Buttermilk Fried Shrimp

This classic New Orleans-style shrimp is dipped in buttermilk then coated in cornmeal before frying for a flavorful crunchy exterior.

Ingredients

Serves 4

1. Step 1

   Whisk salt, cayenne, garlic powder, paprika, oregano, thyme, black pepper, and onion powder in a small bowl to blend.

   Step 2

   Attach a deep-fry thermometer to side of a heavy wide pot. Add enough oil to measure 2″. Heat over medium heat to 350°F.

   Step 3

   Meanwhile, place shrimp and 2 tablespoons spice mix in a medium bowl and toss to coat. Pour buttermilk into another medium bowl. Whisk flour and cornmeal in another medium bowl.

   Step 4

   Dip seasoned shrimp briefly in buttermilk, then coat with flour mixture. Working in batches, fry shrimp, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and just cooked through, about 4 minutes per batch. Transfer to paper towels to drain.

   Step 5

   Serve shrimp with rémoulade sauce.

Leave a Review

Reviews (7)

Back to Top

• I always soak fish in buttermilk before I cook it. My mother told me so and it works. It gets rid of any fishy taste and makes the coating tastier and stickier. Anyway, this is a great quick dinner. I always have cleaned shrimp in the freezer. I buy it several pounds at a time from Costco, defrost quickly, squeeze water out of it and saute or fry. Always yummy and this seasoning mix is a big winner.

  • Anonymous

  • 12/12/2022

• I use this recipe to make shrimp for shrimp tacos. The seasoning mixture is great and the breading is nice and light. The flour and cornmeal amounts are way off for the amount of shrimp, though. I use half of each and still ave some left over. I’ll try a fourth next time.

  • Robyn Dz

  • Austin, TX

  • 2/5/2022

• This turned out great! I tend to shy away from recipes that call for deep frying, but this was worth it. I agree with the others that less salt and less cayenne would be good. Could probably use a little less flour too.

  • mostlymeg

  • Tulsa, OK

  • 5/3/2021

• These were delicious (and easy)! I stood at the stove and fried them and my family ate them as soon as they cooled. The only thing that I’ll do differently next time is reduce the amount of salt. I love salt and this was too much.

  • Anonymous

  • Silver Spring, MD

  • 11/21/2020

• This is a recipe for New Orleans style cajun fried shrimp. It’s going to be spicy. The texture was pretty freakin’ good. The spicy flavor was not bad, though I found it to be a little too salty, with the cayenne overpowering it after already cutting it by half. Next time, I’ll use less than 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne. With a little tweaking, this recipe has the potential to be really awesome; Pair it with some home-made tartar sauce…Fantastic!

  • Karla A

  • Florida

  • 4/25/2020

• What a dud! Z E R O forks. I followed the directions to a ‘T’ and reviewed other comments here prior to even purchasing; If THAWED Shrimp isn’t applicable with this recipe, it should be noted. I used Wholey Raw Large 21-25 (2lb) Shrimp, Frozen at grocer, drove home in ice chest, defrosted overnight in fridge (again, in ice). Deep fried with buttermilk mix. The shrimp was tough and non-shrimp tasting, the batter almost never stuck to both sides of the shrimp and the breading was garbage. There’s nothing about this recipe I want to attempt (correct?) again since it’s totally tasteless and time-waster. A super rare miss at Epicurus + supplemental reviews (comments).

  • koreda

  • chicago

  • 7/19/2019

• Great recipe. Added smoked paprika as per another reviewer. We double dipped the shrimp into the buttermilk and flour/cornmeal dredge. We also made the remoulade sauce. Added fresh tarragon, rice wine vinegar and garden chives to the sauce and made it a few hours in advance to let the flavours blend.

  • Anonymous

  • Calgary, Alberta, Canada

  • 8/6/2018

• Outstanding! But I did change up the preparation, because it seemed to be a bit wasteful and I missed the part that said to add the spice mix to the shrimp until it was almost too late. The only ingredient change I made was the addition of smoked paprika, because I had some leftover spice mix on my counter from a different recipe that was practically identical, but also used smoked paprika in addition to sweet paprika—50/50. If you ask me, that simple change elevated this tasty recipe,to new heights, but if you don’t like it, don’t have it, or don’t want to use it, the recipe would still rate 4-stars. It’s excellent. But those extra dishes…..no. I did manage to salvage about a TBL of the spice mixture that I had inadvertently added to the corn meal (before I’d added the flour), and just added a little extra salt to the shrimp to compensate for my error. I loved the spice mix in the corn meal/flour dredge, so, no harm no foul. But I drew the line at wasting an entire cup of buttermilk. Instead, I just poured about ¼-cup of buttermilk directly into the spiced/salted shrimp and then dredged that. I had no leftover buttermilk, no wasted spice mix, and it was plenty to make the dredge adhere. Again, outstanding result. Don’t skip the remoulade sauce.

  • ula_ashore

  • Texas

  • 3/23/2018