Easy homemade Kung Pao Shrimp you can whip up in less than 30 minutes – so much healthier than takeout and bursting with spicy, savory Asian flavor!
Hello saucy spicy Asian shrimp!! And I quote Uncle Bill when I say “Ya can’t beat Chinese!”
Oh Uncle Bill…. how true that is. Last night I joined my father and his sister and brother-in-law for an impromptu dinner date and my uncle chose Chinese. I had Kung Pao Chicken which is what I order every time we eat at this particular Chinese restaurant. It was so good and reminded me of this Kung Pao Shrimp I made a couple of weeks back – so saucy, so spicy, so wonderfully easy to whip up at home… I LOVE IT!
I only go out for Chinese when my parents invite us to join them, which is usually when family is visiting from out of town. I used to go out for Chinese a lot but these days I make so much of it at home and it’s almost always better than anything I’ve ordered in a restaurant (and healthier!) so I have a hard time going out when I can make it at home so easily!
Speaking of which… try this Kung Pao Shrimp you guys, it’s de-vine.
Kung Pao Shrimp
Ingredients
- 1 ½ – 2 pounds large or medium shrimp - deveined and tails removed
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 white onion - chopped
- ¼ cup peanuts
Sauce
- ¾ cup soy sauce
- 2 teaspoon sesame oil
- 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar - (may sub other vinegar such as rice wine or white in a pinch)
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons sriracha chili sauce - or crushed red pepper flakes, (or more to taste)
- 2 tablespoons corn starch
- ⅓ cup cold water
Instructions
- Whisk together sauce ingredients and set aside. In a separate, small bowl whisk together the water and corn starch till dissolved and set aside.
- Add shrimp, oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, chopped onions, and peanuts to a large pan or skillet and saute over medium-high heat for 3-5 minutes until shrimp are pink and fully cooked and onions and tender.
- Add sauce to pan and stir to combine. Stir in corn starch slurry until mixture comes to a boil and thickens, then reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. Serve with cooked rice and garnish with green onions if desired.
Notes
Nutrition
Recipe adapted from Feeding Mini & Me.
I love Chinese food and I really love Kung Pao anything. Have to give this a try soon.
Strange as it might sound, I don’t like shrimp. Never have. Would rather chew on old rubber bands. I think that the only reason people eat shrimp, and say the looooove them, is because of the sauce they put on them. Have never seen anybody eat a shrimp just by itself, no sauce, no nothing. Yuk!
I do like your Slow-cooker Kung Pao Chicken though.
I made this this evening and added bell peppers. It was absolutely phenomenal! Thank you so much for the recipe. Is there anything you can recommend to cut down on the sodium though? Have you ever tried making this with the low sodium soy sauce?
I have made this with low sodium soy sauce and it turned out great!!
This was so so salty it was almost inedible. My family said it tasted like soy sauce shRimP, all the other flavors were lost except the heat. I’ve never had a bad recipe here but this is a hard pass for me.
I followed this recipe exactly as written, and should have known something was off when half my bottle of soy sauce was gone. Must be SOME typo, 3/4 CUP soy sauce was ridiculous. I told my husband my tongue is burning, but not from hear, from salt. We had to throw it away