These healthy bang bang shrimp are crispy, tender, spicy, and creamy! They make a fantastic dinner recipe and are paleo, Whole30, gluten-free, grain-free, refined-sugar-free, and nut-free. Tossed in a sriracha-spiked creamy sauce, these bang bang shrimp are seriously good!
Let’s play a quick game of Never Have I Ever. I’ll start.
Never have I ever… won a game of Never Have I Ever.
Never have I ever watched the American Office. (I know. Don’t even try to convince me. It ain’t gonna happen. #Gervais4life).
Never have I ever gone to Bonefish Grill and not ordered bang bang shrimp.
Anyone drinking? Anyone at all? No? Didn’t think so.
It’s not difficult to understand why we’d all love crispy shrimp tossed in a creamy, spicy sauce, is it? The shrimp are so tender, wrapped in a crunchy little hug, coated in a sauce that brings in all the goodness from life and leaves behind all the poo-pooness. Well, no.
These Whole30 bang bang shrimp bring in all the goodness from life and leave behind all the poo-pooness. Because, of course, there are all sorts of wacky weirdness in those bang bang shrimp that make them, eh, not the best choice when you’re trying to eat healthily, avoid vegetable oils, refined grains, sugars, and preservatives. But don’t you worry, sister! These Whole30 bang bang shrimp are here to rescue you.
They’re dredged in an arrowroot and coconut flour mixture and pan-fried in your favorite oil then tossed in a homemade mayo + sriracha + coco aminos + ketchup mixture. Crispy, tender, spicy, creamy, perfection.
These Whole30 bang bang shrimp are, of course, paleo, gluten-free, grain-free, refined-sugar-free, and even nut-free, making them perfect to serve to almost anyone you know, except, of course, the vegetarians and vegans. And this recipe takes full advantage of homemade condiments that are super easy to prepare but that make all the difference in flavorful recipes.
Namely: my Whole30 sriracha recipe, my Whole30 ketchup recipe, and my Whole30 immersion blender mayonnaise recipe.
I highly, highly, highly recommend you keep the Whole30 sriracha on hand, but if you don’t have any, can’t make it (Please try if you can! You’ll freak out, I promise), and are on a Whole30, compliant hot sauce will do in a pinch. I’d recommend a more pepper-forward hot sauce in this case, like Cholula, rather than a more vinegar-forward hot sauce like Tabasco or Frank’s Red Hot.
And make sure that when you dredge your shrimp, you ensure there’s no excess clinging on – you want just the coating on the shrimp to form a light and crispy shell around your crustaceans. A clumpy dredge will result in ultimately soggy shrimp – not what you want here!
Perfectly made with my Whole30 sriracha recipe, Whole30 ketchup recipe, and Whole30 immersion blender mayonnaise recipe.
Whole30 Bang Bang Shrimp (Paleo, Grain Free, Nut Free)
These Whole30 bang bang shrimp are crispy, tender, spicy, and creamy! They make a fantastic Whole30 dinner recipe and are paleo, gluten-free, grain-free, refined-sugar-free, and nut-free. Tossed in a sriracha-spiked creamy sauce, these Whole30 bang bang shrimp are seriously good! A perfect Whole30 dinner recipe for company, too.
Ingredients
Shrimp
- 1 pound shrimp peeled and deveined
- 1 egg whisked well
- 2/3 cup coconut flour
- 1/2 cup arrowroot powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- pepper to taste
- coconut or avocado oil for frying
- sliced green onions green part only, for garnish, optional
- sesame seeds for garnish, optional
Bang Bang Sauce
- 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp. Whole30 mayonnaise
- 2 1/2 tsp. sriracha or hot sauce
- 2 1/4 Tbsp. ketchup
- 1 1/2 tsp. coconut aminos
- 1 garlic clove minced
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Stir together all sauce ingredients and set aside.
- Whisk together coconut flour, arrowroot powder, salt, and pepper in a wide bowl. Dip shrimp in eggs then dredge in flour. Shake off excess and place on a baking sheet or plate. Repeat with all shrimp.
- Heat a thin layer of oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Working in batches, fry shrimp, making sure not to crowd. Wait until the bottom side is nicely browned before flipping, then flip and cook through on the other side. Shrimp should be beautifully browned and crispy. Remove from skillet with a slotted spoon and repeat until all shrimp are fried.
In a large bowl, toss shrimp with half of the sauce. Add more sauce to taste and toss. Serve with remaining sauce (if you have any). Top with sliced green onions and sesame seeds.
Recipe Notes
The link to my Whole30 ketchup recipe is here, and the link to my Whole30 immersion blender mayonnaise recipe is here.
These are delicious and rich. Loved them over cauliflower rice and side of lettuce (the sauce makes a great salad dressing, too).
Thanks, Steve. 🙂
I love your recipes Cheryl, and this one was Amazing!!!!!! I don’t usually comment but I had to….thank you so much for this recipe.
Nutrition Facts?
Hi Jill!
I have updated the recipe card to include the nutritional facts. Sorry about that!
Can I substitute the coconut aminos with anything? They don’t have it at my local supermarket :/
Soy sauce! Just isn’t paleo then.
Definitely one of my favorite whole 30s I’ve made so far!
Can I use the same coating and sub chicken for shrimp? I am allergic to shellfish!
Go for it, girlfriend!
Just made this – holy CRAP! Next time I’m legitimately quadrupling the recipe because we could eat these all week for all three meals per day and not be sick of it. Thank you for sharing, Cheryl!
Thank you! This was so yummy! My teen loved it as well!
Just made these!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I imagine that I could use chicken or maybe even pork instead of shrimp? I have tried shrimp several times throughout my life and I just CANNOT get passed the texture! But I have always wanted to try the bang bang sauce.
Do the shrimp need to be cooked already? I want to try this ASAP! 🙂
Nope – raw!
This was awesome…Thank you! Celiac has stolen a lot of favorites for my son and me…it’s wonderful to find a recipe like this. If you can make a copycat gluten free whole 30 Chick Fil A sandwich, my son would be thrilled! 😉
Can I just use coconut flour alone? No arrowroot flour 😢
You could probably do that but if you have tapioca flour that would be a better substitute!
Would cassava flour work in place of arrowroot? And would almond flour work in place of coconut flour?
Ok my second jaw dropping recipe in 2 days; this is very quickly becoming my new favorite website. My allergic-to-everything husband isn’t even the biggest fan of shrimp and he enjoyed these. I LOVED them, served over soft lettuce to make wraps. I admit I took some shortcuts, like crowding them all into one pan and simply pouring the eggy shrimps into the flour instead of carefully coating each one (and I like sauce so I poured all the sauce on at once but I did have 1.3 lbs shrimp). My grocery store had tapioca starch but no arrowroot powder so I used that 1:1, which seemed to have the desired effect. Thanks again for making me feel like a master chef!
Love hearing your adaptation! And so so happy you liked it 🙂
Delicious! This crust is perfect!
Can I use almond flour instead of Coconut flour and arrowroot powder?
I would not necessarily recommend it. The almond flour won’t produce the same texture alone as the two other flours together, but you might be able to substitute it for the coconut flour
I just made this for dinner – fanfreakintastic flavor! I made your immersion blender mayo (best recipe I’ve found to date) and the ketchup (which will be my new go-to for ketchup), only thing I missed was your sriracha, only because my grocery store didn’t carry those peppers :/ this was so good I was worried for a hot minute that I was cheating on my whole 30. Killer recipe 🙂
Judy, I am so glad you liked it!! And I hope you can find some red jalapenos or Fresno peppers because you would LOVE the sriracha!!
Never have I ever had bang bang shrimp, but I sure want to!!!
You will seriously love them, Raj! And a million times cleaner than what you would get at the restaurant 😀
Dude….bang bang shrimp = LIFE!