles.

Key Ingredients

Shrimp – If you can score fresh shrimp right off the boat, do it. If you can’t, no problem, just stick to the frozen shrimp at the store! The “fresh” shrimp are tempting, I know, but I’ll let you in on a little secret… they were frozen, too. Yup. And now they’re thawed and sitting in the case. Grab some wild-caught shrimp from the freezer section instead and you’ll have flavorful, perfect-texture blackened shrimp.

Hot Sauce – A little hot sauce in your remoulade turns the flavor profile up to 11. Now, if you’re not big on “hot”, you can start with just 1/4 teaspoon, taste, and adjust as needed. The type of hot sauce you use will change the flavor slightly, too. Crystal Hot Sauce, a Louisiana staple, has a deep, smoky flavor thanks to its primary ingredient – cayenne peppers. Tabasco, on the other hand, uses tabasco peppers and has a more prominent vinegar flavor. The debate around which is “better” gets pretty heated (no pun intended) but whichever one you like best will work in this sauce!

Chef’s Tips

• You can serve the remoulade sauce as soon as you make it, but it’s really best if you let it chill (covered) in the fridge for at least an hour. The flavors meld and amplify as it rests which makes it even more delicious.
• Blackened shrimp is an amazing snack or meal on its own, with remoulade, on grits, in tacos or lettuce wraps, or with pasta and alfredo sauce. Want to keep it keto? Use palmini pasta and keto alfredo sauce.
• You’re totally in control of the seasoning on this blackened shrimp! If you’d like it more on the mild side, use just 1/8 of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. If you’re someone that likes it hot, use 1/4 teaspoon.
• It’s not super necessary, but if you’d like even more of that amazing Creole flavor, let the shrimp sit in the bowl for 20 to 30 minutes before cooking. This gives it a little time to marinate and really soak up all those seasonings!
• Don’t overcook your shrimp! Perfectly cooked shrimp curls lightly, like the letter “J”. Very curled shrimp, in the shape of a “C”, are overcooked!

Other Shrimp Recipes You’ll Love

• Shrimp Gumbo
• Instant Pot Shrimp
• Creamy Shrimp Risotto with Parmesan
• Shrimp Etouffee
• Cajun BBQ Shrimp Poboy
• Shrimp Bisque
• Frozen Shrimp in the Air Fryer
• Baked Shrimp