Sharing a quick, easy and super delicious ceviche recipe where you actually cook the shrimp but preserve the perfect texture. This recipe is ideal for an spring or summer BBQs or dinner parties!
Hi friends! How are you? I hope your week is off to an amazing start. I’m still working on my Disney cruise recap post – should be up Wednesday! – but for today, I wanted to share a DELICIOUS healthy appetizer recipe: ceviche!!
Ceviche is a classic and especially good during the summer. It wasn’t something I make often at home, but my friend Kathryn brought it over last summer and we all devoured it. It was fresh, beautifully flavored, and so so delicious. When we had family dinner last night, I knew it would make a perfect appetizer.
Here’s the deal, though: “cooking” the shrimp in lime juice freaks me out. I know it’s the common method for making ceviche, but I know too much about parasites lol.
Yes, the acid from the limes can turn the color of the shrimp opaque so that they appear to be cooked. It kills a little bit of the bacteria, but not all of it. (You can download my free parasite cleansing guide here!) I don’t eat a ton of raw fish anymore, and while I definitely wanted ceviche, I wanted HEAT to kill the bacteria so I could stuff my face and not worry about any creepy crawlers.
So I did what any girl would do: called my brother the chef and asked him if I could saute the shrimp first.
He legit laughed at me and informed me that it would be a rubbery disaster.
“Blanch it. Just for like a minute and then put it in an ice bath.”
“Ok, so just put it in boiling water for a minute?”
“Yes but add stuff to it so it actually tastes good. Make a blanching liquid with peppercorns, lots of salt, flavor it up.”
So that’s what I did! It turned out AMAZING and I’m pumped to share the recipe with you!!
The best ceviche recipe (with cooked shrimp!)
Ingredients:
Blanching liquid: water, salt, peppercorns
Raw deveined shrimp (I get ours from ButcherBox)
3 large avocadoes
The juice of 6-8 limes (about 1 cup of lime juice)
1 1/2 large English cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 red onion, diced
3 large tomatoes, seeded and diced
2 jalapeño, seeded and diced
1 buch of cilantro, diced
Garlic powder, salt, pepper, sriracha, and Worcestershire sauce (the secret ingredient!!!)
Worth mentioning here that I chopped almost everything with this contraption and also cut the heck out of two of my fingers. It says, “don’t touch the blades” and this means even while you’re washing it, even if they don’t *seem* sharp. Don’t do it.
(it only didn’t work on the tomatoes)
Instructions:
Step one:
Prep the blanching liquid by bringing a large pot of water to a boil. Add lots of salt, a palmful of peppercorns, and if you’d like, a whole head of garlic, sliced in half.
Prep an ice bath for the shrimp so it’s ready to go.
Step two:
Blanch the shrimp for 1 minute until opaque. Immediately drain and put into the ice bath.
Step three:
To a large boil, add the tomato, onion, jalapeño, cucumber, cilantro, and chop the avocado. Add to the top of the bowl.
Chop the shrimp and add to the bowl.
Step four:
Pour the lime juice on top and season the heck out of it with garlic powder, salt (go easy on the salt at first, especially if you’re using salty tortilla chips to serve), and pepper. Drizzle sriracha on top and add about 1 teaspoon of Worchestershire sauce. Mix. Taste it on a tortilla chip (<— this is important!) and adjust seasonings as necessary.
Devour!!! I would make this max 2-4 hours in advance and store in the fridge until serving. You will love it! You can also serve this with this 4-ingredient guacamole.
Ok friends: what’s your favorite spring or summer appetizer? Please share the goods in the comments section!
xo
Gina
