New Orleans BBQ Shrimp

This New Orleans Style Barbecue Shrimp is an easy, one-skillet dish featuring juicy plump shrimp tossed in a buttery, beer-spiked Worcestershire sauce with tons of Louisiana flavor. This iconic Louisiana dish is loved for its mix of bold, savory, and spicy flavors from various herbs, spices, and seasonings! It's perfect perfect for Mardi Gras or any gathering with friends and family, and is ready in 30 minutes! 

If food can describe a place, then these tender jumbo shrimp glazed in a sticky flavorful buttery sauce screams the vibrant city of New Orleans, Louisiana proudly!

Despite having the term BBQ in the name, you don't actually need to fire up your grill to make it, and you definitely don't need any regular barbecue sauce. The word barbeque comes from the vibrant red color of this shrimp dish, which resembles something you'd find on the grill. 

Just grab a large skillet, plenty of butter, and a few other ingredients to bring this dish together. Don't forget the crusty bread to soak up the extra sauce!

If you like Cajun-inspired dishes like this, you might also want to try our Cajun shrimp and sausage pasta, this Cajun seafood boil, our Cajun chicken alfredo, this sheet pan shrimp boil, or even these bananas foster pancakes for something sweet!

You may also enjoy these sweet and spicy salmon bites or these honey sriracha shrimp.

🦐Ingredients

Here are the ingredients we used for this recipe. You can find more information for substitutions below.

• Creole or Cajun seasoning. The type of spices and herbs used varies per brand but this seasoning typically has a mix of warm, rustic, and spicy elements. Make sure to use one with no salt added to keep the dish from becoming too salty. We like to make our own spice blend (recipe here). 
• Worcestershire sauce. This is a key ingredient in making the sauce! It is an umami-filled sauce typically made of ingredients like anchovies, garlic, onions, and various spices. This is one of the mair 
• Beer. A dark or Amber beer is best for this recipe, but a light beer will work too. We like using Abita Amber or Abita Turbodog, since Abita beers are brewed in Louisiana and are commonplace in most households and restaurants! 
• Louisiana hot sauce. Such as Tabasco sauce, Louisiana Hot Sauce, or our favorite - Crystal hot sauce.
• Shrimp. The most important thing about the shrimp you use for this dish is that it should be large shrimp! We're talking about 16-20 shrimp per pound. The original New Orleans style BBQ shrimp is prepared in all of your favorite restaurants in Louisiana using head-on shrimp. The further away you get from the Gulf, the harder it can be to acquire head-on shrimp easily, so we simply use Gulf shrimp with the shell on to infuse lots of flavor. If you can't find Gulf shrimp, just use the highest quality jumbo shrimp you can find. If you can find head-on Gulf shrimp - go for it! You can also remove the heads if you prefer. If you prefer not to peel your shrimp at the table, that's okay too, and you can just use the variety with the shell off. We prefer to use shell-on shrimp because the shells do infuse a ton of flavor into the dish, so just keep this in mind. 
• Unsalted butter. Make SURE it's unsalted, or your sauce could end up way too salty. We like to be able to control the salt content from start to finish. 

Visit the recipe card for the full quantities and nutritional information.

✨Substitutions & Variations

Here are a few suggestions on additional flavors to try, or simple variations to this recipe.

• Beer-free option. You can omit the beer and use seafood stock, shrimp stock, clam juice, vegetable stock, or chicken stock instead if you don't drink. Water can also be used. 
• Use Creole seasoning instead. The components are almost similar to Cajun seasoning so these two can be used interchangeably. However, Cajun has a bolder and spicier flavor profile so you will need to add a bit more cayenne powder to the dish. 
• With shrimp head on. In most restaurants in New Orleans, they opt to keep the head on. You will see people sucking on them because it adds to the experience and they are really delicious! It will be messier, but surely worth a try! 
• Spice level. You can scale back on the cayenne pepper, Cajun or creole seasoning, and hot sauce to make it less spicy if you prefer. 
• Add sausages. If you want to make the dish heartier, add slices of smoked sausage like andouille. This is definitely not traditional, but we know it would taste really delicious!
• Make it sweet. Adding honey or brown sugar will give the sauce another layer of flavor.

🔪Prep work

• If frozen, be sure to have plenty of time to defrost the shrimp. Rinse the shrimp then pat it dry with paper towels. 
• Remove the heads, legs, and shells of the shrimp (optional) and devein them. We didn't have shrimp heads to start with, so we just removed the legs and deveined them. 
• Mince the garlic.
• Slice one lemon into rounds and juice the other. 
• Slice the green onions into rounds, and separate the whites of the green onions from the darker green parts. 
• Cut the butter into small cubes. 
• Measure the rest of the ingredients. 
• Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Make sure you're using a large enough skillet to fit all of those shrimp! 

To the hot skillet, add olive oil, followed by garlic and the white parts of the green onions. (Image 1) Saute for 30-seconds to a minute until the garlic is fragrant, stirring constantly.

Add the Worcestershire sauce, beer, lemon rounds, thyme, bay leaves, Cajun seasoning, smoked paprika, cayenne, pepper, and hot sauce to a large skillet with a lid and bring up to a boil. (Image 2)

Add in the shrimp and season generously with salt and pepper. (Image 3)

Toss the shrimp to coat well in the seasonings. (Image 4)

Garnish with lemon wedges, parsley, more thyme, and green onions.

Serve with Louisiana hot sauce, a cold beer, and lots of crusty French bread or a baguette. This recipe is meant to be enjoyed with your bare hands, and it can get a bit messy! Make sure you have plenty of napkins and bread to soak up the extra savory sauce. Enjoy!