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Watch these beer battered jumbo fried shrimp disappear quickly with your football watching friends!
Fried Shrimp At It’s Best
There aren’t many people who will turn down fried shrimp! That is if you are not allergic or have religious dietary restrictions.
Me? I’ll take shrimp any way you give it to me. It’s by far my favorite seafood.
Shrimp is on sale an awful lot lately. I’ve scored some crazy low prices on them too. Last sale, one of my stores had colossal jumbo shrimp on sale with all the other sizes. Couldn’t pass that up and I wanted to do these beauties justice. What better way than good old authentic batter dipped fried shrimp–and a batter made with beer!
Batter
The batter for these shrimp contains beer. And since beer contains yeast, it acts as a leavening agent of sorts. It doesn’t really “rise” per se. It just incorporates a bit of air so the fried shrimp get a bit crispier.
The general formula is an equal amount of beer to flour, however, atmospheric conditions always play a big role in anything with flour. Same goes with high altitude, but with this recipe, altitude plays an insignificant role. Getting the proper texture is the main thing here. The texture should be like a thick pancake or crepe batter.
Standing is important too because of the fermentation. I find 15 minute to a half an hour works pretty well. And remember to let the excess batter drip back into the bowl. You don’t want an overly bready shrimp since it detracts from the mild taste of the shrimp.
Method
This beer batter shrimp recipe is made for deep frying. You need no special equipment for it; just a frying pan that has deeper sides, such as a cast-iron pan which is perfect, and one that conducts heat well.
If you have a deep fat fryer, that’s a great way to cook these shrimp. The temperature is easy to regulate and there’s actually less mess with it.
This recipe is NOT made for air fryers. Battered food does not work well in those appliances. You’ll end up with an inedible mess. Likewise baking is not recommended. So if you have a problem with deep fat frying, a recipe that uses crumbs for a coating is better suited.
The Recipe
Beer Batter Fried Shrimp
Ingredients
- 1 lb extra-large shrimp peeled and deveined
- extra flour for dusting shrimp
- Oil for frying.
Batter:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 12 oz can lager beer
- 2 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Mix flour, Old Bay, salt & pepper in a medium bowl. Whisk in 8 oz (1 cup) of the beer. Batter varies by atmospheric conditions, so you may need more beer to thin batter to the consistency of a slightly thick pancake batter. Let batter stand for 15 minutes. Thin batter if necessary using additional beer.
- Heat about 1-2 inches/2.5-5 cm oil in a deep large skillet to 350F/180C. You could also use a deep-fat fryer if you have one. This recipe is NOT recommended for air fryers.
- Dry shrimp thoroughly. Dust lightly with flour.
- Dip shrimp in batter and carefully add to hot oil—do not crowd the pan!!!
- Fry 2 minutes then turn and fry an additional 2 minutes. Remove to a paper towel lined plate and keep warm in a 200F/100C oven while frying additional batches.
- Serve with coleslaw https://bakeatmidnite.com/kicked-up-cole-slaw/
Linde says
By extra large shrimp, what count are you talking about, please. Thanks for sharing recipe. Looks amazing!
Judith Hanneman says
You can use pretty much any size with this. I just found colossal at the same price. Maybe these are 15 per pound. But regular “large” or extra-large would work well too. BTW with the colossal, I found that I was totally filled up with just 2 of them and a male friend of mine was satisfied with 3 of these colossal sized ones.