30 Easy Shrimp Ideas for Weeknight Dinners

This Mexican-style ceviche combines chopped raw shrimp, onion, chiles, tomatoes, and cilantro. The shrimp “cooks” in the lime juice. Tortilla chips or even saltine crackers are the traditional accompaniment.

There was a time when almost every upscale restaurant in America had this appetizer on the menu. It’s just boiled or steamed jumbo shrimp, with a bit of tail left on to facilitate eating by hand. The shrimp are arranged around a bowl of cocktail sauce — usually just a mixture of ketchup and horseradish with lemon juice and sometimes hot sauce added.

Hollowed-out avocado halves make perfect bowls for holding salads — like this combination of chopped avocado and other ingredients, enhanced with little bay shrimp.

Lobster bisque gets all the glory, but shrimp also makes an excellent basis for this rich, creamy soup based on seafood stock flavored with the shrimp shells.

This Chinese-restaurant staple, Cantonese in origin, consists of a coarse paste of minced shrimp and other ingredients spread on bread wedges, then deep-fried — with or without a topping of sesame seeds.

This relative of artichoke-crab dip, served warm, is made by combining chopped shrimp with cream cheese, sour cream, and/or mayonnaise and usually with shredded cheese (typically cheddar or jack). Toasted pita chips make an excellent accompaniment.

Actual scampi aren’t shrimp — they’re langoustines, like miniature lobsters — but this popular dish, an Italian-American restaurant standard, prepares shrimp in the scampi style, which is to say with butter, garlic, and parsley.

Originally from South Carolina but now found all over the South and beyond, this classic comfort food consists of grits (basically cornmeal porridge, to which cheese may or may not be added) topped with sautéed shrimp.

There’s a long tradition in many cultures of flavoring seafood with pork products, but few combinations are as easy to make and to enjoy as these shrimp enclosed in crispy strips of bacon.

Nobody knows who first came up with the idea for this unusual but delicious preparation of fried shrimp, but it may well come from the Caribbean, where both coconuts and fresh seafood are abundant.

Shrimp coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried is almost impossible to stop eating, especially paired with hot sauce, marinara, or cocktail sauce.

This quintessential Louisiana sandwich on a baguette-style roll may be made with almost any protein, including fried oysters, crawfish, catfish — and shrimp. A “dressed” po’boy includes mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles.

Peri-peri is a spicy chile- and garlic-based sauce especially popular in Mozambique and other African nations and in Portugal. It is often eaten with chicken but also works wonderfully with giant shrimp (often sold as prawns).

This dish consists of shrimp brushed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, then quickly cooked on a hot grill — what could be simpler and better?

Italians don’t like to combine cheese and seafood, but their Greek neighbors know that few dishes are more savory than this combination of shrimp, feta, and oregano in a rich tomato sauce.

Risotto is a versatile dish, a backdrop for almost any ingredient or combination of ingredients. Small shrimp with slightly firm bits of zucchini are a particularly good combination.

Spaghetti with clams might get most of the publicity, but a similar preparation of the pasta with tomatoes and shrimp is a winner, too.

In Rome, its birthplace, fettuccine Alfredo is made with butter and parmigiano, period — no cream, no added ingredients. This immensely satisfying variation, though, shows what the Romans are missing.

Lobster salad heaped into a split-top bun is a New England classic, but there’s no reason not to make it with shrimp instead.

Fried or grilled shrimp wrapped in corn or flour tortillas are a standard dish in much of coastal Mexico, and deserves to be better known here.

Enchiladas don’t have to be filled with only chicken, beef, or cheese. Shrimp in a creamy, chile-spiced sauce is an excellent change of pace.

Whether Thai-style, with coconut milk, or in an Indian interpretation, flavored with the spice mixture called garam masala (“prawns masala” is a common name for the dish), shrimp curry is a quick and easy dish to add to your repertoire.

Small boiled or steamed shrimp add color, texture, and flavor to any standard fried rice recipe.

A standard of dim sum menus everywhere, these delicate dumplings are made by wrapping small whole or minced shrimp in a thin dough wrapper and steaming or frying the results.

These aren’t the crispy fried rolls found on every Chinese-American takeout menu. Sometimes called fresh spring rolls, these rolls are larger, filled with shredded vegetables and shrimp, and simply steamed. A good dipping sauce is essential.

Flavored with chiles, garlic, lime juice, fish sauce, and herbs, this vibrant Thai specialty couldn’t be more different from the mildly flavored mayonnaise-based version of shrimp salad.

One mistake many cooks make with shrimp is overcooking it (it should be firm but not rubbery). Stir-frying it — together with an assortment of vegetables — is one way to make sure it’s not overdone.

Seafood grilled or broiled with a sweet-and-salty teriyaki glaze — based on soy sauce and mirin (rice wine) — is more popular in Japan than chicken or meat teriyaki, and shrimp works very well with the sauce.

Whether or not you have a paella pan, cooking short-grain Spanish-grown rice enhanced with shrimp and other ingredients yields a delicious one-dish meal.

Shrimp and sausage in a spicy tomato sauce thickened with okra or filé powder is a Louisiana classic.