This shortcut shrimp paella will have you feeling those authentic Spanish beach vibes in record time. Plump, juicy shrimp with turmeric rice and bright red peppers.
Where are all my shrimp loving peeps at? You’ll definitely be wanting a seat at my table tonight. We can have all manner of deep and meaningful convos while we chow down on this shortcut shrimp paella. But, puh-leez do not confuse this with any kind of authentic paella recipe. It is not. I just wasn’t sure what else to call it. My food snob self has been told to sit this one out.
We start with potentially the most serious crime against paella and I switched the saffron to numeric. Because turmeric is a complete and total super food hero… and I’m not gonna lie… saffron… you so pricey!!! Then I used brown rice instead of paella rice because it’s very low maintenance. As in no maintenance. With paella rice you actually have to stand there and stir. Don’t get me wrong, the high maintenance rice dishes like risotto and paella have their place. But that place in not in our kitchens on Tuesday night when we have a billion and one other things to do before we get ourselves off to bed and try and read a couple of pages in that new book you’ve been dying to start, but fall asleep before the end of the first page. No, my friends. On nights like that you deserve a quick, delicious and low maintenance kinda 20 minute dinner.
Enter shrimp paella shortcut 2.0. The beauty of this is that you can really make it anything you want, by adding whatever you have in the fridge. I used shrimp, onion and red pepper. But, you could play around with the herbs and anything else you might want. Change up the protein to scallops or chicken would work too.
This dish is really just a way to get a simple and healthy dinner on to your dinner table in a hurry, but to also make it sound kinda fancy and fun. ‘Cause life is just too short to eat boring food. Even if it isn’t authentic.
Sometimes the simplest dinners become the family favourites. This one very well could be for obvious reasons.
5 Reasons why Shortcut Shrimp Paella should be your new family favourite:
- It all gets made in one pot… um yeah… weeknight perfection.
- The ingredients are probably things that you already have handy in your freezer anyway. Why hello there, frozen shrimp.
- It takes about 20 minutes from raw ingredients to dinner table hero. Yassss my friends. This is what is commonly referred to as winning!
- Pretty much no hands on time. Again this is winning when you think about all the things you want to accomplish when you get home from work.
- It shines a spotlight on our favourite hero spice turmeric.
I’m just gonna throw it out there… this would also be ah-mazing as a packed lunch for the next day. Because left overs for lunch are pretty much my life these days. Cook once eat twice is the new normal!
Shortcut Shrimp Paella
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown rice
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1 yellow onions diced
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 red pepper sliced
- 10 shrimp peeled and cooked
- 1/2 bunch cilantro/ coriander
- pepper
- salt
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a medium sauce pan placed over a medium heat.
- Sweat the diced onion for a few minutes until soft and translucent.
- Add the red pepper and stir to coat in the oil and mix with the onion.
- Add the rice and cook with water or chicken broth according to package instructions.
- In the last 5 minutes place the cooked shrimp in the pan with the rice and cover.
- Divide between 4 bowls and top with the cilantro and serve with lemons.
- Serves 4 or 2 with leftovers for lunch.
Hello shortcut meals are my fav! This absolutely deserves to be called paella too, you just made it your own, which I love!!