Shrimp Pakora (Shrimp Fritters) Indian Prawn Pakora

Make these Shrimp Pakora for a delicious and fancy seafood appetizer. They are crisp on the outside, with tender & perfectly cooked meat inside. Serve them with cilantro chutney, mint chutney or any of your favorite dips. They are also great on their own with a sprinkle of chaat masala, a vegetable salad or sliced onions on the side.

About Shrimp Pakora

Pakora are Indian style fritters made with gram flour (besan) and a small amount of corn starch or rice flour is used to make them crisp. To make these Shrimp Pakora, cleaned prawn or shrimp are tossed with spices, herbs, onions, ginger, garlic and flour. They are deep fried until crisp and cooked through.

Shrimp fritters are a popular appetizer in the Asian countries and this Indian version is more popular in the coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh. They are a street food and also served in restaurants as a side. They turn our super crunchy and spicy. For a healthier treat make these at home and I assure these are very easy to make.

Small prawns are commonly used to make the pakoda as they are tastier and have more flavor. But cleaning them is a very difficult task unless you buy them pre-cleaned. For ease of cleaning, I am using tiger prawns here but feel free to use small prawns if you want to. Omit the onions if you use small prawns.

Though they can be air fried or baked in the oven, they taste different. At home, we are not fans of the baked and air fried pakoras because you really get the authentic flavor only when deep fried. Since the oven baked are better I have included the instructions below. The air fried pakoras have undercooked floury smell. If you can’t eat fried pakoras, roast the besan first until aromatic, cool down and use to air fry.

Ingredients you need

• Gram flour: Like any other pakora recipe, this one too requires using good quality gram flour (besan) and you don’t want to use bitter tasting flour that’s been sitting in the shelves for longer.
• Ground spices: Garam masala, red chili powder and turmeric are used to spice and flavor the shrimp/prawns. If you want you may use other ground spices like cumin and coriander too. But remember you don’t want to overload your pakoras with plenty of garam masala because we end up losing most of the seafood flavor.
• Green chilies, ginger, garlic and curry leaves are the aromatic used. Green chilies add heat and flavor, if you don’t have substitute it with more chili powder or ground black pepper. You may substitute curry leaves with coriander leaves/cilantro or mint.

More shrimp recipes
Prawn Curry
Shrimp Biryani
Prawns Fry
Shrimp Tikka Masala
Chilli Prawns

Photo Guide

Step by step Photo Instructions

1. Peel, devein and rinse the shrimps or prawns very well. Drain water completely. Add red chili powder, half of the salt and turmeric. I also added a bit of lemon juice.

2. Mix well and keep aside for only 10 minutes, no longer as the shrimp can turn mushy.

3. On a medium flame, heat oil in a deep pan to fry. Add ginger garlic paste, green chilies, curry leaves, sliced onions, flour, garam masala and a rest of the salt. Mix gently to coat the prawns well with all the ingredients. If you are using small prawns, omit the onions and fine chop chilies and curry leaves.

4. I forgot to add garam masala at this step so I added later. I did not add water, the moisture from the prawns and lemon juice was sufficient to coat the prawns well. But if your mixture looks dry, just sprinkle a tsp of water and mix.

5. When the oil is hot, turn the flame to medium high. Take each prawn along with some onions and curry leaves batter and drop it to the hot oil. Do not add too many at one time.

To Bake: Preheat the oven to 200 C / 400 F. Place the shrimps on a prepared baking tray and spray with oil. Bake them for 10 mins, turning after 6 mins, spray with oil again. Largest ones take about 13 to 14 mins. Keep an eye after 12 mins. They can get overcooked and turn chewy very soon. They are done, when the tails are curled.

6. Prawns tend to get burnt faster, so be attentive. Flip them to the other side and fry till golden. Fry all the prawns in batches.

7. This is an optional step. When you finish frying all the prawn fritters, add them back to hot oil and repeat frying them for a minute, this gives a good crunchy texture to the pakora. Remove to a cooling rack or steel colander.

Serve them with a sprinkle of chaat masala or with your favorite sauce or mint chutney.

Related Recipes