Cilantro Lime Shrimp

This cilantro lime shrimp is a healthy, easy dinner recipe that takes just 10 minutes! Serve with rice, in tacos, or as a Mexican-style salad topping.

What’s better than shrimp for dinner? It’s healthy, easy to cook, and delicious: making it the triple threat of weeknight cooking! And here’s our new favorite way to cook it: Cilantro Lime Shrimp! This recipe takes only 10 minutes to make and comes out beautifully tangy and fresh! It pairs perfectly with Mexican-style flavors: serve it with rice, an avocado salad, or in tacos. Or make it into a main dish salad topped with our cilantro dressing. Here’s how to make it!

What’s in this cilantro lime shrimp?

This cilantro lime shrimp is packed with zingy flavor: and it takes less than 10 minutes to put together! Alex and I served it recently with green rice and homemade guacamole and it was an incredibly satisfying healthy dinner recipe! All you need is a handful of ingredients:

Large shrimp Fresh or frozen, peeled or unpeeled, tail on or removed; deveined is preferable!
Lime juice & zest Use both juice and zest to get the best zingy flavor
Cilantro
Butter or olive oil Both have great flavor; butter is slightly more savory, oil works for dairy-free
Fresh garlic
Cumin & cayenne

All you have to do is heat the oil, toss in the shrimp, lime juice and zest, and saute for 1 to 2 minutes per side until opaque. Easy peasy! Head to the full recipe to make it!

Step it up: serve with cilantro sauce!

This cilantro lime shrimp comes out with a zesty, fresh flavor. If you want to step it up even more and add an even great cilantro flavor: might we suggest serving with cilantro sauce? Here are two sauces that would be just perfect for dipping or drizzling on top:

Creamy Cilantro Dressing Tastes incredible! It takes just 5 minutes and you’ll want to use it on everything: salads, tacos, fries, and more.
Easy Cilantro Lime Dressing Fast to whip up and its zesty flavor is perfect: also this one is dairy free!
Shrimp Taco Sauce This sauce is basically a cilantro ranch dressing: it amps the cilantro flavor to the next level!

Cilantro lime dressing — Try it with Creamy Cilantro Dressing!

Ways to serve cilantro lime shrimp

This recipe is so versatile: it’s hard to know where to begin! Our favorite is simply to add rice and a salad. But there are so many creative ways to serve it, based on whether it’s a quick weeknight meal or a dinner party! Here are all our favorite ways to serve cilantro lime shrimp!

With Rice and Tomato & Avocado Salad
With Black Beans and Rice
With Mexican Chopped Salad (or atop the salad to turn it into a main dish!)
In Shrimp Tacos
With Homemade Tortilla Chips and Simple Guacamole
With Black Bean Salad
In Lettuce Wraps
With Elote (Mexican Street Corn)
With Classic Margaritas or Cadillac Margaritas
With Homemade Refried Beans

A good lime juicer and zester

This recipe uses lime juice and lime zest to get big flavor! What are the best tools for the jobs? Here’s what we’ve found are the best tools for juicing and zesting citrus:

Use a juicer. Alex and I use a juicer to quickly juice limes. Here’s the juicer we use: it works great!
For zesting, use a microplane or grater. A microplane makes quick work of zesting! If you don’t have one, use the fine holes on a box grater. For more info, here’s How to Zest a Lime.

Is shrimp healthy?

One medium shrimp has only 7 calories, making it a great low-calorie way to a healthy dinner! Shrimp are part of a healthy Mediterranean-style diet. (Here’s more on shrimp nutrition.) The calories & protein in shrimp are as follows:

1 medium shrimp = 7 calories, 1 gram protein
1 jumbo shrimp = 14 calories, 1.5 grams protein

How to thaw frozen shrimp

You can definitely use frozen shrimp for this recipe: it’s not necessarily better than fresh! In facto, if shrimp is frozen right when it’s caught and stays frozen, it’s fresher than fresh fish that has been transported for days. How to thaw frozen shrimp? There are a few different options:

Day before: If you think ahead, simply place the frozen shrimp in the refrigerator overnight.
Day of: Place the frozen shrimp into a bowl with cold water. Let a small trickle of cold water run into the bowl to keep the water moving. The shrimp should be defrosted in about 15 minutes.

This cilantro lime shrimp recipe is…

Gluten-free, dairy-free (with olive oil) and pescatarian.