Beer Battered Fried Shrimp are crispy with a special flavor. Get the easy recipe and find out the best type of beer to use fried shrimp batter batter.
Shrimp doesn’t get any better than when you combine a better batter with fresh shrimp. Cooking beer battered fried shrimp can be done in less than 30 minutes! Simply mix together flour, beer, and seasonings. Coat the shrimp with batter and fry until perfectly cooked and crispy. Is Beer Batter the Same as a Tempura Batter?
What beer is best for beer batter? Frying shrimp takes no time at all to do. This beer battered shrimp is super delicious and easy to make. If you’ve never had beer battered shrimp before, you don’t know what you are missing. Don’t worry if you are someone who can’t particularly appreciate the hoppy goodness of a brew, very little of the beer’s actual flavor comes through. But what you are left with is a crispy and airy breading that is to die for. The next time you get your hands on fresh, large shrimp, you owe it yourself to try this awesome fried shrimp recipe.
Tempura batter, a traditional Japanese-style batter, the type you find in your favorite sushi restaurant, is nothing like beer batter. Real tempura batter is only rice flour and icy water. The confusion that tempura and beer batter are similar may come from the popular tempura cooking hack of substituting seltzer for the tap water. It is not just the carbonation factor that is the only difference between the two types of batters. Without getting overly technical, the alcohol in the beer batter for this fried shrimp recipe not only helps to break up the gluten in the flour but evaporates quicker than water. This chemical reaction means that you end up with crisper breading and faster cooking shrimp. The trouble most cooks have with beer battered shrimp is that the breading keeps falling off.
There is one simple reason for that: Your shrimp are too wet! To get the batter to stay on your shrimp, you need to start with dry shrimp. It’s time to break out a fresh roll of paper towels and use it. In addition to starting with dry shrimp, when you put the shrimp in the fryer, hold the end of the shrimp for a few seconds to help set the batter before dropping it gently into the oil.
This will help stop the batter from soaking up extra oil and becoming heavy. Use a beer that is light in flavor. Beers like a pilsner are great to mix into your batter. Brands that everyone knows would be Budweiser, Coors Light, Miller Light. Are all great beers to use to make beer battered fried shrimp. If you are adventurous for a hoppy beer, an IPA, or a beer that has more character, all will work.
Peel the shrimp and devein if desired. Pat shrimp dry with a paper towel, and lay shrimp out in one layer on a plate. Pour beer into a mixing bowl. Sift dry ingredients into the beer and whisk until frothy and combined. Deep fry for 2 to 3 minutes or until golden and shrimp float to the top.