Over the holidays at a neighborhood party, I tried an insanely delicious broiled skillet garlic shrimp recipe. I asked the host what the general ingredients were because I wanted to create a version for Mediterranean Living. I just loved how it was served right out of the skillet, and the shrimp were coated in this tangy, garlicky sauce that started to caramelize onto the shrimp from broiling it.
For my version, I’m adding pitted olives because I like how the saltiness contrasts the sweet spaghetti sauce. The olives get nice and blistered from the broiler. If you don’t like olives, you can easily omit them and add a quarter to a half pound more shrimp to fill up the skillet. I was really surprised when learning about my neighbor’s version of this recipe, that it calls for jarred spaghetti sauce. I actually loved this idea and this is one of the reasons this recipe is so easy. Lots of the flavor in this dish comes from the sauce.. Instead of taking crushed tomatoes and having to make your own sauce, the jarred spaghetti sauce increases the ease of this recipe tenfold. You can use your favorite kind, we used Prego traditional sauce which was very good.
Depending on how large your shrimp are, you may need to broil this for more or less than 10 minutes. Because shrimp are very quickly overcooked, you should check it every couple minutes to prevent overcooking. The shrimp will also continue to cook a little bit after you remove them from the broiler because cast iron skillets retain heat very well. Nobody wants overcooked shrimp!
You can serve this as an appetizer at a party, or this can be the main dish of your dinner along with pasta, rice or bread. I like to serve this garlic shrimp with a Caprese Salad and Olive Oil French Fries. Enjoy!
Skillet Garlic Shrimp with Basil and Olives
Ingredients
- 1 pound fresh shrimp
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/3 cup jarred spaghetti sauce
- 1 lemon juice
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 pinch salt and pepper
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives
Instructions
- Peel, de-vein, and rinse shrimp.
- Mix olive oil, tomato sauce, lemon juice, garlic, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, and paprika together in a bowl.
- Preheat broiler to 450 F. In a cast iron skillet, mix together the mixed sauce, olives, and shrimp.
- Broil for 8-10 minutes or until edges of shrimp and sauce start to caramelize and shrimp are completely pink.
Nutrition
About the Author: George Zikos
Hi, if you only have an electric stove top and a standard frypan will that be adequate? And are prawns and shrimp the same or interchangeable?
Hi Anita, An electric stove and standard frypan are fine for this dish. Prawns are different than shrimp and take longer to cook. You would also want them to be shelled. You could still use prawns, but just would cook longer. -Bill