Paleo Roasted Lemon Garlic Shrimp

One of my go-to BBQ recipes is Roasted Lemon Garlic Shrimp. It is a great make-ahead dish for feeding a crowd.

“BBQ?” you say, “shouldn’t these shrimp be made on the grill, not roasted?” Well, actually you could skewer and grill them, and you may want to go that route if you don’t have a lot of guests and the shrimp is the main attraction.

I usually have a LOT of people at my BBQs, including a large assortment of hungry teenagers, so a few shrimp kabobs aint gonna cut it. If you are like me, and your grill space is typically taken up with the steaks, ribs, and other assorted meats, you may prefer the no fuss method of dumping these shrimp onto a cookie sheet and roasting for a few minutes before calling the hoards to eat.

Another thing that makes this a great party recipe is that the shrimp can be served hot, at room temperature, or even cold! Follow my make-ahead instructions, and it is a breeze to get this crowd-pleasing dish out on the buffet table.

A note about garlic breath: There are a lot of lemon and garlic shrimp recipes out there, but many of them taste like lemon and GARLIC shrimp. That’s because shrimp cooks so quickly, if you don’t pre-cook the garlic it will still be raw when the shrimp is ready. I like the sweet nutty flavor of the sautéed garlic in this recipe, and my husband likes that when I eat it, I don’t turn into a weapon that will ward off vampires… win-win!

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Roasted Lemon Garlic Shrimp

Ingredients

• 2 lbs shelled and deveined shrimp with tails on
• 4 tbs pasture-raised grass-fed butter (or ghee or additional olive oil)
• 4 tbs olive oil plus enough to prepare the baking sheets
• Zest and juice of one lemon I love to use a microplane for zest
• 3 Tbs garlic cloves finely chopped about 8 cloves
• 2 tsp kosher salt not table salt unless you want it too salty!
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
• I recommend using organic ingredients when possible.

Instructions

• Sauté garlic and lemon zest in butter and olive oil, over medium low heat, for 5 minutes, or until garlic begins to become fragrant and brown slightly. Be careful not to burn the garlic.
• Take pan off the heat and add salt, pepper, lemon juice, red pepper flakes.
• While the marinade is cooling, shell, devein, and rinse your shrimp, then pat them dry.
• When the marinade has cooled, but is still liquid, pour mixture over shrimp and marinate for 20 minutes to an hour (not longer or the lemon juice will start to “cook” the shrimp).
• Preheat oven to 425.
• Evenly disperse the shrimp onto the two cookie sheets lined with parchment paper and roast until they are opaque and pink. They cook fast, like minutes fast, so you have to really watch them! In my gas convection oven, they finish cooking in three minutes (seriously).
• Garnish with chopped parsley and serve.
• Make-ahead instructions:
• Shell, devein, and rinse your shrimp. Pat dry and place in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
• Prepare the marinade as described above and place in a separate airtight container in the refrigerator.
• minutes before you plan to roast the shrimp, remove marinade and heat until it becomes liquid, (I zap it in the microwave for a minute). Contents may have separated, so give it a quick stir. Pour marinade over the shrimp and place back in the fridge to marinate. Don’t forget to leave time to preheat your oven!
• Follow roasting directions above…