Spicy Shrimp Stir Fry
There are four food staples that I always keep in the house: chicken, ground beef, shrimp, and salmon. I buy these in bulk at Costco and keep them in the freezer for weeks at a time. The trick is thinking up creative ways to make meals out of these staples so that we don’t get sick of them. Per J’s trainer, we prep chicken and rice for lunches every week and I always make a little bit of extra rice so that I can add it to healthy dinners as well (I also may or may not have used one of these healthy chicken and rice dishes to dump over nachos this week but we won’t talk about that). Once I was three Justin Bieber songs and a glass of wine deep last night, I was feelin spicy, and opened up my fridge to think of something to make for dinner. I found half of an onion and a big bag of bell peppers, so I decided on as spicy shrimp stir fry.
I started by heating oil in a pan and chopping up the bell peppers and onion into small pieces. I also had a spare jalapeño leftover from the time I tried to make spicy margaritas. They tasted like literal garbage, hence the extra jalapeño lying around. Like, imagine someone dumping tequila down your throat and then slapping you with a jalapeno…that’s what I made. Anyway, I chopped that up into small pieces and then added the mixture to the pan. I topped the veggies with salt, pepper, minced garlic, onion powder, cilantro, and crushed red pepper. I then stirred everything to combine and lowered the heat to a medium-high setting.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate how ascetically pleasing these colors are?
I let this mixture simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. I am basically waiting for the veggies to soften and soak in the spices. Once that happens, I add in the soy sauce and the cooked rice. After stirring to combine, I lower the heat, ensuring that nothing burns but giving the mixture time to absorb all of the flavors.
At this point, I start prepping the shrimp. I buy the big bag of cooked, tail off shrimp at Costco. I cut each shrimp into three pieces and then add it to a pan with heated oil. I add salt, pepper, and minced garlic to the shrimp and stir everything, simmering for only about 2 minutes. I use the pre-cooked shrimp because it is faster and more versatile, but you have to be careful not to overcook it. At this point I lower the heat and add the teriyaki sauce, simmering for about 4-5 minutes.
This is the teriyaki sauce that I typically buy. You can find it pretty much anywhere and it has a great, strong flavor. Once you add garlic to it…ohhh babay.
During this time, I am continuing to stir both the shrimp mixture and the vegetable rice mixture on low heat. Once everything has absorbed, I add the shrimp to the veggies and rice and stir everything together. At this point, I taste test and add more salt and crushed red pepper. When cooking meals like this, I start with a smaller amount of salt because the soy sauce and teriyaki sauce are both pretty salty, making it easy to accidentally over-salt the dish.
And just like that, you are ready to eat! This whole thing took less than a half hour to put together and was super filling. Be warned, between the jalapeño and the crushed red pepper, this was HOT. My fiancé was chugging iced tea and sweating bullets. I like to embrace the sweat so I decided to go with red wine. I kept seeing this brand, California Roots, at Target. It was only $5 and I never bought it because I assumed it was a cheap wine that would give me a headache. When the quarantine started, I finally said what the heck, why spend money on good wine if I am going to be drinking it alone. Gotta say, it is not bad! I have tried their Pinot Grigio and Cab so far and they’re the perfect wine for me to drink off of during the week and not feel guilty about the cost.
Plot twist, we actually sat at the table and ate like adults! Mind you, we were rocking our disheveled quarantine and sweatpants look but hey, still counts! Gus sat by us the whole time praying to the corgi gods that we would drop some food on the floor. Thank goodness we didn’t because this dinner was smokin hot and would have knocked him onto his big corgi butt! We did cave and let him sit at the table with us for a bit. I mean, c’mon with that sweet little face!
INGREDIENTS:
*These spices were distributed between the shrimp and veggie/rice mixtures to taste
5 C cooked, tail-off shrimp (or half of a Costco bag)
1/2 yellow onion
2 bell peppers
1 jalapeno
2 T vegetable oil
1 T salt
1 T pepper
3 T minced garlic (2 for veggie mixture, one to cook shrimp in)
1 T onion powder
1 T dried cilantro
1 T crushed red pepper (more or less based on heat preference)
5 T Soy Sauce
1.5 C cooked white rice
1/3 C Teriyaki Sauce
