Chinese style deep fried salt and pepper shrimp is a great appetizer or snack with excellent crispy shell and tender inside.
In Sichuan province, we are using the mixed salt and Szechuan peppercorn (花椒) as the main flavor of a series of dishes including salt and pepper small potato, salt and pepper mushroom, salt and pepper chicken and etc. Although shrimp is not an native ingredient in inland Sichuan province, but we have ways to make them outstanding.
I understand that cooking unshelled shrimp might be a litter weird. However they are the perfect protection of the meat inside during the deep-frying or sautéing process. In addition, the shrimp shell is quite good after pan-frying. You can resort to this post to know the tips about how to devein the shrimp without removing shells.
Cook’s Note
- You can use well salt or coarse salt for this recipe.
- Sichuan peppercorn can be replaced by black pepper. But I highly recommend using Sichuan peppercorn for an authentic taste.
Ingredients
- 300g shrimp, deveined
- 1/2 tsp. salt (well salt)
- 1 thumb ginger, cut into smaller sizes
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tbsp. whole Sichuan peppercorn
- oil for shallow frying
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 scallion white, minced
- 1/4 fresh green pepper, minced (optional)
- 1/4 fresh red pepper, minced (optional)
Steps
Devein the shrimp and marinate with salt and ginger. Set aside for 15 minutes.
During this process, let make the real deal “salt and pepper”. Toast Sichuan peppercorn with salt over slow fire until aromatic (takes around 1 minute). Transfer the mixture out and then ground into powder.
Coat with starch.
Heat up oil in wok until you can see waves on the surface. Fry the shrimp for to 1 minute by two batches. Transfer shrimp out. High oil temperature is the key factor to a great flavor.
Pour the extra oil out and leave only around 1/2 tablespoon. Fry garlic, scallion and chopped fresh peppers until aromatic.
Return the shrimp and sprinkle 3/4 of the salt and pepper.
Transfer out and sprinkle the remaining on the surface or on small corner of the serving plate.
Other Chinese style shrimp recipe
- Ketchup shrimp, a slightly savory and sweet shrimp
- Soft fried shrimp, fried shrimp with a lighter batter
- Shrimp with scrambled egg, extremely tender shrimp with scrambled egg
- Shrimp egg foo young, pan-fried egg cake with fresh shrimp
- 300 g shrimp ,deveined
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 thumb ginger ,cut into smaller sizes
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tbsp. whole Sichuan peppercorn
- oil for shallow frying
- 2 garlic cloves ,minced
- 1 scallion white ,minced
- 1/4 fresh green pepper ,minced (optional)
- 1/4 fresh red pepper ,minced (optional)
-
Devein the shrimp and marinate with salt and ginger. Set aside for 15 minutes.
-
During this process, let make the real deal "salt and pepper". Toast Sichuan peppercorn with salt over slow fire until aromatic (takes around 1 minute). Transfer the mixture out and then ground into powder.
-
Coat shrimp with starch. Shake off extra starch before frying.
-
Heat up oil in wok until you can see waves on the surface. Fry the shrimp for to 1 minute by two batches. Transfer shrimp out. High oil temperature is the key factor to a great flavor.
-
Pour the extra oil out and leave only around 1/2 tablespoon. Fry garlic, scallion and chopped fresh peppers until aromatic.
-
Return the shrimp and sprinkle 3/4 of the salt and pepper.
-
Transfer out and sprinkle the remaining on the surface or on small corner of the serving plate.
Recipe first published in 2014 and updated in 2018
wow this definitely brings me back to my chinese heritage.. will be recreating the recipe, i have not had salt and pepper shrimp in years!
Thalia,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Summer is a good time for seafood. Enjoy!
Elaine thank you!!:)))
Thank you SO much. My 10 year old LOVE this recipe!! (I do too 😉
Thanks Rebakah for your feedback. I am so happy to heart that your guys love it the same as me.
Wow omigosh these taste awesome, thank you so much for sharing this recipe Elaine!
Hi Nikki,
Thanks for your kind feedback. Your words really made my day! Good luck with your kitchen adventure.
Been looking for a recipe for Salt and Pepper shrimp and thjis looks like a good one to try. Thanks.
You are the most welcome, Marjorie!
I want to try this. Ordered at a local restaurant and was confused. Two questions:
How do you devein with the shells on?
Are you suppose to peel the shrimp before eating it?
Thankyou
Rich
Yes, shrimp can be devein with the shells. I have introduced the skill in this post.
Shells are just for seasonings, we lick the seasonings firstly and then peel it off.
HI Elaine
I found your blog by accident and I am so happy I did!
I want to thank you for posting this recipe, I made it and my husband loved it. I used to order this dish at a little authentic Chinese restaurant and loved it. They closed and changed owners and the new people didn’t make it the same. This tastes just like I remember!
Can you make this with the shell off
Yes. If you do not like the shells, you can make this with prawns.
Amazing recipe! i really enjoyed it.
I tried this recipe and it is wonderful! The only thing I changed was I added a few dried thai chilies to the oil along with the garlic to give it a little heat, but I don’t think that made much difference either way other than adding a tiny bit of heat. This recipe was incredible – delicious, just the right amount of flavor and numbing from the szechuan pepper, and very easy. Definitely getting added to my regular rotation of recipes.
Hi Elaine,
maybe you could add a little bit of explanation to Chinese “Well Salt”. I never heard the term before and found only one site in Germany that uses a similar method, albeit without a natural source of water but rather by pumping water into dry rock salt which is called “wet mining” (https://www.salzbergwerk.de/en/salt-mine/technical).
The most salt I can find is either “rock salt” coming from dry mines or “sea salt” produced by evaporating sea water.
Andreas,
Good point.
In Sichuan cuisine, Sichuan salt is an extremely important seasoning. Unlike sea salt, which is produced by gradual solar evaporation from open air salt pans, the well salt in Sichuan actually has two types. One is crystallized from underground salty water (卤水) with the help of heating and the other type is rock salt, using the method you mentioned, pumping water to the rock salt to dissolve firstly and then re-crystallize. The well salt in Sichuan is not purified, so it contains more flavors.
Hi Elaine, thank you for the explanation.
I’m not too confident, that I can get this kind of salt here. But just in case, how would that be called in Chinese? Google Translate suggested 好的盐. Is that correct?
Andreas,
It is “井盐” in Chinese.
Haha, I see what the translation software did. It took “well” in the meaning of “good”. That’s funny 🙂 Thank you again Elaine. Now I don’t have to embarrass myself when asking for this.
Elaine, thank you for sharing this delicious recipe—truly appreciated. Nutrition facts—is it 236 calories per 3 grams (as indicated) or 236 calories per 300 grams? Again, thank you.
Cah,
I believe there is an error when transferring the recipe. We are shifting our recipe plugin. This recipe can serve 2 people with each serving 236 calories.
These looks delish…any suggestions for salt & pepper chicken wings…
Had in restaurants in san Diego .I live in midwest..been looking for salt pepper wings ever since
Nice suggestion, Lori. Already add it in to do list.
This was really, really good! I got wild-caught colossal shrimp that are wild-caught from Argentina from Safeway. I can’t stomach all the crappy shrimp from China. I added a little bit of lemon once I cleaned them and a bit of salt, mmmhh…
Thank you Emma!!
I can image how delicious your wild caught shrimp can be. We are not near coastline and shrimp are quite expensive. I admire so much!