These pickled shrimp are flavored with sundried tomatoes, black peppercorn, and dill. Prepared with crunchy vegetables and a tangy brine, they can be eaten with crackers or used to top tacos!
Good shrimp are hard to find. At least they are when you define good as them arriving to you in sustainable ways from areas that fish them responsibly.
Knowing that these type of shrimp cost more, I invested in some for a recipe that I had to develop…and they were awful. I expect because the turnover here for that type of thing is low, but either way, I won’t do that again.
So my only solution has been 1) saving shrimp eating for when we travel and 2) buying these small bay, or salad shrimp as they are often called, that I can find at the market that do have some traceability for sourcing.
It turns out that I’m kind of liking them more than larger shrimp. I’m also finding them a lot more fun to work with.
A while back I made some shrimp dips. Then they made a great addition to stuffed Hatch chiles and fried riced cauliflower.
Last year, I read a bit about pickled shrimp and I really wanted to give the idea a try. The smaller shrimp work perfectly.
The recipe uses carrot, celery, and shrimp. Then I added a few sundried tomatoes, black peppercorns, and dill. A basic brine that is more on the salty side than the sweet pickles everything together in one jar.
It’s all ready in 6 to 8 hours and it’s probably best not to let it go too much past that. At this point, everything has just enough pickled flavor and the shrimp haven’t sat in the brine so long that they are tough, just pleasantly chewy. I took the leftovers and stored them in the fridge after draining the brine to help it keep a little longer.
My first use was topping crackers and using it as a type of spread or dip. I’m thinking this would make an excellent topping, too. Tacos, nachos, and soups all come to mind. Oh, or maybe you could spoon the shrimp and veggies over a block of softened cream cheese like you do a jalapeno jelly as an appetizer.
Speaking of jalapenos, a few slices of one would be a great addition to the jar to make things a little spicy. I didn’t have one on hand, and this is delicious as is, but I can see a little heat being a positive addition.
- 1 small carrot, peeled and diced
- 1 rib of celery, diced
- 2 tablespoons diced yellow onion
- 2 tablespoons diced sundried tomatoes
- ¾ cup thawed, cooked salad shrimp
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
- 3 small sprigs fresh dill
- ¾ cup distilled white vinegar
- ¾ cup water
- 1 tablespoon fine sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon sugar
- Place the carrot, celery, onion, sundried tomatoes, shrimp, peppercorns, and dill in a pint jar.
- Heat the vinegar, water, salt, and sugar in a small saucepan over medium-high. Warm and swirl the pan until the salt and sugar dissolve.
- Pour the liquid into the jar. Seal with a lid. Shake gently to mix all ingredients. Let rest in the refrigerator 6 to 8 hours. Discard dill and peppercorns before serving.
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Get these yummy little shrimps into my mouth! 😉
They turned out great!