Made Better With Butter

Recipes / Seafood · Grill · Party

Tasty Big Ass Charred Shrimp

Costco U-15 shrimp, butterflied, buried in a lime, cilantro and 30-clove garlic butter, and charred hard on the grill.

Prep
45 min
Cook
4–6 min on the grill
Serves
3 lb of shrimp
Jump to the recipe
John grinning in a white shirt, holding two sheet pans of butterflied shrimp under herb butter, with friends in the kitchen behind him

This is one of our favorite things to make, and it’s mostly an excuse for butter and garlic. Big Costco shrimp get butterflied flat, buried in a “rue” of butter, red onion, about 30 cloves of garlic, cilantro and lime, then charred hard on a hot grill. The red onion, cilantro and lime give it a South American flavor, close to chimichurri.

It’s not a real roux; there’s no flour. It’s the sauce that flavors the shrimp, and a good share of it ends up in the grill. That’s fine.

The one thing to get right is the timing. Watch for the meat to turn opaque, taste one, and pull them early. They keep cooking on the way to the table.

A Kirkland package of large raw black tiger shrimp held over a kitchen sink
The starting point. Costco's are already deveined.
A big bunch of cilantro, a bowl of minced garlic and four peeled red onions on cutting boards
A whole bunch of cilantro and a lot of garlic.
Chopped red onion on a cutting board next to a pan of garlic and butter on the stove
Garlic in the butter, onion chopped small.
A hand squeezing a lime with a yellow press over a pan of onion, garlic and cilantro butter
The lime goes in last.
A wide pan of red onion, garlic and chopped cilantro in melted butter
The finished "rue".
Raw shrimp butterflied open and lying flat on a sheet pan
Butterflied flat, cut side up.
A sheet pan of butterflied shrimp completely buried under the onion, garlic and cilantro butter
Pour it on and brush it into the meat.
Butterflied shrimp topped with the onion butter on a hot gas grill, flames visible below the grates
Feet side down, goodies up.
Grilled butterflied shrimp with charred orange shells and flecks of onion and cilantro on a sheet pan
Off the grill, shells charred, meat just opaque.
A pile of grilled shrimp with red onion and cilantro on a white square plate

Make it

Makes 3 lb of shrimp

Ingredients

The shrimp

The "rue"

Seasoning

  1. Make the "rue" first. Melt ½ to 1 stick of butter in a wide pan over medium heat, add the onions and garlic, and cook until they're fragrant and starting to caramelize.
  2. Add the rest of the butter and let it melt into the vegetables. Stir in the cilantro and season with the Smokin' Hot Garlic Pepper, Aleppo pepper, black pepper and a little salt.
  3. Squeeze in the lime juice last and mix everything together thoroughly. Taste it, then take it off the heat.
  4. Rinse the shrimp. Costco shrimp come deveined, so you'll usually only need to pull out a little bit of vein.
  5. Butterfly each shrimp with a knife, or better, good kitchen scissors. Cut from the vein side through toward the feet, leaving just enough attached that the shrimp opens up and sits flat.
  6. Lay the shrimp out flat on large sheet pans, cut side up.
  7. Pour the "rue" over the shrimp and use a silicone brush to make sure all the meat is well coated.
  8. Heat the grill to high. Lay the shrimp on the grates feet side down, goodies up, and char for 1–2 minutes.
  9. Turn the heat down to medium-high and give them another 1–2 minutes.
  10. Flip and char the meat side. You'll lose a lot of the "rue" into the grill; that's fine, it was there to flavor the shrimp.
  11. Watch them closely: you're looking for the meat to turn from translucent to opaque. Taste-test one when you think they're close, and pull them early rather than late.

Good to know

  • Nothing is worse than overcooked shrimp. They keep cooking after they come off the grill, so it's better to pull early than serve your friends chewy, rubbery shrimp.
  • U-14/15 means 14 to 15 shrimp per pound, so 3 lb is roughly 40–45 shrimp.
  • The garlic pepper is Smokin' Hot Garlic Pepper from World Spice, the spice shop just below Pike Place Market.