10-Minute Honey Garlic Shrimp

10-minute honey garlic shrimp are mouthwatering morsels ready in 10 minutes. Fat and juicy shrimp are coated in a velvety soy sauce jacket and fried in ginger and garlic before being bathed a sticky honey sauce. Serve as an appetising prelude to an Asian banquet or as a super quick main with rice.

This honey garlic shrimp recipe makes use of a (not so) secret Asian cooking technique called ‘velveting’ (more on that later), so once you’ve mastered that, you can move on to another of my favourite Chinese prawn recipes Bang Bang Shrimp. Mine comes with a highly inauthentic Westernised mayo dip. So sue me! 

I am all about fakeaways these days. Once upon a time, we would regularly order in on a Friday night as a weekend treat, until I realised that the ‘treat’ was totting up financially and was expanding our waistlines miserably. 

Don’t get me wrong, I still love a temptingly convenient takeaway when I’ve had a long week and am all cooked out. But knowing I can recreate our restaurant faves for a fraction of the cost, with ingredients that are better for us, and within the same time frame (if not quicker), I am faking it more and more. 

And Asian stir fry shrimp recipes are the quickest of all. Honey garlic shrimp is one of our all time favourites in and out of the restaurant. I hope it’ll be yours too.

How to make quick honey garlic shrimp

I know some folks will shy away from Asian recipes. They are often fast-moving, filled with long and unfamiliar ingredients lists, foreign cooking techniques, and things can get hot behind the wok! But this shrimp recipe is reassuringly simple. Let me break it down for you.

Let’s start with the ‘unfamiliar ingredients’. Soy sauce for saltiness, garlic, ginger, and honey for sweetness, cornflour for coating. So far, so familiar, right?

I’ve included chilli flakes, as I like my shrimp to kick, and green onions for a bit of zing and colour. Both are totally optional. 

I’ve used Argentine prawns. These are a vibrant red even when raw and tend to be bigger than the average cold water prawn. Firmer, meatier and generally more robust, the hench Argentine prawn suits this honey garlic glaze best. Save the smaller, sweeter ones for your shrimp linguine.

Now for the ‘foreign cooking technique’. I mentioned ‘velveting’ earlier. It’s a two-step, non-intimidating process. Step 1: Combine the soy sauce and corn starch and coat the shrimp. Step 2: Fry the coated shrimp in the garlic and ginger (about 1-2 mins on each side). And you’re velvet.

But why? Velveting protects the delicate shrimp flesh from drying out during cooking. It keeps them juicy and succulent and melt-in-the-mouth.

Finally, pour over the honey and sprinkle on your chilli flakes. Told you it was easy!

More shrimp recipes

Besides being a delicious protein component, shrimp are cooked in minutes flat, which is why you’ll find a fleet of shrimp recipes on my blog. To save you looking, here’s five more shrimp meals that you can achieve in under 25 minutes:

Speedy sesame shrimp stir fry – the clue’s in the name.

Easy shrimp chow mein– juicy shrimp, curly noodles and veg-packed to boot!

Air fryer salt and pepper shrimp -less salty and less oily than your local takeaway.

Shrimp fried rice – a double-down on protein dish made with eggs.

Thai red curry – a little further afield, but this firecracker fits the fast bill.

Serving suggestions

Either a tastebud-teasing starter or star of the dinner show, this shrimp recipe is a reliable all-rounder. Complete the meal with fluffy white rice, or coconut rice, or a vegetable noodle stir fry.

In my house, we love a bit of variety, it’s what we enjoy most about ordering Chinese takeout, so I do try to replicate that at home. 

As well as punctuating the meal with prawn crackers and fortune cookies (store-bought, I’ve yet to master either of those!), I’ll make either beef teriyaki with strips of sweet and salty tender beef or beef yakisoba, a noodle dish done in 20 minutes.

If it’s more than just the four of us, Asian chicken wings as an additional starter will flesh out the feast. These ones are done in the This is an affiliate link.air fryer, meaning they’re pretty hands-off as Asian food goes!

Storage and leftovers

It’s highly unlikely you’ll have any of these pink beauties left, but if you do, they will keep in the fridge for another 3-4 days. Use them to top Thai noodle soup or throw in last minute to a vegetable stir fry. 

If you haven’t already thawed the shrimp from frozen, leftover honey garlic shrimp can be kept in the freezer for up to 3 months. Separate the prawns and freeze on a baking sheet then tip into a zip-topped bag. 

More favourite Asian shrimp recipes

• Speedy Sesame Shrimp Stir Fry
• Filipino Noodles with Pork and Shrimp
• Thai Red Curry with Prawns and Snow Peas
• Easy Shrimp Chow Mein
• Bang Bang Shrimp