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Made With Lau
蒜蓉煎虾

Garlic Shrimp

👍 4.8K likes
✍️ Published Nov 2022, Updated Oct 2026
Prep
15 min
Cook
10 min
Total
25 min
Serves
4

The crispiest, most savory weeknight shrimp dish of your dreams!

Chinese Garlic Shrimp (蒜蓉煎虾)

Cooking Summary

Ingredients: (detailed list)

  • Main Ingredients: shrimp, garlic, corn oil
  • Shrimp Seasoning: garlic salt, cornstarch
  • Seasoning: garlic salt, salt, sugar, black pepper, white pepper

Steps:

  1. Cut & devein shrimp
  2. Prepare garlic & dry seasoning
  3. Pan-fry shrimp
  4. Stir-fry everything

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Top 3 Mistakes

  • Leaving the coating patchy:

    Coat the pieces evenly before cooking, following the starch or batter step. Bare spots and heavy clumps cook differently, making it harder to get a consistent crisp exterior.

  • Starting with a cool pan:

    Heat the wok or pan as directed before adding the ingredients. Starting before it is ready changes the initial cooking stage and makes the intended browning harder to achieve.

  • Burning the garlic early:

    Watch the aromatics closely once they hit the hot oil. Follow the recipe’s heat and timing, moving on when they become fragrant rather than letting them turn dark and bitter.

Overview

Preparing seafood can be daunting, but shrimp is a great way to get started! A simple but flavorful pan-fry like this means you can put seafood on the table as part of a fulfilling weeknight dinner.

Ingredients

Serves4
Main Ingredients
Shrimp Seasoning
Seasoning

Why this recipe

The story
Chinese Garlic Shrimp (蒜蓉煎虾) — Daddy Lau
Daddy Lau

Most garlic shrimp recipes online are tested only a handful of times. My dad used to make this dish multiple times a day, every day, for 60+ years and can make this in his sleep.

I know you'll love it as much as our community does! This recipe has over 228K views, 4.8K likes on YouTube.

Shrimp by size

For Pan-fried Shrimp with Minced Garlic, the shrimp is a rather lonely star. It's flavored with aromatic ingredients like garlic, but it's really the only main ingredient. Although we prefer larger shrimp to make this dish, it's really more important to get good quality shrimp.

If you'd like to use the same size that we do in the video, go for what's called "extra large" at 26/30, which means 26 to 30 pieces of shrimp per pound. Smaller or larger shrimp work just fine, though! Remember to adjust the cooking time accordingly. Small shrimp may cook through faster.

Sustainable sources of shrimp

If you’re looking to buy sustainably sourced shrimp, Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch recommends that you avoid shrimp from places like Argentina, China, India.

If you do end up buying shrimp from those areas, it's totally fine (my parents do), but Seafood Watch notes that the shrimp are sourced with less sustainable methods.

To learn more, check out the link at Seafood Watch.

How to make Garlic Shrimp

4 steps
1

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Start by preparing the shrimp (10 oz). Use scissors to cut off the legs. While you have the scissors out, you can beautify the tail by cutting it into a sharp diamond. this is called "Phoenix-tailed Shrimp".

You can then easily remove the dark vein by jabbing a sharp toothpick horizontally into the shrimp, under the vein. Then, pull the toothpick up out of the back of the shrimp to remove the vein.

Then, split the back of the shrimp open by pushing a small paring knife in and cutting outwards. This is especially important for large shrimp, to help flavor and heat penetrate. It also makes the eating process much easier, as they'll be easy to peel!

Remove the legs and devein all of the shrimp.

Season & coat shrimp

Put the prepared shrimp in a bowl to season them. Add garlic salt (0.25 tsp) and toss the shrimp until it's evenly coated. Then, add cornstarch (1.5 tsp) and toss to coat. The cornstarch is important to help crisp up the shell and give the dish an amazing fried aroma.

How each knife cut changes your food
LESSON 3.3
How each knife cut changes your food
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2

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Give the garlic (5 clove) a quick smash, so it's easy to peel. Trim and discard the hard ends of each clove. Then, you can smash the cloves with a heavier hand to get it really broken up, giving the garlic flavor its best chance to release into the dish. The smashed cloves will be much flatter and easier to mince roughly. Set the minced garlic aside.

Prepare the dry seasoning in a separate bowl. Add garlic salt (1 tsp), salt, sugar, black pepper, and white pepper. Mix well.

3

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Heat a flat pan on high. Once the pan is hot enough, lower the heat to medium to avoid burning your lovely shrimp. Add oil (2 tbsp) and swirl the pan to spread it around. Then, individually place each shrimp down onto the pan, pulling them a little straighter as you put them down.

Let the shrimp cook without moving or flipping them. Add more oil (1 tbsp) along the edge of the pan.

When the bottom side of the shrimp turns red, or about 2 minutes, flip the shrimp. It's easier to use chopsticks or tongs to flip each piece individually than trying to turn them with a spatula.

Cook on this side for another 2 minutes, or until it turns reddish-orange. Plate the shrimp for now.

4

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No need to clean yet! Add the minced garlic to the pan. Turn the heat down to low and stir-fry the garlic alone to get it aromatic. It'll take about 30 seconds for the garlic to start turning golden.

Once the garlic is fragrant and golden, turn the heat off add the shrimp back in. Mix it around to help the garlic coat the shrimp.

Turn the heat back on to low, then start sprinkling in the dry seasoning. Avoid creating large clumps of seasoning by sprinkling it in a bit at a time while stirring and tossing the shrimp.

When you've added all the seasoning and it's thoroughly mixed in, plate the shrimp. Don't forget to get all the crispy bits of golden garlic out of the pan!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you buy shrimp?

Our general rule is that you should always buy frozen, unpeeled, and untreated shrimp. Since most shrimp is frozen at sea, frozen deveined or peeled shrimp in stores have been defrosted at least once, then refrozen. This back and forth process of freezing and thawing and freezing causes the shrimp's natural flavor to deteriorate.

Also, check the ingredient list to ensure that shrimp is the only ingredient since additives that are often used create an unpleasant texture.

Do you have to cook shrimp with the shell on?

We definitely recommend cooking with the shell on! We love the crispy flavor and the juiciness from shell-on shrimp. However, if you really don't prefer shell-on shrimp or cannot find it, you can definitely still make this Pan-fried Shrimp with Minced Garlic recipe with peeled shrimp!