This garlic shrimp recipe is nothing like you’ve ever tasted before! We’ve the taken the classic recipe and turned it upside down to bring you garlic shrimps that are smoky, salty, nutty and with just enough heat to make you reach for a spoonful of rice. It’s insanely delicious!
Garlic Shrimp With Chili Crisp
Chili crisp, aka Happy Lady Sauce is the best thing I’ve tasted in a really, really long time. How I was kept in the dark about this ingredient up until now boggles my mind since I’m a huge fan of Sichuan cuisine.
The funniest part is I’ve had chili crisp many times in Chinese restaurants but thought it was some magical sauce I would never be able to replicate at home. I had no idea it was widely available and sold in a jar with a grumpy lady on the cover!
Chili crisp is so good that Ben and I managed to go through an entire jar in less than a week. We put it on white rice, made a vegetable stir fry, used it in a mushroom mapo tofu recipe and threw a spoonful of it into this amazing garlic shrimp dish. This stuff is mind blowing delicious!
The flavors of this dish are actually quite complex even though the steps are super simple.
The mix of garlic, ginger, mayonnaise, sauce soy, sriracha sauce and chili crisp add a brand new dimension to the classic garlic shrimp preparation. It’s super smoky, salty, nutty, pungent and packed with umami goodness.
Every bite is an explosion of flavor – I kid you not! Ben says it’s the best shrimp dish he’s ever had and I have to say it’s at the top of my favorites too.
Don’t you love how the lady looks so grumpy on the cover and yet people call the sauce Happy Lady Sauce? I think it’s hilarious, I love the humor behind it!
I’ve mixed the shrimps with some salt and baking powder to give them a squeaky, crisp and juicy texture. This technique is called brining and is one often used in Chinese cooking.
Now you know why the shrimps in Chinese dishes are always so succulent! You can use this method with chicken and beef as well – it tenderizes the meat.
The next and final step to this ridiculously easy recipe is to stir fry the shrimps with the remaining ingredients and serve them with a big bowl of steamed white rice. Pour the lovely sauce on top and enjoy!
I have lots of ideas popping into my head when I think about chili crisp so don’t be surprised if you see it appearing in many of my future recipes!
This garlic shrimp recipe will keep refrigerated for a day but I highly recommend making it the day of to get the best texture out of your shrimps.
Other delicious shrimp recipes:
- Shrimp bun cha
- Shrimp fried rice
- Vietnamese grilled shrimps
- Shrimp ankake donburi
- Thai shrimp and cucumber salad
Did you like this Garlic Shrimp With Chili Crisp Recipe? Are there changes you made that you would like to share?
PrintGarlic Shrimp With Chili Crisp
Garlic shrimp with an Asian spicy twist!
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 6 minutes
- Total Time: 26 minutes
- Yield: 4 people 1x
- Category: Main
- Method: Stir frying
- Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients
- 1 pound large shrimps (peeled and deveined)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 5 cloves garlic (chopped)
- 1 tablespoon ginger (peeled and finely chopped)
- 1 large shallot (finely chopped)
- 6 stalks scallions (roughly chopped)
For the sauce
- 1 tablespoon chili crisp
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon sriracha sauce
Instructions
- Put shrimps in a bowl and add salt and baking soda. Mix using your fingers until the shrimps are evenly coated. Brine for 15 minutes.
- Mix all the ingredients for the sauce and set aside.
- Rinse shrimps under cold water and pat dry.
- In a pan over medium high heat, add oil and when the oil is hot, add garlic, ginger and shallot and cook for 1 minute.
- Add shrimp and cook for 4-5 minutes, until shrimps are cooked through.
- Add scallions and cook for 1 minute.
- Add sauce and toss until the shrimps are evenly coated with. Transfer to a bowl or plate and serve with rice.
Notes
This garlic shrimp with chili crisp recipe will keep refrigerated for up to 1 day.
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 220
- Sugar: 1.7 g
- Sodium: 1233.8 mg
- Fat: 11.9 g
- Saturated Fat: 2.4 g
- Carbohydrates: 4.4 g
- Fiber: 0.5 g
- Protein: 24 g
- Cholesterol: 188.9 mg
Keywords: recipe, stir fry, seafood, Asian
This was SO good. Love the use of chili crisp in it
★★★★★
This recipe is fantastic! The shrimp came out perfect. We made extra sauce and used it for spam cauliflower fried rice.
★★★★★
Family loved this! Used our favorite brand of chili crisp instead–Mr. Bing–and it was perfect! https://www.mr-bing.com/
★★★★★
This recipe is THE BEST and I am officially obsessed. Looking forward to more Lao Gan Ma (chili crisp oil) recipes!
Thank you so much Sarah! 🙂
Hi there,
I made this tonight and you are 100% correct- delish! And super easy. Once everything is chopped and mixed, it comes together very quickly.
Note: I used shelled but deveined shrimp. Before pulling off the shells, we sucked all the flavor out- so good. All your recipes are great- thank you!
Eileen, we also love sucking on the shells, there is so much flavor there 🙂 Thank you for the kind comment, you just made my day ❤️
I have a question for you. Is the chili crisp supposed be super fishy? I did order a jar from Amazon and it came broken and a lot of the oil had leaked out. Neither my husband and I can eat it because it’s too fishy for our personal taste, but I wanted double check with you before I throw the chili crisp out or if I should try another jar of it.
I did make two recipes with it though to give it a fair shake though! 🙂
This shrimp dish looks and sounds amazing! I hope I can find the grumpy lady jar at the local market & or whole foods! Thanks for the inspiration, 4th century elemental balance of Chinese dishes are always so complex but often simple. See ya’ on the twitterverse!
Can i use Chili Garlic Sauce instead because that’s what i have.
Hi Jamie, chili crisp is very different than chili garlic sauce – it’s salty, spicy and nutty while the chili garlic sauce is more sweet and mild. If you love authentic Chinese dishes, I would recommend getting some chili crisp (it’s available on Amazon if you can’t find some at your local Asian grocery store), it’s worth it! We put it on everything!
Grumpy old lady? I always thought it was a man. That’s really funny 🙂
Hahaha!