This speedy shrimp dip recipe makes a rich and creamy dip inspired by the retro prawn cocktail appetiser. Peeled cooked prawns are sliced into chunky pieces and stirred into a classic seafood sauce thickened with crème fraiche. Serve with crinkle cut crisps, Jatz crackers, homemade croutons, or round cucumber slices for scooping it up.
If my prawn cocktail brioche buns recipe for shrimp sliders makes a prawn cocktail between two pieces of bread, this shrimp dip recipe essentially makes a prawn cocktail inspired dip. While it’s best made with beautiful fresh cooked prawns, and Australian tiger prawns or king prawns are the most delicious, you could use quality frozen prawns.
Apart from how delicious it is, one of the best things about it is that it’s made it ten minutes or less if you’ve got peeled cooked prawns. All you’re going to do is slice each prawn into three or four chunky pieces and stir them into a classic seafood sauce thickened with crème fraiche.
Serve this shrimp dip or prawn dip with crinkle cut crisps, Jatz crackers, homemade croutons, or round cucumber slices for scooping it up. It’s very much a retro 1970s style dip, so if you’re feeding a crowd serve it alongside other old-fashioned homemade dips such as this French onion dip.
It’s not Christmas in Australia without prawns as far as I’m concerned – or any seafood for matter, so if you’re still looking seafood dishes to make, we’ve got more prawn recipes and seafood recipes for you, such as this spread of chilled cooked prawns with dipping sauces, which is what we’re having for Christmas lunch.
If you’re still looking for Christmas menu ideas, browse our Christmas recipe collections for Chrissy cooking inspo, and recipes for the best Christmas day breakfast and Christmas day brunch, best dips for crackers and crudités and Christmas cocktails for festive parties, best Christmas starters, best Christmas salads, best Christmas seafood recipes, alternatives to traditional Christmas roasts, vegetable sides, and best desserts for Christmas.
We’ve also got recipes for homemade edible Christmas gifts, my traditional Russian-Ukrainian Christmas food, Christmas menu ideas for casual gatherings for non-traditionalists, last minute Christmas meal ideas, and ideas for Christmas leftovers. We also have Christmas gift ideas for home cooks from pro chefs and last minute Christmas cooking and entertaining tips from the world’s best chefs, Australia’s finest chefs, and cookbook authors, food writers and editors.
Before you scroll down, we have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by buying something on Amazon, such as classic cookbooks for serious cooks, cookbooks for culinary travellers or cookbooks by Australian chefs; buying a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; or shopping our Grantourismo store for gifts for food lovers designed with Terence’s images.
Shrimp Dip Recipe for a Creamy Prawn Cocktail Inspired Dip
My shrimp dip recipe for a rich and creamy dip inspired by the retro prawn cocktail appetiser couldn’t be easier so I only have a few tips below, but I wanted to share a few thoughts on Christmas Day and Christmas cooking and entertaining.
For me, Christmas is about spending precious time with loved-ones, lingering over deliciously simple food and drinks, Christmas music in the background, enjoying idle conversation, and taking time to reminisce; remembering those no longer at the table sharing the lovingly prepared meal. The future and all its hopes, dreams and plans can wait until New Year’s Eve.
For me, Christmas isn’t about spending days in the kitchen prepping elaborate feasts that replicate the sumptuous spreads produced by teams of chefs, stylists and photographers in gourmet magazines. But unfortunately that’s the food blogging trend if the links a fellow writer shared with me yesterday reflect a wider trend. Yet all those years ago we started our little travel and food blogs as alternatives to mainstream media.
Some years ago I used to seek out last minute Christmas cooking and entertaining tips from chef friends around the world, including some of the world’s best chefs and Australia’s finest chefs. I’d ask them questions like what they were cooking on Christmas Day and what their tips were for our readers if it all went wrong.
Every chef recommended keeping things simple – cheese and charcuterie boards, fresh cooked seafood, buying a ham that only needed slicing, fresh fruit, etc – and focusing on spending quality time with family and friends. Although I’ll never forget the year that Australian chef Neil Perry recommended we make a butterflied roast turkey – which Terence dutifully prepared – only to share his Christmas Day plan: he was serving tacos!
These days there are food bloggers making more money a month than most chefs make in a year, and they’re hiring their own teams of professional chefs, stylists and photographers – as well as video editors and social media managers – to produce perfectly scored Christmas hams, meticulously assembled salads, and table-length Christmas cakes.
Their complicated multi-day Christmas meal prep plans assume you’re either a stay-at-home parent with days to spare cooking and an enormous fridge to hold it all – or, after a busy day at work, running around buying last-minute gifts and food in your lunch break and after work, that you’re happy to spend every evening cooking.
They also seem to forget there’s a cost-of-living crisis and most people can’t afford platters of oysters and enough lobsters to feed a crowd, let alone an enormous whole leg of ham that can cost a hundred dollars. Every day when I do my early evening shop, I thank the Germans for Aldi that’s ensuring the average Australian family will eat well and affordably this Christmas.
As many of the world’s best chefs have been telling our readers for years, Christmas food doesn’t need to be fancy and expensive, and certainly don’t need to take days and a complicated meal plan to prepare. Christmas meals can be simple and still be delicious, and nobody will care. What your guests care about is spending time with you, and your family and friends.
I always remember something that Terence used to remind me when we were young film students, spending our nights and weekends in the darkened university editing rooms (and I think it might have been a quote from a famous director – or one of our lecturers): “nobody is going to know what ended up on the cutting room floor”.
Likewise, nobody is going to know what you dreamt of serving for Christmas, a lavish spread of luxuriant food, heavily styled on a table heaving with floral arrangements, expensive dinnerware and gleaming cutlery, decorated with Christmas ornaments. Leave that to the food bloggers. Keep things simple so that instead of being in the kitchen you’re at the table enjoying your time with loved-ones. Merry Christmas!
Tips to Making this Shrimp Dip Recipe for a Creamy Prawn Cocktail Inspired Dip
Just a few tips to making this shrimp dip recipe for a creamy prawn cocktail inspired dip as it couldn’t be easier and is made in 10-15 minutes depending on whether you’ve got peeled the prawns or not.
The Prawns or Shrimps
If you want to buy fresh raw prawns, I have detailed tips for cooking prawns in this classic prawn cocktail recipe. But like my shrimp sliders recipe, the point of this recipe is to give you a quick and easy appetiser idea for a Christmas Day get-together, so buy fresh peeled cooked prawns or shrimps if you can.
Seafood Sauce
Make the seafood sauce next. In a medium sized bowl, make the creamy dip base by stirring the crème fraiche, mayonnaise and tomato sauce (ketchup) until combined, then add the finely diced purple shallot, spices, seasoning, and finely chopped fresh dill, and stir until everything is well combined.
Finish and Serve
To finish the dip, slice the peeled cooked prawns or shrimps into 3-4 chunky pieces, add them to the bowl, and fold them into the creamy dip base. Taste the dip and adjust the spices or seasoning to suit your palate. Garnish with more fresh dill sprigs, and you’re done. Too easy. Serve with crinkle cut crisps, Jatz crackers, homemade croutons, or round cucumber slices for scooping.
Shrimp Dip Recipe for a Creamy Prawn Cocktail Inspired Dip
Equipment
Ingredients
- 350 g cooked prawns or shrimps - shells and tails removed
- ⅓ cup crème fraiche
- ⅓ cup mayonnaise
- ⅓ cup tomato sauce - ketchup
- 1 purple shallot - finely diced
- 1 tsp ground paprika
- ½ tsp ground chilli powder - optional
- ½ tsp sea salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 4 tbsp fresh dill - finely chopped
- 2 tbsp fresh dill sprigs - for garnishing
Instructions
- In a medium sized bowl, make the creamy dip base by stirring the crème fraiche, mayonnaise and tomato sauce (ketchup) until combined, then add the finely diced purple shallot, spices, seasoning, and finely chopped fresh dill, and stir until well combined.
- Slice the peeled cooked prawns or shrimps into 3-4 chunky pieces, add them to the bowl and fold them into the creamy dip base. Taste, and adjust the spices or seasoning if needed, garnish with more fresh dill sprigs, and serve with crinkle cut crisps, crackers or round cucumber slices for scooping.
Notes
Nutrition
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make this shrimp dip recipe for a retro prawn cocktail appetiser, as we love to know how our recipes turn out for you.
