Grilling Shrimp in Foil Packets

Grilling shrimp in foil packets is great. Grilled frozen shrimp or fresh with butter and lemon on your charcoal grill or Traeger pellet grill tastes amazing.

Frozen Shrimp Grill

This started when I was trying to figure out the best way to cook frozen shrimp on the grill. Unable to use a skewer since they were rock hard, it occurred to me that it would probably make a good foil packet meal and it did. Using just 4 ingredients wrapped inside aluminum foil, this turned out to be better than I could have imagined.

If you were camping this would work out quite well over a fire too. Set on a grate you could prepare them beforehand or just bring the items with you in a cooler. You could pack them in a bag frozen and in the event that they defrost overnight it wouldn’t make a huge difference, just a minute or two less over the heat.

Traeger Frozen Shrimp

I buy several bags of large or jumbo frozen shrimp often. There are so many shrimp recipes we love. I could make something different every single week with them and my family would think I was a hero (I’ll take that). If you have several of the new appliances in your kitchen like I do, you should try our air fryer frozen shrimp as well.

The fastest of all of them would be to steam Instant Pot shrimp. Whether they start out rock hard or defrosted, it only takes one minute to get them perfectly pink. Those don’t soak in the butter or olive oil that this one does though which is why we love this method so much.

Wrapped and sealed with all the seasonings inside develops a wallop of flavor for sure. For spicy you could add some of our cajun garlic butter sauce on top and then wrap it all up.

Shrimp Foil Packets

Here are a few questions you might have on your mind before you get started prepping this;

There are a few other things you could add inside too if you wanted. We love air fryer bell peppers so I added thick slices into these and those worked great. Small chunks of potatoes would get tender but you need to make sure they’re bite size so they cook thru.

Grilling Frozen Shrimp

You could do this same thing in the oven as well if you were home and loved how these tasted. Similar to our oven baked teriyaki salmon in foil it turns out just as tender and wonderful either way it’s cooked. We just added these simple ingredients this go around.

• A few small shrimp, either fresh or frozen works
  • you could add thin slices of kielbasa for shrimp and sausage
• Olive oil
• Minced garlic
• Salt and pepper, just a pinch
  • cajun seasoning is great to make cajun shrimp style
  • Old Bay seasoning is one of my faves too for a Southern flair
• A small lemon wedge, juiced

You’ll need aluminum foil sheets too of course, one per person is ideal so you can just transfer on to a plate, open and enjoy. A great healthy and gluten free meal everyone will love.

Best Way to Cook Frozen Shrimp

If you want to use a pressure cooker I would recommend our Instant Pot shrimp timing. Those literally take 1 minute, I am not kidding. Air fryer shrimp no breading is amazing too. Those don’t have the amount of flavor you’ll find while soaking up the butter inside this foil though.

• In a mixing bowl, combine shrimp, oil, minced garlic and salt. Mix well to evenly coat shrimp. Using a piece of foil folded in half, place half of the shrimp onto the foil in the center.
• Pull opposite ends of foil packs to the center to join and roll down to seal. Tuck the ends up to seal as well. Leave a pocket inside to steam the shrimp. Repeat with the remaining shrimp so you have 2 foil packets.
• Heat grill to about 400 F. Place packets onto the grill and cook for 15-20 minutes or until shrimp is pink and no longer frozen.
• Open packets and season with ground black pepper and red pepper flakes if desired for a bit of heat.

Serve as is, with a lemon wedge or topped with parsley with a side of Instant Pot white rice. If you wanted heat just toss with cajun seasoning at the beginning or before serving.

Shrimp Foil Packet Dinner

If you’re on a camping trip I would bring the shrimp frozen in your cooler. You could add small pieces of sausage and corn kernels into the packets for more of a complete meal. Alternatively you could make as is with grilled corn on the cob and/or smoked sausage on the side.

What is great about this if you aren’t at home is you can use the foil as a plate almost, just be careful of the drippings. Seafood is high in protein and quite healthy so it is a great dinner overall that even my kids absolutely love.