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This turned out great! Five stars for prepping everything in 15 minutes while my baby napped and then spending another 15 cooking it after putting her to bed. I think making the cucumbers a few hours ahead made them that much better. They got pickly instead of more salad like and added a very unique pop. Loved having something new that actually was so easy! Great with brown rice.
Jessica
This is a fan favorite recipe that’s part of our Fall 2022 SOS Series! View the full series.
Holy yummm.
I love all of the SOS series recipes but I REALLY LOVE THIS RECIPE, all caps necessary.
First of all, juicy, tender, sweet, and delicate shrimp is just automatically really SOS-friendly because it’s so fast to cook (like, five minutes fast) and tastes like you live at a fancy restaurant. So there’s that.
But secondly, that creamy chipotle orange sauce. WUT. It’s so good. Who even knew?! It’s creamy and smoky and sweet – the flavor combination of fresh orange zest and a bold chipotle pepper is a total surprise and yet feels comforting and familiar at the same time. It packs some heat, for sure, but it’s also really luscious and cozy because heavy whipping cream takes everything to the next level (♡) and also because a pile of hot steamy rice will never not be comforting. The zippy cucumbers wake the whole thing up and cut through the richness of the sauce with a little zap and zing and crunch, and just, wow. I love this recipe. Did I say that already?
Ingredients We’re Working with Today
There are a few elements at play here which makes it rank just a little higher on the SOS scale – similar to the Harissa Meatballs with Whipped Feta. But never fear: nothing is difficult. Nothing is overwhelming. Our ingredient list stays short and sweet.
- shrimp
- orange
- chipotle
- cream
- cilantro
- cucumbers
A few pantry staples like salt, garlic, oil, and vinegar round it all out into a complete and total spicy shrimp miracle.
If you need even more shortcuts – skip the cucumbers in favor of an easy no-cutting-board-required side salad. Or use cauliflower rice or pre-cooked rice. But if you can spare the extra five minutes to slice up a cucumber and cook your own rice, you will not be sad about it.
I could cry tears of joy just looking at this saucy, creamy, spicy goodness.
Treat your people! Treat yourself! I mean, because seriously. This one is a TREAT.
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Chipotle Orange Shrimp with Cilantro Rice: FAQs
Yes – it has some heat to it from the chipotle pepper. Just use just half of a chipotle pepper for a milder version.
You can sub the cream for canned full-fat coconut milk! It’s good, just not quite as creamy.
Salmon or chicken could work or some crispy pan-fried tofu for a vegetarian option!
Source notes: I got this idea from my old beloved Cooking Light cookbook Fresh Food Fast (affiliate link) which now feels so retro! But man, I love that old thing. There’s a recipe for chipotle orange shrimp in the book – I made a few changes based on some of my preferences, but the flavor idea came from that cookbook. Thank you, CL!
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Chipotle Orange Shrimp with Cilantro Rice
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 2–4 servings (I can definitely eat half of this by myself) 1x
Description
Chipotle Orange Shrimp with Cilantro Rice! Tender shrimp in a sweet-meets-smoky cream sauce piled high on cilantro-speckled rice with a side of tangy cucumbers.
Ingredients
Chipotle Orange Sauce:
- 1 chipotle pepper (or half of one pepper, for a less spicy version)
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- zest of one orange
Shrimp and Rice:
- a drizzle of olive oil
- 1 pound uncooked shrimp, tails removed, patted dry
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1 1/2 cups white rice (I like jasmine rice or just plain long grain rice)
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
Cucumbers:
- 2 small cucumbers (or one large), thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoons white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Cucumbers: Toss together all the cucumber ingredients. Set aside.
- Sauce: Blend sauce ingredients together until mostly smooth. But don’t overblend! See notes.
- Rice: Cook rice according to package directions. Stir in cilantro and salt to taste (+ add lime juice, or the juice of the zested orange, if you want some citrus goodness in there).
- Shrimp: Heat the oil over medium high heat. Add the shrimp and sauté for 2 minutes on each side, sprinkling with the cumin, plus some salt and pepper.
- Finish: Add the sauce and simmer for another 5 minutes or so. Serve shrimp over rice, with a salad or some fresh zippy cucumbers.
Notes
Blending: The heavy whipping cream will start to get a whipped texture the longer you blend it, so don’t over-blend! We just want the garlic and chipotle mostly smoothed out so they can incorporate into the sauce. I use a little mini-chopper for this. If you accidentally find yourself with a whipped texture that’s okay, it’ll settle down and loosen up once it warms up in the pan.
Shrimp: You do not want your shrimp to be watery, so if you’re using frozen shrimp be sure to fully thaw it and pat the excess water out before sending it to the pan. If there’s some moisture in the pan before adding the sauce you’ll want to drain that out (but that shouldn’t be an issue as long as your shrimp is thawed and dry when it goes into the pan). Also: the shrimp is also good with a pinch of sugar added to it for a little sweetness, or the juice of the orange squeezed in!
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: shrimp bowl, shrimp and rice, shrimp recipe
More Shrimp Recipe Goodness
- Spicy Shrimp Tacos with Garlic Cilantro Lime Slaw (fast, easy, and the best thing to look forward to at the end of the day)
- Spicy Shrimp Veracruz (always say yes to juicy shrimp in a tomato-y, briny sauce)
- Creamy Shrimp Pasta with Corn and Tomatoes (you’re only 30 minutes away from creamy, garlicky, summery noodles with this one)
- Shrimp and Avocado Salad with Miso Dressing (this might just be the happiest green salad EVER!)
I don’t think I’ve ever written a review on a recipe before. This is the BEST dish I have ever made in my life! No exaggeration.
I assume the chipotle pepper was chipotle in adobo- that’s what I used and it turned out perfectly!
So glad you enjoyed this one!
Looking forward to trying this tonight. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
For anyone watching their nutritional intake, by swapping out an equal amount of evaporated milk for the heavy cream, this recipe will be about 100 calories less, per serving, and have about 14g less fat per serving. Should not be able to taste the difference either.
(Comparing 3/4 cup of standard evaporated milk to the same amount of heavy cream, evaporated milk is much lighter, containing roughly 245 calories; 10g of fat; 23g of natural sugars; 15g of protein; and 700mg of calcium. Heavy cream is vastly richer, with about 615 calories; 66g of fat; 5g of natural sugars; 4g of protein; and 115mg of calcium.) (Note: Evaporated milk’s carbohydrate and sugar content are simply concentrated milk sugars (lactose), not added sweeteners.)
Delicious! The sauce was really good, and the orange juice in the rice made all the difference. Will definitely do it again.
Sauce came out too bitter/bland – not sure if its my pan
Wow!! This was so easy to make and is so wonderful! I made it just as prescribed and will make it again! The heat was just right and the orange notes were a perfect compliment! I served the orange wedges leftover from grating the peel as a garnish on top of the rice and shrimp! Thanks for passing this along!!
My boyfriend is allergic to shrimp, and I’m lactose intolerant. So I made this with salmon and coconut milk instead, and holy moly was this good! I felt like it was a little too much rice, next time I’ll cut it down to 1 cup instead of 1.5. But YUM!
Such a delicious and easy meal. My husband isn’t a huge shrimp fan, but LOVED this. The cucumbers were such a great sweet and crunchy addition. Unfortunately, I didn’t have as much heavy cream as I thought I had, so I had to use milk to get to 3/4 cup. Still delicious!
I made this for friends last night. It was so good I had to send them all your recipe! Thank you!
This was SOOO good!! Wow!! I am currently 8 months pregnant and actively avoiding cooking so I made it even easier by buying cooked shredded chicken instead of using shrimp. Made the sauce and put the chicken in to marinate for a couple of hours and then just heated up! Was fantastic we will definitely make again. Hopefully with shrimp once I can stomach it again!
Subbed chicken tonight for the shrimp – it was really good! A bit salty, so I’ll make adjustments for next time because that definitely could’ve been my error. I’m also going to try it with coconut milk/cream too!
Easy & excellent
This was delicious! Made as written and I can’t wait to eat my leftovers!
So delicious! And extra SOS because I used pre-made rice packets. Will add this to our weeknight rotation.
SO good and SO easy! I added an extra squeeze of orange juice in the shrimp + sauce as it was finishing. SOS series stays winning!!
We love this recipe! My kids said this dish is now included in their top fave recipes. Thank you for sharing.
So yummy! I made this with half and half instead of heavy cream, and my husband wanted noodles instead of rice. I tossed the noodles in the sauce and then topped with the cooked shrimp. I love the combination of the orange and chipotle.
Made this for dinner tonight. Easy and so so delicious. Thank you for a wonderful recipe. I can’t handle cream so I used half and half with a teaspoon of cornstarch and it worked well.
Hi Lindsay!
This looks incredible! Have you tried making this with a non-dairy option? I’d love to know any suggestions and am excited to try it!
Thanks!
The chili recipe you featured was voted by myself and my family as the best ever!! I will make it again!!
This looks absolutely delicious. I can’t wait to make it!
Thank you for sharing the recipes and ingredients really loved it keep going like this.
My kids could eat shrimp every night of the week and I like that it’s good for them. I’m always looking for new ways to serve it!
really nice dish, orange sauce is really nice and a new sauce for me with shrimp. thank you!
Delicious and easy! Don’t skip the zippy cucumbers!
Tried this recipe tonight for our family dinner and my kids (1 and 3yo) loved it! I served with stir fried broccoli, cabbage and pak Choi instead of cucumbers. So yummy. I used a tablespoon of chipotle in adobo paste as that’s all I could find (live in the UK), and served the sauce on the side in little dipping bowls for the kids. 👍🏼