The Must-Have Appetizer for Every Festive Occasion

Around the world, there are a million great ideas for combining seafood and bacon, but none is quite so iconic—at least for American cocktail parties—as bacon-wrapped shrimp. On paper, wrapping bacon around shrimp is unquestionably a great idea, but in practice this particular union of the two ingredients is a marriage with some pitfalls. Too often, cooking these ingredients together results in flabby bacon and/or dry, chewy shrimp. Is a no-fault—or both’s fault—divorce the only option? We voted, instead, for mediation and called in our Birmingham-based colleague Nicole Hopper to apply her recipe developing skills to help build a stronger union between these two big-personality ingredients.

One of the biggest potential issues with bacon-wrapped shrimp is that in the time it takes for the bacon to get pleasantly crispy, the shrimp often overcooks. Nicole’s recipe attacks this problem on multiple fronts. The first tactic is choosing the right size of shrimp and the correct cut of bacon. After testing multiple configurations, Nicole found that extra-jumbo shrimp (15/17) and standard-thickness—not thick-cut—bacon work best for this recipe. Not only does this combo cook at an amiable rate, but the very large shrimp are easier to wrap with one whole piece; you should be able to double-wrap each shrimp with one slice of bacon, which gives you good coverage without overwhelming the shrimp as thick-cut bacon would. Center-cut is also less fatty than other cuts, which means each bite is meaty.

The next tool in Nicole’s shellfish toolbox is dry-brining the shrimp in a simple mixture of salt and baking soda. As Serious Eats Associate Editor Yasmine explains in her article about why you should dry brine shrimp, salt and the higher pH environment created by baking soda help shrimp retain moisture by interfering with how well proteins can bond with each other during cooking. When proteins can’t bond as efficiently, less moisture is squeezed out of the shrimp, leaving them plumper and juicier when they’re done.

Another key is not to cook the shrimp for too long, since even dry-brined shrimp will get rubbery eventually if overcooked. “It’s not much of a secret, but the biggest thing you can do to keep shrimp juicy is just to ensure that you don’t overcook them,” says Nicole. That’s where pre-cooking the bacon comes in. So while the shrimp brine, you’ll jumpstart the bacon by cooking it on a wire rack in a sheet pan in the oven until it’s just starting to brown but still pliable enough to wrap around the raw, seasoned shrimp.

After that, they go back on that same rack in the same baking sheet you used to cook the bacon (fewer pans to wash!) and brush them with a simple glaze of soy sauce and hot honey. Nicole initially tested the shrimp without the glaze but was not satisfied with the results. “They definitely need a glaze,” she says. “They both look and eat a bit dry and plain without it.” We like the slight spicy kick that hot honey, such as Mike’s, gives the shrimp and the fact that it’s a two-in-one product, but if you don’t have hot honey on hand you can simply add a few dashes of vinegar-based hot sauce (such as Tabasco) to the honey or omit the spice entirely. 

The saltiness and umami of soy sauce play wonderfully with the sweet, slightly spicy honey, and the glaze becomes beautifully caramelized when broiled, yielding edges of bacon that are extra crispy and glossy. About that broiling—our recipe is actually a combination of baking and broiling, as Nicole found in her tests that starting with baking and then finishing in the broiler and glazing at every flip produced the best results, ensuring that the shrimp and bacon are properly cooked and the glaze is caramelized but not singed. “It’s a little more hands on, but the bacon came out nicely crisped with this method, while the shrimp remained juicy and snappy,” she says. 

The final touch is a sprinkle of chives and a squeeze of lime, which adds a bit of brightness that complements the richness of the bacon and sweet glaze. Each shrimp is a two-to-three bite affair, making for a satisfying passed hors d’ouvres that could also be served as an appetizer or entrée for a sit-down meal.

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