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Bring the heart of Louisiana right to your own kitchen with this easy Shrimp Creole recipe that takes just 30 minutes to make, all in one pot! It's healthy and packed with flavor from the perfectly cooked shrimp in spicy creole sauce.
If you're not afraid of a little spice, and a lot of flavor, I'm betting this will be your new favorite shrimp recipe! Serve it alongside warm Buttermilk Cornbread or Flakey Homemade Biscuits!
If you've ever visited New Orleans or Louisiana, you've likely noticed Shrimp Creole on a restaurant menu. This popular creole dish is made with tomatoes, shrimp, and the cajun holy trinity of celery, bell pepper, and onion, which is the hallmark of cajun and creole cooking. Celery, bell peppers, and onions are the base of most creole stews, soups, jambalayas, and many cajun main dishes.
If you love Jambalaya, Gumbo, or Shrimp Etouffee, you may be thinking this recipe looks a little familiar as it shares some of the wonderful qualities of each of those southern dishes. Shrimp Creole served with rice (like gumbo), but it's a little thicker and less soupy (like jambalaya). Shrimp etouffee is also served with rice and shrimp but it's made with a more gravy-like sauce.
Purchasing Shrimp (Know Before You Go!):
The most authentic shrimp creole would be served with Gulf shrimp, but since most of us don't have access to wild-caught, fresh shrimp from the Gulf Coast, we have to purchase ours at the grocery store. While you can buy shrimp in all varieties (large, medium, small, shell on/off, tail on/off, fresh, frozen, etc.), we recommend buying large, tail-on, un-cooked shrimp for shrimp creole. Once thawed you can remove the shells before cooking in the creole sauce.
Fresh or frozen shrimp?
I suggest frozen shrimp.
If you live in an area where you can purchase truly fresh shrimp, I’m insanely jealous of you and you should definitely do that.
As for the rest of us, we have the choice of frozen shrimp from the freezer section or thawed shrimp from the seafood counter. I say thawed shrimp because while it looks “fresh,” it was likely shipped to the store in frozen form and thawed for the display. And, it's likely been thawing for multiple days which makes the frozen stuff seem even more fresh.
That being said, purchase the highest quality frozen shrimp you can! The better the shrimp, the yummier your shrimp creole will be!
To thaw frozen shrimp, place the bag in the refrigerator overnight or pour the shrimp into a bowl and cover it with ice cold water for about an hour. Drain the shrimp and use paper towels to soak up the water.
How to Make Shrimp Creole:
1. Sauté veggies. Add butter to a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion, celery, bell pepper, and garlic and sauté until veggies are lightly browned.
2. Add flour and spices. In a small bowl whisk together the thyme, salt, pepper, cayenne and flour. Stir into onion mixture and cook for 2 minutes.
3. Deglaze the pan with wine (if using) and then add chicken stock, tomatoes, bay leaves and hot sauce. Reduce heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Add uncooked shrimp. Remove bay leaves and add shrimp (peel the shrimp beforehand so that you're adding raw, peeled shrimp with the tails still on). Cook for just a few minutes, until the shrimp turn pink.
5. Serve over hot cooked rice and garnish with chopped green onion.
Add In's and Variations:
- Bacon
- Sausage
- Crawfish
- Chicken creole- use chicken instead of shrimp.
- Seafood creole- Add scallops and haddock.
- Catfish creole- add catfish instead of shrimp.
- To substitute rice- Serve over mashed potatoes or pasta, or serve without rice for a low carb option.
MAKE AHEAD and FREEZING INSTRUCTIONS:
To make ahead: The sauce is almost better made ahead of time to allow the flavors to blend. To make ahead, prepare the sauce as instructed but don't add the shrimp. Refrigerate for 1-2 days and return to pan to simmer before adding shrimp.
To freeze: make the sauce but don't add the shrimp. Freeze the sauce in a freezer safe container for 2-3 months. To reheat, allow sauce to thaw, simmer in saucepan, and then add shrimp, cooking until pink.
More Shrimp Recipes:
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Shrimp Creole
Ingredients
- 4 Tablespoons butter
- 1 large onion, , diced
- 1 rib celery, , diced
- 1 green bell pepper, , diced
- 2 cloves garlic, , minced
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 Tablespoon flour
- 1/3 cup dry white wine (optional)
- 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes, , or about 1 ¼ cups peeled and diced fresh tomatoes
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 2 bay leaves
- Hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco , , to taste
- 2 lb large uncooked shrimp, , (about 32)
- 6-8 cups hot cooked rice, , for serving
- 2 green onions, , chopped, for garnish
Instructions
- Add butter to a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion, celery, bell pepper, and garlic and sauté until veggies are lightly browned.
- In a small bowl whisk together the thyme, salt, pepper, cayenne and flour. Stir into onion mixture and cook for 2 minutes.
- Deglaze the pan with wine (if using) and then add chicken stock, tomatoes, bay leaves and hot sauce. Reduce heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Remove bay leaves. Add shrimp and cook until pink, just 3-4 minutes.
- Serve over hot cooked rice and garnish with green onion.
Notes
- Bacon
- Sausage
- Crawfish
- Chicken creole- substitute chicken for shrimp
- Seafood creole- Add scallops and haddock
- Catfish creole- substitute catfish for shrimp
- To substitute rice- Serve over mashed potatoes or pasta
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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HAVE YOU TRIED THIS RECIPE?!
RATE AND COMMENT BELOW! I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR EXPERIENCE.
This was an excellent, easy recipe as it is for shrimp creole. It is also a wonderful palette for any manner of creole dishes. I would recommend using the wine as a flavor enhancer. Start with this, add sausage, substitute tomato juice for chicken stock, increase the garlic and so on to accommodate the audience or your mood.
Made it three times – delicious. But I increased garlic to 4-6 cloves (hard to have too much garlic) and reduced cayenne each time, (was way too spicy initially), finally omitting it entirely. Still well-seasoned. Found amount of shrimp is easily varied – the creole mix
is excellent even without any! Makes this former New Orleanians’s mouth water!
Tried this recipe and it was delicious! Perfect for a quick and easy weeknight dinner using simple ingredients. I only used about a half pound of frozen shrimp because that’s all I had on hand and it was still pretty well proportioned. Thanks for this tasty recipe!
Great meal. Family loves it. Easy and quick to make. I also made it with chicken and it turned out great.
Very good with only 1/2 lb. shrimp, 1/4 lb. smoked sausage and 3 slices chopped bacon
Excellent, I also added in a red and yellow pepper. To avoid throwing them out, they had to be used, before that happened. I doubled the recipe. Delish. So easy.
I’ve made this twice and both times it was fantastic. I did add more salt and thickened it with a cornstarch flurry after the shrimp cooked. I also don’t add the garlic until towards the end of sauté to avoid it from burning and getting bitter. This is really a good creole recipe. Thanks
This was fabulous, but I opted for more garlic and less spice, we’re Yoopers and a bit wimpy. My loving husband brought spoons to the table after dinner began then we enjoyed seconds. We ate every drop but he still was disappointed because that’s all we had because he wanted thirds!
We, very much, enjoyed this recipe! It was easy to make, quick to cook and so delicious. I made it exactly as it is written including the wine and minus the bell pepper as both my husband and I get heartburn from them. All the components go together beautifully….I especially like the flavor of butter and chicken broth and the spices are perfect to create that “creole” flavor. It tastes like I’ve been in the kitchen all day but it only took about 1 hour from pulling out ingredients, chopping veggies, simmering for 20 minutes and incorporating the shrimp for another 3- 5 minutes. Thank you so much for our delicious dinner tonight <3. I will print and keep this one!
Wow! There is so much that I like about this recipe! Let’s start with the chicken stock and the roo. What an easy fix to ensure that the sauce becomes thick enough. My mother used to use tomato paste and never used chicken stock. But I like the balance that the chicken broth provides to the tomatoes. She also always served it with bacon. In fact, she would fry up the bacon first and then sautee the veggies in the bacon fat. There was always plenty of bacon flavor in the sauce that way. But, that is not the healthiest way. I used 3 TBSP butter for the sautee but I still garnished it with fried bacon at the end. It was great! There was just enough bacon flavor to remind me of Mom. I also added in another celery stalk but I think in the future that I will use 3 stalks and maybe another bell pepper. I also added in a second can of diced tomatoes and I used just 1 pound of shrimp. That comes from my frugal mother. She really knew how to stretch a pound of meat — queen of the casseroles! Both my husband and I added more tobasco to our servings. Thank you for this wonderful recipe! I had not made shrimp creole in years! This was fun and yummy!