SHRIMP & BROCCOLI WITH ORANGE SAUCE

Shrimp & Broccoli with homemade Orange Sauce

Turn a pound of shrimp into a meal in about 20 minutes, with this shrimp and broccoli stir fry with homemade asian orange sauce. The sweet and savory sauce is made with only 4 everyday ingredients.

Your shrimp, broccoli and homemade orange sauce can be dressed up on a platter for a special occasion but also looks bright and appetizing on your dinnerplate any weeknight. It tastes delicious and makes the most of a few simple ingredients. In less than a half hour you can bring Asian flavor to your table with homemade goodness, lots of flavor and a fraction of the cost of take-out.

Here’s what YOU WILL NEED:

Things to think about when buying shrimp

When buying shrimp by the pound, you will find that the number of shrimp you get from 16 ounces can vary. If you are buying shrimp from the seafood counter at your grocery store, you can see what size you are buying. But if you are purchasing shrimp in the frozen seafood section, it isn’t as easy to tell. The labeling on the bag will usually state what size the shrimp is, but that is pretty subjective.

How big is it ?

It seems everything these days is being described as bigger, better, improved or all new. Having been around for more than a few years, I find it kind of amusing when a product I have used for years, has been marketed as “improved” time and time again, yet it has never really changed. I can’t help but think that the flip side of their repeated braggard boasts of having improved the product, actually implies it must have been pretty darned flawed in the beginning 😂. Such is the story of shrimp. There was a time when jumbo shrimp were pretty big. Maybe 5 inches long, including the tail, and about an inch and a half or two inches around. Now, frozen shrimp marked as colossal, are smaller than those jumbo shrimp of yesteryear.

So how do you know how much to buy ?

Thankfully, it seems that most companies selling bagged frozen shrimp have come up with a less subjective way to let you know the size of shrimp. The bag will tell you how many shrimp per pound you can expect to get. There will be a guestimate range. The bag of frozen shrimp used in this post was marked as having 21-25 shrimp per pound, which they had labeled as large.

When I know the number of shrimp per pound, I know that if I am planning on feeding 4 people with this stir fry, everyone will get 5 or 6 shrimp. I like having a good ratio of shrimp to other ingredients in a dish.

What else you should know about buying shrimp

Always use uncooked shrimp for this recipe. Some of the flavor is going to come from the shrimp as it cooks. Whether you are using fresh or frozen uncooked shrimp, the more cleaned they are when you buy them, the less time it will take to bring this meal to the table. Preparing the shrimp for cooking is, by far, the most time consuming part of making this dinner recipe. So, if you have the money to splurge on pre-cleaned shrimp, go for it. As one would guess, the more cleaning that is done for you, the more you will pay.

Peeled, deveined, with tails what does it all mean

So, what does it mean when we say the shrimp have been cleaned?

The “shell” of a raw shrimp is a translucent milky color and it needs to be removed before it is cooked. It’s flimsy and easy to break and peel off. If the shrimp is being sold as peeled, it means that shell has been taken off.

Also, look to see if the shrimp has been deveined. When you look at an uncooked shrimp, you might see a dark stripe running the length of the body. This is the “vein”. It is edible, but it is kind of pronounced and doesn’t look too appealing. I never buy shrimp that has not been “deveined”. It is just too much trouble to do it myself. There is a tool made to make it an easier task, but it still takes too much time and trouble for me. If you already bought shrimp with the vein in, take a small knife and slice the shrimp along the line of the vein and pull it out with the tip of the knife.

Finally, some shrimp will come with the tail on, and some will have the tail removed already. Except for appearance, you sacrifice nothing by getting shrimp with the tail already off. If you bought them with tails, and you don’t want them, it’s really easy to pluck the tail off. For our pictures, we have used shrimp with the tail left on. The plated meal is more eye catching that way, because the tails show off their beautiful color when cooked. if you are not trying to wow the crowd, there is no denying it is easier to eat shrimp when served, if the tail has been removed.

Sesame seed oil, worth the investment

We are using sesame seed oil for this sauté. Ricky uses it in some of his recipes to change up the flavor. It is especially good when paired with other ingredients that enhance an Asian flavor profile.

It is more expensive than some other oils, but you don’t need much. One small bottle lasts each of us quite a while. We use olive oil in most all our cooking, which isn’t the cheapest oil either. But the flavor and health benefits of olive oil, compared to less expensive oils, far outweighs the difference in cost as far as we are concerned. And the same is true for us with sesame oil. The oil you are cooking with is not insignificant. It is an ingredient. It adds flavor and has a food value.

For your homemade orange sauce

Our homemade Asian orange sauce is so much better than the bottled orange sauce in the Asian section of your grocery store. And it’s made at a fraction of the cost, with everyday ingredients. We use orange marmalade for a fresh orange taste and a little bit of apple cider to temper the sweetness. The Asian flavor profile comes from soy sauce, ginger and the sesame seed oil used in the sauté. Our homemade orange sauce is delicious with this shrimp and broccoli pairing but is also great with chicken, scallops, white fish and salmon too!

This is WHAT TO DO:

Peel and devein the shrimp if you didn’t buy it with those things already done.

Chop the broccoli in bite sized pieces. For more information about preparing broccoli check out our tidbit post Preparing Broccoli.

Mix together the orange marmalade, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce and fresh or ground ginger.

This dish cooks up quickly so it is especially important to have your ingredients ready. Want to read more about why it’s important to prepare Our Formula: Prep time = Time saved, Get Ready to Be Ready, Ready….Set….Prep.

Prepare the rice or noodles

Decide what you are going to use to serve as a bed for the stir fry, and prepare it enough ahead so that it will be done before or within the 7 to 10 minutes it will take to cook the skillet ingredients. We have used brown rice as the bed for our shrimp with orange sauce.

Ricky usually cooks raw rice right out of the bag. That takes about 45- 50 minutes. I use a boil-in-bag brown rice that is done in 8 minutes. That is a short cut that I will take advantage of. As always, it is a little more expensive, but it is a cost I can live with if I am making a quick recipe, and rice is not the main ingredient.

Now we are ready to get cooking

Warm up a large skillet on medium high heat, then pour in enough sesame seed oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Add the broccoli when the oil is warm. You are going to give the broccoli a head start because shrimp cooks up really quickly. Stir frequently throughout the cooking process.

When the broccoli is just about as tender as you want it, which should be from 5 to 7 minutes depending on the size of the pieces, add the shrimp to the hot pan. Let the shrimp cook for about 3 minutes at that point it will have lost the translucent look and will start looking pinkish orange and white.

Add the orange sauce you have already mixed together, turn the heat down to medium and cook until the shrimp are fully cooked which should take about 2 more minutes.

Don’t over cook your shrimp

Tasting is the best way to determine if the shrimp is done. If the shrimp are mushy they are not cooked enough but they get tough if you cook it them too long. With a practiced eye, you will know it is done by looking at it. When your shrimp is done remember that cooking doesn’t stop as soon as you take the skillet from the heat. Don’t leave the cooked shrimp sitting in a hot skillet for any length of time. You want to be ready to serve your shrimp and broccoli with orange sauce when it comes off the heat.

Want to get fancy ?

As a final touch, take a navel orange and grate some of the zest from the outside and cut some wedges. It’s not just for dressing up the dish. Fresh orange zest and/or some fresh orange juice squeezed over a single serving really, really gives a burst of freshness to the dish.

Serve your shrimp and broccoli with orange sauce

So here we are, in about 20 minutes, you have a meal fit for a king!