[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":398},["ShallowReactive",2],{"recipe:shrimp-and-grits":3,"recipe:country:united-states":186},{"slug":4,"title":5,"pronunciation":6,"countrySlug":7,"region":8,"emoji":9,"summary":10,"intro":11,"story":12,"whyThis":13,"tips":18,"substitutions":25,"variations":38,"serveWith":48,"storage":50,"faq":51,"equipment":67,"baseServings":71,"prepMinutes":72,"cookMinutes":73,"difficulty":74,"course":75,"diet":78,"mainIngredients":80,"ingredients":86,"instructions":143,"nutrition":167,"images":174,"keywords":178,"publishedAt":184,"updatedAt":184,"authorSlug":185},"shrimp-and-grits","Shrimp and Grits (Lowcountry Shrimp over Corn Porridge)","shrimp and grits","united-states","South Carolina Lowcountry","🦐","Coastal Carolina breakfast turned dinner: stone-ground grits cooked slow into a loose corn porridge, topped with shrimp seared in bacon fat and a peppery pan gravy.","Shrimp and grits is a two-part dish from the South Carolina and Georgia coast — a bowl of soft, buttery corn grits with shrimp and a quick pan gravy spooned over the top. The grits should be loose enough to spread when you tilt the bowl, tasting sweetly of corn and heavily of butter; the shrimp are seared fast in bacon fat, then a splash of stock and lemon lifts the browned bits into a thin, peppery gravy that soaks down into the corn. It reads rich but the actual seasoning is restrained: pork, black pepper, lemon and a little hot sauce. Traditionally it was a fisherman's breakfast in shrimp season, which is why it is genuinely quick — the only slow part is the grits, and that is mostly waiting.","On the South Carolina and Georgia coast — the Lowcountry — this was breakfast, and it was plain. Shrimpers pulled nets in the tidal creeks from May through December, and a pot of grits with shrimp cooked in butter or bacon fat went by the honest name of breakfast shrimp. The dish belongs to Gullah Geechee cooking, the tradition of the descendants of enslaved West Africans on the Sea Islands, who kept rice and seafood at the center of their kitchen more directly than any other American community. Nobody dressed it up. There was no gravy course and often no bacon; there was corn, shrimp, fat and pepper.\n\nWhat changed was visibility. Grits themselves are older than any of this: corn treated with alkali, dried and cracked, a process learned from Indigenous peoples across the Southeast. For most of the twentieth century grits were considered poor food outside the South and something close to a punchline within it. The restaurant version of shrimp and grits — cheese in the grits, bacon, mushrooms, a proper pan sauce — spread out of Chapel Hill and Charleston kitchens in the 1980s and 1990s, and within twenty years the dish had gone from creek-side breakfast to something you find on menus in cities that have never seen a shrimp boat.\n\nBoth versions are real, and the tension between them is worth naming. The elaborate one tastes very good; the plain one is the dish people actually grew up on, and Lowcountry cooks will point out that the credit for it has been unevenly distributed. This recipe sits in the middle: real stone-ground grits cooked slowly, bacon and a light gravy for depth, no mushroom, no cream sauce, and the shrimp cooked hard and fast so they still taste like shrimp rather than like the sauce around them.",[14,15,16,17],"Cooks the grits the slow way with a milk-and-water blend, which is the only route to a genuinely creamy bowl.","Builds the gravy in the shrimp pan in about ninety seconds, so nothing is cooked twice and nothing goes rubbery.","Tells you plainly what instant grits will and will not do, instead of pretending they are equivalent.","Timed so the grits and the shrimp are ready together rather than one waiting for the other.",[19,20,21,22,23,24],"Buy stone-ground grits, not instant. Instant grits cook in five minutes and taste of almost nothing; stone-ground take 40 minutes and taste of corn, which is the entire point of the dish.","Whisk the grits into the liquid in a slow stream while it is at a bare simmer, not a rolling boil, and keep whisking for the first minute. Dumping them in makes permanent lumps.","Grits thicken enormously as they cook and again as they sit. Keep a mug of hot water beside the pot and loosen them whenever they start holding a spoon upright.","Dry the shrimp on paper towels before they hit the pan. Wet shrimp steam instead of searing, and you lose the browned fond that makes the gravy.","Cook the shrimp in two batches in a wide pan. Crowding drops the temperature and they release water instead of coloring.","Salt the grits early, at the start of cooking, and taste again at the end — under-salted grits taste like wet cardboard no matter how much butter goes in.",[26,30,34],{"original":27,"swap":28,"note":29},"Stone-ground grits","Coarse polenta, cooked the same way","Polenta is ground from ordinary dried corn while grits are usually from alkali-treated hominy, so the flavor is slightly different — but the texture is close and it is a far better substitute than instant grits.",{"original":31,"swap":32,"note":33},"Bacon","Two tablespoons of butter plus a teaspoon of smoked paprika","This keeps the smoke and the fat for the gravy. The dish loses the crisp bacon garnish but works fine for a pork-free table.",{"original":35,"swap":36,"note":37},"Sharp cheddar in the grits","Leave it out and add an extra tablespoon of butter","Cheese grits are a restaurant addition, not the original. Plain buttered grits are more traditional and let the corn come through.",[39,42,45],{"name":40,"description":41},"Charleston breakfast shrimp","The plain original: shrimp sauteed in butter with salt and black pepper, no bacon, no gravy, no cheese, spooned straight onto grits. Ten minutes start to finish once the grits are on.",{"name":43,"description":44},"Tomato gravy shrimp and grits","A Gullah Geechee version where chopped tomatoes cook down in the pan with the shrimp into a thin red gravy, sharper and less rich than the brown pan sauce.",{"name":46,"description":47},"Andouille and shrimp","Swap the bacon for diced andouille sausage and add a pinch of cayenne, pulling the dish sideways toward Louisiana.",[49],"A wedge of lemon, plenty of hot sauce, and a plain green side like collards or a sharp tomato salad if you are serving it as dinner.","Cooked grits set hard in the refrigerator and keep 3 days. Reheat them in a saucepan with a generous splash of milk or water over low heat, whisking until they loosen back to their original texture — they will come back completely. The shrimp and gravy do not reheat well; the shrimp go tough on a second cooking, so cook only as many as you will eat and store any leftover grits on their own. Firm cold grits can also be sliced and fried in butter until crusted, which is a genuine Southern second-day breakfast.",[52,55,58,61,64],{"question":53,"answer":54},"What exactly are grits, and how are they different from polenta?","Grits are coarsely ground hominy — corn that has been soaked in an alkaline solution, which loosens the hull and changes the flavor and nutrition. Polenta is ground from untreated dried corn. Cooked side by side they look almost identical, but grits taste rounder and slightly more mineral. Polenta is the closest substitute if grits are unavailable where you shop.",{"question":56,"answer":57},"Can I use instant or quick grits?","You can, but the dish will be noticeably worse. Instant grits are precooked and dried, so they rehydrate in minutes into something smooth and largely flavorless. If instant is all you have, cook them in milk rather than water and be generous with butter and salt to compensate. Stone-ground grits are worth ordering.",{"question":59,"answer":60},"Why did my grits turn out lumpy?","They were almost certainly added too fast or into liquid that was boiling hard. Bring the liquid to a bare simmer, then rain the grits in slowly with one hand while whisking constantly with the other, and keep whisking for a full minute after. If lumps still form, a stick blender for a few seconds will rescue the pot.",{"question":62,"answer":63},"How do I know when the shrimp are done?","They curl into a loose C shape and turn opaque white with pink edges, which takes about 90 seconds a side in a hot pan. A shrimp curled into a tight O is overcooked. Because they will sit briefly in the hot gravy, pull them a few seconds before they look completely done.",{"question":65,"answer":66},"Is this a breakfast dish or a dinner dish?","Historically it was breakfast for shrimpers on the South Carolina coast, eaten during shrimp season in the warmer months. Restaurants outside the South mostly serve it as dinner or brunch, and the richer version with bacon and gravy suits that. Both are legitimate — the dish just got a later dinner reservation over the last forty years.",[68,69,70],"Heavy saucepan for the grits","Balloon whisk","Wide skillet, preferably cast iron",4,15,45,"medium",[76,77],"main","breakfast",[79],"gluten-free",[81,82,83,84,85],"shrimp","cornmeal","bacon","butter","lemon",[87,93,98,102,105,108,112,116,119,124,128,132,135,139],{"ref":82,"qty":88,"unit":89,"name":90,"note":91,"group":92},200,"g","stone-ground grits","coarse polenta works as a substitute","For the grits",{"qty":94,"unit":95,"name":96,"noScale":97,"group":92},750,"ml","water",true,{"ref":99,"qty":100,"unit":95,"name":101,"group":92},"milk",350,"whole milk",{"ref":84,"qty":103,"unit":89,"name":104,"group":92},60,"butter, cubed",{"ref":106,"qty":103,"unit":89,"name":107,"optional":97,"group":92},"cheddar","sharp cheddar, grated",{"qty":109,"unit":110,"name":111,"group":92},1.5,"tsp","fine salt",{"ref":83,"qty":113,"unit":89,"name":114,"group":115},150,"thick-cut bacon, in short strips","For the shrimp",{"ref":81,"qty":117,"unit":89,"name":118,"group":115},600,"large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined, patted dry",{"ref":120,"qty":121,"unit":122,"name":123,"group":115},"garlic",3,"clove","garlic, thinly sliced",{"ref":125,"qty":126,"unit":110,"name":127,"group":115},"black-pepper",1,"coarsely cracked black pepper",{"ref":129,"qty":88,"unit":95,"name":130,"group":131},"stock","chicken or shrimp stock","For the gravy",{"ref":85,"qty":126,"unit":133,"name":134,"group":131},"piece","lemon, juiced, plus wedges to serve",{"ref":136,"qty":71,"unit":133,"name":137,"group":138},"scallions","scallions, thinly sliced","To finish",{"qty":140,"unit":141,"name":142,"group":138},null,"to taste","hot sauce and salt",[144,147,152,155,158,161,164],{"title":145,"text":146},"Start the grits","Bring the water and milk to a bare simmer with the salt in a heavy saucepan. Rain in the grits in a thin stream with one hand while whisking hard with the other, and keep whisking for a full minute so nothing settles into lumps.",{"title":148,"text":149,"timerSeconds":150,"tip":151},"Cook them low and slow","Drop the heat to the lowest setting and cook for 40 minutes, whisking every 5 minutes and scraping the corners of the pan. They are ready when a spoonful tastes creamy with no chalky grit between your teeth, and a stripe drawn across the pot closes back over in a second or two.",2400,"They will thicken to concrete if left alone. Loosen with hot water any time the whisk starts to drag.",{"title":153,"text":154},"Render the bacon","While the grits cook, fry the bacon in a wide skillet over medium heat until the strips are crisp and the pan holds a good pool of fat, about 8 minutes. Lift the bacon onto paper towels and leave 3 tablespoons of fat in the pan.",{"title":156,"text":157},"Sear the shrimp","Turn the heat to high and lay half the dried shrimp in the bacon fat in a single layer. Sear for about 90 seconds a side, until the undersides are lightly browned and the shrimp have curled into a loose C, then remove and repeat with the rest.",{"title":159,"text":160},"Build the pan gravy","Lower the heat, add the garlic and cracked black pepper to the empty pan and stir for 30 seconds until fragrant but not colored. Pour in the stock and scrape the base hard — the browned shrimp fond will dissolve and the liquid will turn light brown. Simmer 2 minutes until it just coats a spoon.",{"title":162,"text":163},"Finish the grits","Beat the butter and the cheddar, if using, into the grits until glossy. Taste and correct the salt — they should taste properly seasoned on their own, not just as a base. Loosen with hot milk until they pour slowly from the spoon.",{"title":165,"text":166},"Combine and serve","Return the shrimp and any resting juices to the gravy, add the lemon juice, and toss for 20 seconds off the heat just to warm through. Spoon the grits into wide bowls, top with the shrimp and gravy, and scatter with the crisp bacon and scallions. Serve with hot sauce and lemon wedges.",{"calories":168,"protein":169,"carbs":170,"fat":171,"fiber":172,"sodium":173,"estimated":97},610,42,46,28,2,1280,[175],{"src":176,"alt":177},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fshrimp-and-grits\u002Fhero.svg","Wide bowl of creamy white grits topped with seared shrimp, crisp bacon pieces, brown pan gravy and sliced scallions",[6,179,180,90,181,182,183],"lowcountry","gullah geechee","southern breakfast","charleston","pan gravy","2026-08-20","dishroute-kitchen",{"items":187,"total":266,"page":126,"limit":396,"hasMore":397},[188,215,237,261,285,308,326,351,372,379],{"slug":189,"title":190,"countrySlug":7,"region":191,"baseServings":192,"prepMinutes":193,"cookMinutes":73,"restMinutes":72,"difficulty":194,"course":195,"diet":197,"mainIngredients":200,"images":203,"keywords":207,"publishedAt":184,"updatedAt":184,"authorSlug":185},"baked-macaroni-and-cheese","Baked Macaroni and Cheese (Southern Cheddar Custard Bake)","The American 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England",35,[332,76],"soup",[334],"pescatarian",[336,337,296,83,338],"clams","potato","onion",[340],{"src":341,"alt":342},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fnew-england-clam-chowder\u002Fhero.svg","Bowl of thick white New England clam chowder with potato chunks, chopped clams, crisp pork bits and oyster crackers on top",[344,345,346,347,348,349,350],"clam chowder","new england","creamy soup","quahog","salt pork","potato soup","boston",{"slug":352,"title":353,"countrySlug":7,"region":354,"baseServings":71,"prepMinutes":193,"cookMinutes":72,"restMinutes":73,"difficulty":194,"course":355,"diet":357,"mainIngredients":358,"images":360,"keywords":364,"publishedAt":184,"updatedAt":184,"authorSlug":185},"philly-cheesesteak","Philly Cheesesteak (Griddled Beef and Melted Cheese Roll)","Philadelphia, Pennsylvania",[76,356],"street-food",[],[359,338,106,84],"beef-chuck",[361],{"src":362,"alt":363},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fphilly-cheesesteak\u002Fhero.svg","Philly cheesesteak in a soft hoagie roll, packed with chopped browned beef, fried onions and melted cheese spilling from the side",[365,366,367,368,369,370,371],"philly cheesesteak","philadelphia","ribeye sandwich","hoagie roll","griddle","american sandwich","cheez whiz",{"slug":4,"title":5,"countrySlug":7,"region":8,"baseServings":71,"prepMinutes":72,"cookMinutes":73,"difficulty":74,"course":373,"diet":374,"mainIngredients":375,"images":376,"keywords":378,"publishedAt":184,"updatedAt":184,"authorSlug":185},[76,77],[79],[81,82,83,84,85],[377],{"src":176,"alt":177},[6,179,180,90,181,182,183],{"slug":380,"title":381,"countrySlug":7,"region":191,"baseServings":192,"prepMinutes":266,"cookMinutes":219,"difficulty":194,"course":382,"diet":384,"mainIngredients":385,"images":386,"keywords":390,"publishedAt":184,"updatedAt":184,"authorSlug":185},"skillet-cornbread","Skillet Cornbread (Unsweetened Southern Cast-Iron Bread)",[383,196],"bread",[198,199],[82,224,202,84],[387],{"src":388,"alt":389},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fskillet-cornbread\u002Fhero.svg","Golden cornbread baked in a black cast-iron skillet, cut into wedges with a crisp browned crust and steam rising",[391,392,393,224,394,395,82],"cornbread","skillet cornbread","cast iron","southern bread","unsweetened",24,false,1787360072613]