CHEFFIFY

3 recipes · 21 Oct 2026

What to make with shrimp

A bag of frozen shrimp is the fastest dinner in the freezer. Three ways to cook it.

Open your fridge See the recipes

Your first recipe is free. No account needed.

Shrimp, or prawns, cook in two or three minutes, so they go in last: tossed through garlic pasta, folded into fried rice, or seared quickly for tacos. Frozen raw shrimp thaw in a bowl of cold water in about 15 minutes.

Each recipe below started from a different fridge and freezer. Cheffify picked the dish and listed what is worth adding.

Classic Shrimp Scampi Linguine
AI-generated photo. Your dish will look a little different.

Classic Shrimp Scampi Linguine

  • 20 min
  • Serves 2
  • 580 kcal a serving
  • Easy
  • Italian

A quick, elegant Italian-inspired dinner that highlights fresh shrimp with a bright, garlicky butter sauce.

Save this recipe — free

Made with Cheffify’s AI from these ingredients

In the fridge shrimp, linguine, garlic, lemon, butter, parsley, chilli flakes

Used from the fridge
shrimplinguinegarliclemonbutterparsleychilli flakes
From the pantry
olive oilsaltblack pepper

Ingredients

  • 200g linguine
  • 300g shrimp
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 50g butter
  • 1 lemon
  • 2 tablespoons parsley
  • ½ teaspoon chilli flakes

Allergens: contains milk, gluten (wheat), shellfish. Check the labels on stock, sauces and spice mixes.

Calories
580 kcal
Protein
32 g
Carbs
68 g
Fat
22 g

Per serving, estimated by AI.

Method

  1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the linguine and cook according to package directions until al dente.
  2. While pasta cooks, peel and devein the shrimp. Finely mince the garlic and chop the parsley. Zest and juice the lemon.
  3. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil and half the butter over medium heat. Add the shrimp and cook until they are opaque and pink, about 2-3 minutes per side. Remove shrimp from the pan and set aside.
  4. In the same skillet, add the remaining butter, garlic, and chilli flakes. Sauté for 1 minute until fragrant but not browned.
  5. Drain the pasta, reserving a splash of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the skillet with the garlic butter. Toss in the shrimp, lemon juice, and lemon zest.
  6. Stir everything together, adding a little pasta water if it looks too dry. Season with salt and pepper to taste, toss with fresh parsley, and serve immediately.

Tip If you want to add a bit more texture, toasted breadcrumbs sprinkled on top at the very end add a wonderful crunch to this dish.

Classic Shrimp Fried Rice
AI-generated photo. Your dish will look a little different.

Classic Shrimp Fried Rice

  • 15 min
  • Serves 2
  • 530 kcal a serving
  • Easy
  • Chinese-inspired

A quick, reliable weeknight dinner that uses your leftovers perfectly. This dish comes together in minutes and is always satisfying.

Save this recipe — free

Made with Cheffify’s AI from these ingredients

In the fridge shrimp, cooked rice, frozen peas, eggs, soy sauce, spring onions

Used from the fridge
shrimpcooked ricefrozen peaseggssoy saucespring onions
From the pantry
vegetable oilgarlicsaltblack pepper

Ingredients

  • 250g shrimp
  • 400g cooked rice
  • 100g frozen peas
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 3 stalks spring onions
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Allergens: contains egg, gluten (wheat), soy, shellfish. Check the labels on stock, sauces and spice mixes.

Calories
530 kcal
Protein
28 g
Carbs
62 g
Fat
18 g

Per serving, estimated by AI.

Method

  1. Prep your ingredients: finely chop the spring onions, separating the white and green parts, and mince the garlic. If your shrimp are large, cut them into bite-sized pieces.
  2. Heat one tablespoon of oil in a large pan or wok over medium-high heat. Whisk the eggs with a pinch of salt, pour them in, and scramble quickly until set. Remove the eggs from the pan and set aside.
  3. Add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the same pan. Add the shrimp and cook until they are opaque and pink, about 2-3 minutes. Remove the shrimp from the pan.
  4. Add the garlic and the white parts of the spring onions to the pan. Sauté for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the cooked rice and frozen peas. Stir-fry for 3-4 minutes, ensuring the rice is steaming hot all the way through.
  5. Pour in the soy sauce and toss everything to combine. Return the cooked eggs and shrimp to the pan. Stir for 1 minute to heat everything through together.
  6. Remove from heat, stir in the green parts of the spring onions, and serve immediately.

Tip For the best texture, use cold, day-old rice if you have it; it fries much better than fresh, hot rice and won't turn mushy.

Quick Shrimp Tacos with Cabbage Slaw
AI-generated photo. Your dish will look a little different.

Quick Shrimp Tacos with Cabbage Slaw

  • 20 min
  • Serves 2
  • 450 kcal a serving
  • Easy
  • Mexican-inspired

These zesty shrimp tacos are a perfect weeknight dinner, pairing succulent seasoned shrimp with a crunchy, tangy red cabbage slaw and creamy avocado.

Save this recipe — free

Made with Cheffify’s AI from these ingredients

In the fridge shrimp, tortillas, red cabbage, lime, avocado, sour cream

Used from the fridge
shrimptortillasred cabbagelimeavocadosour cream
Worth buying (optional)
  • + fresh cilantro adds bright, fresh flavor
From the pantry
olive oilsaltblack peppergarlic powderchili powdercumin

Ingredients

  • 300g shrimp
  • 6 tortillas
  • 2 cups red cabbage
  • 1 lime
  • 1 avocado
  • 4 tbsp sour cream

Allergens: contains milk, gluten (wheat), shellfish. Check the labels on stock, sauces and spice mixes.

Calories
450 kcal
Protein
28 g
Carbs
35 g
Fat
22 g

Per serving, estimated by AI.

Method

  1. Thinly slice the red cabbage. In a bowl, toss the cabbage with the juice of half a lime and a pinch of salt to create a quick slaw. Set aside.
  2. Pat the shrimp dry. Season them well with salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, and cumin.
  3. Heat a splash of oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp in a single layer and cook for 2-3 minutes per side until they are opaque and cooked through.
  4. While the shrimp cook, warm the tortillas in a clean pan or directly over a low gas flame for 30 seconds per side.
  5. Slice the avocado. Assemble the tacos by layering the cabbage slaw, shrimp, and avocado slices onto the warm tortillas. Top each with a dollop of sour cream and a squeeze of the remaining lime.

Tip For the best texture, slice your red cabbage as thinly as you can—a vegetable peeler or a mandoline works wonders if you have one.

Swaps

Missing something, or cooking for a different diet? These work in the recipes above.

Cooked shrimp
Just warm them through at the end for a minute, or they go rubbery.
Shellfish allergy
Use firm white fish or chicken breast cut small, cooked until done.
No linguine
Any long pasta works; spaghetti is closest.

What to buy to finish it

Every recipe works with what it lists. These optional extras are what Cheffify suggested to lift each one.

Pantry basics these recipes assume

olive oilsaltblack peppervegetable oilgarlicgarlic powderchili powdercumin

Good to know

  • Shrimp are cooked when the flesh is pearly and opaque all the way through, and they curl into a loose C. FoodSafety.gov: safe minimum internal temperatures
  • Thaw frozen shrimp in a sealed bag in cold water, or overnight in the fridge, never on the counter.

Got something else?

Tell Cheffify what’s in your fridge. It picks what goes together, writes the recipe and tells you what it left out. Your first recipe is free, with no account needed.

Open your fridge

How these recipes were made

Each recipe started as the fridge list shown with it. Cheffify’s AI (the same Chef’s Pick you get in the app) chose what goes together and wrote the recipe on 21 Oct 2026, and an image model made the photo. We read every recipe before publishing, but they haven’t been tested in a test kitchen. Times and nutrition are estimates, and the allergen notes only cover the listed ingredients.

More things to make

Choosing a fridge-to-dinner app?