BBQ Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp
Want something fun and delicious for this weekend? BBQ. Bacon. Shrimp. Need I say more?
This is one of my family’s favorite appetizers. Easy enough to prepare while we watch football and fancy enough to serve as an appetizer for a holiday meal. And delicious! These delicious flavors just melt into each other. You really can’t eat just one. . . !
You can use fresh or frozen shrimp – I love to use Key West Pink Shrimp – the bigger the better! I usually make about 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of shrimp but you can adjust this recipe easily since there are really only three ingredients (shrimp, bacon and barbecue sauce!) Peel and devein the shrimp and set aside.
Many recipes that include bacon are better if the bacon is semi-cooked before you add it. This is definitely the case for this recipe. Partially cooking the bacon gets rid of excess grease. I do have a favorite way to cook bacon – here is a picture of my ceramic bacon cooker.
I seriously love this ceramic bacon cooker. I put a paper towel over the bacon/cooker and cook in the microwave for about 3 minutes. Super easy cleanup (pour out the grease and throw cooker in the dishwasher) and a perfect way to cook bacon. You can cook it completely for eating too – crisp and delicious!
So this is what I did. Top cooker and bacon with a paper towel and cook in the microwave. I cooked the bacon 2 1/2 minutes (8 strips at a time) for this recipe since I didn’t want it crisp or fully cooked. Normally it’s about 30 seconds for each bacon strip on the cooker. It holds about 8 strips, so it would be about 4 minutes to cook bacon fully. It varies based on microwave strength so keep an eye on it. If you’re cooking bacon any other way, just make sure to only cook it partially. You’ll get rid of excess grease and the bacon will crisp nicely when you cook the wrapped shrimp.
(I am including my highlighted amazon affiliate link below so you can have the bacon cooker in your kitchen, too – no price difference for you but if you buy through my link, they drop a buck or two into my account to encourage me to keep blogging! ☺)
So Here’s What You Do Now:
I use about half a strip of bacon for each shrimp. You may want to adjust this – it’s really just about how much bacon you want on your shrimp! (Sometimes the bacon strips are wide enough to split it into two strips so each strip will wrap 4 shrimp). Wrap the shrimp with bacon, tucking in ends under the shrimp so they stay wrapped while cooking. If you love bacon more than life itself, you can wrap the entire slice around a shrimp. Make ‘em the way you love ‘em!
Brush each bacon-wrapped shrimp with barbecue sauce. A sweet sauce works well – the sweetness is perfect with the bacon/shrimp combo and I’ve found that an otherwise almost-too-sweet sauce is sometimes perfect for cooking. My favorite is a South Dakota sauce that I pick up or order from Amazon – another affiliate link below. It’s sweet and delicious and is thick enough that it doesn’t run off. You can use a little or a lot of barbecue sauce – it’s all about the way you like it!
Perfect “South Dakota Barbecue Sauce”
For best results, I cook the shrimp on a rack. Use the low broiler setting – watching it carefully so that the bacon doesn’t burn. You can brush on more sauce as it’s cooking, if needed. Cook until shrimp is done and bacon is crisp. This should take less than 15 minutes. When shrimp is properly cooked, the exterior should be pink and the flesh is slightly opaque and a little “white” in color. If it is bright white in color, there’s a good chance the shrimp are overcooked.
Serve immediately. I have found that they reheat well (toaster oven or oven – not microwave) if you by chance have any leftovers. Just don’t count on any leftovers. . . .
