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Every time we visit Holden Beach, we go buy 50 pounds of local North Carolina shrimp from Mitchell’s Seafood. We de-head all of it package it into gallon freezer bags and freeze it in our Hobbs Realty vacation rental while we enjoy the rest of our week at the beach.
North Carolina Shrimp
When it’s time to come home, we load those frozen bags into a marine-grade Igloo cooler, and we check that baby onto the airplane just like an extra suitcase. Knock on wood for the day the airline misplaces it, but so far all has been fine and every time, it stays frozen until we arrive home.
We love watching the fishermen unload it off the boat at the docks. The photo above is a quick peek at what 50 pounds of shrimp looked like in the sink before we de-headed and bagged them! Then, we go home with a year’s supply of amazing shrimp.
So Many Ways to Enjoy Shrimp!
I feel about shrimp the same way Bubba did in Forrest Gump. There truly are SO many ways to enjoy shrimp! Toward the end of the clip, shrimp burgers made his list. What a great movie.
Shrimp Burgers
Most of the time when we cook shrimp, we leave the peel on them and cook them that way – it gives them more flavor, and some awesome broth to use for something else. The other day though, we took a bag of shrimp out of the freezer and decided to make some shrimp burgers. For the shrimp burgers, you want to cook the shrimp after you chop it and put it into your “burger” mixture – so I peeled them while raw for this recipe.
I used my Taylor Stainless Steel Analog Kitchen Scale so I could tell you that I used 1 1/4 pounds of shrimp before peeling, and after peeling it was right at 1 pound. Then, I chopped them up. Next time I would chop them a bit more than I did in the photo here. (That’s a Rada Paring Knife – they are made in the USA and they work so great!
Air Fryer Fries
Meanwhile, I cut a few potatoes with my french fry cutter and got them soaking in some water. Check out the full process I use to make homemade Air Fryer Fries. My fry cutter is from Pampered Chef but was discontinued, you can get a similar one here.
For the finely diced onion that gets added to the chopped shrimp, I like to use my Pampered Chef Manual Food Processor Chopper. This was about 1/4 cup when I was done chopping it.
So, once you have your shrimp and onions chopped, just mix them up with 1 large egg, 1/4 cup of unseasoned bread crumbs, and 1/4 cup of unseasoned Panko crumbs (I like to use both for texture purposes, but you could use 1/2 cup of whichever kind you prefer if you’d rather), 1 Tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp dried parsley flakes, 1/2 tsp Old Bay Seasoning, and 1/2 tsp Penzeys roasted garlic powder. You can, of course, use any kind of garlic powder you would like, but I highly recommend Penzeys!
Cooking the Shrimp Burgers
Preheat your pan to medium heat with 2 Tbsp of butter. You can use the cooking oil of your choice if you prefer, but we cook seafood with butter in our house. Divide the mixture into four equal parts and gently place the patties into the pan. (Mine ended up being about 1/2 cup plus a tablespoon or so per patty.)
Depending on your stove and temperature, the first side will cook for about 5-7 minutes before flipping. Be patient and make sure you don’t flip them too soon, or they will fall apart. (I’m guilty of this.)
While that first side is cooking, you can prep your toppings – I used a sliced avocado, a sliced tomato, some butter lettuce, and Peruvian Green Sauce. Tartar sauce would also work here!
We have a local farmer who starts growing tomatoes with a hydroponic system in the middle of the winter here, so we can buy fresh tomatoes from him usually by April. It’s so nice to have access to local and delicious tomatoes a few months before we have our own!
Once your shrimp burgers are ready to flip, the second side will also cook for about 5-7 minutes. See below what happens when you turn the first burger too soon. Don’t be like Darcy. When the shrimp is visibly pink and both sides are toasted, they are done. I put some grated Asiago cheese on them in the last couple of minutes of cooking time.
And, voila! Shrimp burgers with Air Fryer Fries! A lower carb alternative would be shrimp burgers on a big garden or cobb salad (no hamburger bun or fries.) I might try this with that one messy one that didn’t like getting flipped.
I hope you enjoy it! If you make these, let me know how you liked them in the comments!
Shrimp Burgers
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 pounds raw, unpeeled shrimp, finely chopped (1 pound once peeled)
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 1/4 cup yellow onion, finely diced
- 1/4 cup bread crumbs, unseasoned
- 1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs, unseasoned
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp dried parsley flakes
- 1/2 tsp Old Bay seasoning
- 1/2 tsp Penzeys roasted garlic powder (or garlic powder of your choice)
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 1-2 Tbsp fresh grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
- Fresh tomato slice, avocado, lettuce
- 4 hamburger buns
Instructions
- First, you will want to peel and de-vein your raw shrimp. When that is done, you will finely chop the shrimp. It is important to get it quite fine, or you may have issues with them staying together when you cook them.
- Mix the finely chopped raw shrimp with the beaten egg, finely diced onion, bread crumbs, lemon juice, parsley flakes, Old Bay seasoning, and the garlic powder.
- Preheat a nonstick skillet or griddle to medium heat, and melt the butter in the pan. We cook seafood with butter in our house, but you could use oil here if you prefer.
- Divide the shrimp mixture into four equal amounts - for me, each burger was about 1/2 cup plus a tablespoon or so. Gently put the burgers into the preheated pan. It is very important not to flip them too soon, so be patient. These do have a tendency to fall apart if you aren't patient and gentle with them.
- Depending on your stove and temperature, the first side will cook for 5-7 minutes prior to flipping. Flip gently, and cook the other side an additional 5-7 minutes. You will see the shrimp turning pink as they cook. A couple of minutes before the end of cooking time, sprinkle the burgers with the grated fresh Parmesan or Romano cheese.
- When they are done, serve on a bun with tomato, avocado, and lettuce. I also had some Peruvian Green Sauce (recipe linked in the notes below) on mine, but a tartar sauce variety of your choice would also be good.
- We made homemade air fryer french fries to go on the side of our shrimp burgers. I'll also link that recipe in the notes below.
Notes
Peruvian Green Sauce
Air Fryer French Fries A lower carb option for this meal would be to have the shrimp burgers on a garden or cobb salad instead of the hamburger bun and fries.
