Shrimp Cocktail Is So Much Better When You Cook Those Juicy Crustaceans This Way

When cooking the main ingredient for shrimp cocktail, the default method is poaching in simmering water. While you can flavor the poaching liquid with lemons, herbs, salt, and other aromatics, it's difficult to inject much flavor into the tiny proteins due to their short cooking time. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to upgrade a shrimp cocktail. Alton Brown adds liquid smoke to his shrimp cocktail sauce, and Ina Garten roasts her shrimp for a luxurious, tender shrimp cocktail. While those are great twists on the classic dish, we're here to encourage you to grill the shrimp for your next shrimp cocktail. 

Grilling shrimp allows you to impart more flavor strictly from the charring of the shrimp and the smoke of the grill itself, whether you use a charcoal or a gas grill. You can season the shrimp with just salt and lemon, or take the opportunity to pump even more flavor into the shrimp by letting them marinate for about 30 minutes, or even up to overnight. If marinating, keep in mind that a highly acidic marinade will cook the crustaceans, so only marinate in acids for a short time period.

Shrimp can be grilled shell-on or peeled, but cooked shrimp are usually easier to peel than raw shrimp. The only drawback to cooking the shrimp with their shells still on is that they won't have the same distinct grill marks that peeled shrimp will have. Leave the very tips of the tails on for guests to grab with, but make sure to include a small dish alongside for the discarded tails.

You can grill the individual shrimp loose on the grill, but be mindful when flipping them as a few might be likely to fall through the grates, depending on the width of the space between your grill grates. Other options to easily grill shrimp are to use a fish or vegetable grilling basket so the shrimp are contained inside, or to thread a few shrimp each on long skewers for ease of grilling. If outdoor grilling isn't an option, you can always use a grill pan indoors over high heat to get those nice char marks on the shrimp.

After grilling, allow the shrimp to cool to room temperature before transferring them to the refrigerator to chill. The cooked shrimp should be kept chilled even when serving for an optimal eating experience, and the best way to do this is to place your serving platter on top of a shallow bowl of ice. If that's not an option, make sure to chill the serving platter beforehand, and serve less shrimp at a time and refill the platter periodically with cold shrimp directly from the refrigerator. Take your grilled shrimp cocktail to dizzying heights by serving it on an elevated cake stand a la Martha Stewart.