These Cilantro Lime Shrimp are a healthy and easy dinner recipe that only takes 10 minutes to make! Serve with rice, in tacos, or as a Mexican salad garnish.
What’s better than shrimp for dinner? It’s healthy, easy to cook, and delicious: making it triple the danger of night cooking! And here’s our new favorite way to cook it: Cilantro Lime Shrimp! This recipe only takes 10 minutes and is nice and flavorful and fresh! It goes perfectly with Mexican flavors: serve it with rice, an avocado salad or in tacos. Or make it into a main course salad with our Cilantro Vinaigrette. That’s how it’s done!
What’s in These Cilantro Lime Shrimp?
These Cilantro Lime Shrimp are packed with zesty flavor—and take under 10 minutes to put together! Alex and I recently served this with green rice and homemade guacamole and it was an incredibly satisfying healthy dinner recipe! All you need is a handful of ingredients:
- large shrimp fresh or frozen, peeled or not, with or without the tail; deveined is preferable!
- lime juice and zest Use both the juice and zest for the best savory flavor
- coriander
- butter or olive oil Both have great taste; Butter is slightly tastier, oil works dairy-free
- fresh garlic
- cumin and cayenne pepper
All you have to do is heat the oil, stir in the shrimp, lime juice and zest and sear until opaque, 1-2 minutes on each side. Very easy! Go to the full recipe to make it!
Step it up: serve with coriander sauce!
These cilantro lime shrimp have a fresh and zesty flavor. If you want to step it up even more and add an even stronger coriander flavor: could we suggest serving it with coriander sauce? Here are a few sauces that are perfect for dipping or drizzling over:
- Flavors of creamy coriander dressing unbelievable! It only takes 5 minutes and you’ll want to use it on everything: salads, tacos, fries and more.
- Easy Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette Quick to make and the zesty flavor is just right – this one’s dairy-free too!
- Shrimp Taco Sauce This sauce is basically cilantro ranch dressing: it takes the cilantro flavor to the next level!
Ways to Serve Cilantro Lime Shrimp
This recipe is so versatile it’s hard to know where to start! Our favorite is to just add rice and a salad. But there are so many creative ways to serve it, whether it’s a quick weeknight meal or dinner! Here are all of our favorite ways to serve Cilantro Lime Shrimp!
- With rice and tomato and avocado salad
- With black beans and rice
- Serve with a Mexican chopped salad (or on top of the salad to make an entree!)
- In shrimp tacos
- With homemade fries and simple guacamole
- With black bean salad
- In lettuce wraps
- With elote (Mexican street corn)
- Serve with a Classic Margarita, Jalapeno Margarita, or Skinny Margarita. Or a chelada or a michelada!
- With homemade bean sauce
A good juicer and zester
This recipe uses lime juice and lime zest for great flavor! What are the best tools for the job? Here are the best tools for juicing and citrus grating:
- Use a juicer. Alex and I use a juicer to quickly squeeze limes. Here is the juicer we use: it works very well!
- Use a microplane or grater to grate. A microplan does a quick job with panache! If you don’t have one, use the small holes in a cardboard rasp. For more information, see how to grate a lime.
Want more lime recipes? Go to 15 Zingy Lime Recipes.
Are Shrimp Healthy?
A medium sized shrimp is only 7 calories, making it a great low cal way to add to a healthy dinner! Shrimp are part of a healthy Mediterranean diet. (Read more about shrimp nutrition here.) The calories and protein of shrimp are as follows:
- 1 medium shrimp = 7 calories, 1 gram of protein
- 1 jumbo shrimp = 14 calories, 1.5 grams of protein
How to thaw frozen shrimp
You can absolutely use frozen shrimp for this recipe: they’re not necessarily better than fresh! If the shrimp are frozen right after they are caught and stay frozen, they will actually be fresher than fresh fish that has been shipped for days. How do I thaw frozen shrimp? There are several options:
- The previous day: If you plan ahead, simply place the frozen shrimp in the fridge overnight.
- day of: Place the shrimp in a large bowl of very cold water for 15 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes to break up clumps that freeze together. The shrimp should defrost in about 15-20 minutes.
This Cilantro Lime Shrimp Recipe is…
Gluten-free, dairy-free (with olive oil) and pescetarian.
The description
These Cilantro Lime Shrimp are a healthy and easy dinner recipe that only takes 10 minutes to make! Serve with rice, in tacos, or as a Mexican salad garnish.
- 1 Pound large shrimp, deveined (peeled or unpeeled)
- 1 clove of garlic
- ¼ teaspoon cumin
- 1 Pinch of cayenne pepper
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, plus the zest of 1 lime
- ½ cup fresh coriander, chopped
- Thaw shrimp (see notes above).
- Chop the garlic.
- Dry the shrimp. In a medium bowl, toss the shrimp with the garlic, cumin, cayenne, and salt.
- In a large skillet, heat the butter or olive oil over medium-high heat. Cook the shrimp, 1 to 2 minutes on each side, until opaque and cooked through, flipping with tongs.
- Spritz with lime juice and stir in the lime zest and chopped cilantro. Serve immediately.
- Category: main course
- Method: Cook
- Kitchen: Mexican
Keywords: Cilantro Lime Shrimp
More Shrimp Recipes
There are so many delicious and healthy shrimp recipes out there that it’s hard to keep track of them all! Here are our favourites:
