Freaking Fast Sautéed Shrimp with Zucchini
This sautéed shrimp with zucchini showcases natural sweetness of shrimps and zucchini. The addition of garlic and lemon juice makes the dish flavorful and delicious. It is a quick and easy one-pan meal for busy days.
Zucchini is my favorite summer squash. This sautéed shrimp dish is a great way to use zucchini in stir-fries. Besides, it’s such a great dish for busy weeknights because:
- Few and simple ingredients: you need shrimp, zucchini, garlic, lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper – only 7 ingredients. Two optional ingredients to enhance the flavor are parsley and butter.
- One pan meal: you only need to use one pan to cook it.
- It’s easy to make and it takes 15 minutes to prep and cook. Yes, very fast! You can see how quick and easy it is to cook the dish in the video below.
- It’s delicious with the natural sweetness of shrimp and zucchini.
Shrimp cooks really fast and goes well with a lot of vegetables in stir-fries. That’s why I usually have some shrimp in the freezer for those busy nights in the week.
Recipe Video
How to Make Sautéed Shrimp with Zucchini
This sautéed shrimp with zucchini comes together very quickly so it’s best to have all ingredients ready before cooking.
My recommendation is to roll-cut the zucchini to match the thickness of the shrimp. That way, the zucchini soaks up the flavor better while retaining a crisp texture. Roll-cutting is a great technique to prep cylindrical vegetables for stir-fries and stews. If that sounds like too much work, just cutting into regular thin slices is fine too. Slice in half lengthwise and then slice thinly.
In this dish as well as in many other stir-fries, we cook the protein and the vegetables separately. After that, we sauté shrimp, zucchini, and garlic together to add that garlicky flavor.
Before finishing, we add lemon juice to brighten the dish. Finally, throw in butter and parsley (if using) with plenty of black pepper.
I’d love to hear what you think about the dish, so please feel free to leave a comment. New recipes are added every week so let’s connect on Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram for the latest updates.
Sautéed Shrimp with Zucchini
Ingredients
- 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1 teaspoon salt, divided
- black pepper
- 2 medium to large zucchinis (about 12 oz)
- olive oil
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon butter, optional
- 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice (about half a lemon)
- finely chopped parsley, optional (or other herbs)
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl, add shrimp, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and plenty of black pepper. Mix thoroughly.
- Roll-cut zucchinis to match the thickness of the shrimp. Also prep all other ingredients.
- Place a pan over medium-medium high heat. When pan is hot, add oil and then add shrimp in one layer and let them cook undisturbed for a minute. Flip and cook the other side until develop nice colors and shrimps are almost cooked through. Transfer to a plate.
- To the same pan, add a little more olive oil and then add zucchini. Sauté, stir frequently for a couple of minutes and add 3/4 teaspoon of salt and pepper (or to taste).
- Add shrimp back to the pan, and add garlic. Mix and sauté briefly until garlic is fragrant. If using butter, add it now and mix until butter is melted.
- When everything is cooked through, pour lemon juice over. Give everything a quick toss to combine and then transfer to a serving bowl. Sprinkle parsley and serve hot immediately.
Video
Nutrition
Note: The recipe was originally published on May 22th, 2017. It was updated on July 17th, 2018 with better photos and step-by-step instructions. The photo below is the old one I took and you can see that it doesn’t do a good job of portraying this dish :).
Did you leave the tails one? Isn’t it better when they are off??
Hi Sally,
I left them on just because the dish looked prettier to me that way. You can peel them off and it won’t affect the taste of the dish at all.
Simple, tasty and quick. I used a small zucchini and a small yellow summer squash instead of all zucchini. My husband loved it and he’s not a zucchini fan. I’ll make this one again.
Recipe looks amazing but why is the sodium so high – 2992 mg (WOW more than a days worth of sodium) ??
Hi Mary Ann,
Thank you for catching that! The nutrition calculation is done automatically by the recipe card plugin, over which I don’t really have much control. The amount of sodium per serving in this recipe is clearly not anywhere near the result the plugin displayed. This dish isn’t salty, and please feel free to season it to your liking :).
Fantastic recipe
Thank you so much for the feedback! I’m glad to hear that.
Really easy, really quick, really enjoyably good! Even learned the easy roll cut from a link in story. Used thawed raw shrimp, and peeled zucchini. Fresh cracked pepper, Himalayan salt and added a touch of ghee to olive oil. Finished with Finlandia salted, grass fed butter. For start I ate it on top of a slice of brioche bread. Heavenly…
Thank you for sharing how you cooked the dish and I’m glad that you liked how it turned out. It sounds really delicious.
Super easy and very delicious! Great for this time of year when there are zukes coming out of our ears! ha ha!
Thanks for the recipe!
I was going to take a picture of the final dish, but it got inhaled!
Thank you so much for the feedback! So happy to know it turned out delicious. I would love to see a picture of the final dish if you make it again :).
This was outstanding and so easy to make. A regular on the menu for sure.
Hi Charles,
Thank you so much for the positive feedback! I’m very happy to hear that.
This was delicious. Going to be a weekly thing for us. Thanks for the recipe.
Hi Linda! I’m very glad that you enjoyed the dish. It is such a quick and tasty dish to add to weekly meal rotation. Thank you for the comment!
I’m sure fish sauce will make it delicious :)!
I’m going to make this tonight but add garlic and fish sauce! I’ll let you know how it turns out. Thanks for the idea!