Let me start by saying that even though I say this recipe is healthy, it still has more calories and fat (remember, balance your macros!) than your average meal does. Make sure to counteract those healthy deep fried shrimp calories with some broccoli and your favorite fruit!
Now, I know a big part of eating real is seafood. Some of you can probably relate, but I’m NOT a big fan.
It’s gotta be all breaded, fried, and crispety-delicious for me to want it!
Some people say that eating real doesn’t allow for deep frying… but we’re supposed to eat tallow, right? I say a good deep fried meal ain’t gonna kill you – I mean look at the south! They’re still alive after deep frying everything remotely edible, well ya know they definitely have their health issues because of it.
The worst part of cooking the shrimp is that when you first pull them out of the freezer they have this weird grey color until they’re defrosted. They’re little stringy legs kind of creep me out too, so the faster I cover them up with batter and fry them up the better!
Make sure you buy shrimp that is from a good source too. Wild caught shrimp is among the best kind of shrimp you can get. That way you know that you aren’t eating some farmed shrimp who’s DNA is at the bottom of the shrimp food chain.

Ingredients
- 18 Shrimp
- ¼ tsp Salt
- ¼ tsp Ground Black Pepper
- ¼ tsp Garlic Powder
- ½ C Flour (I used half sprouted flour and half unbleached flour to save some money)
- ½ Paprika
- 2 Eggs
- 3/4 C Homemade breadcrumbs (bake slices of homemade bread covered in butter and Italian seasoning until brown, grind up in blender, keep in freezer)
- Beef Tallow - About ¾ inch deep
Instructions
- First step is to get out your beef tallow and start melting that in your pan. You want it to be about ¾ to 1 inch deep once it’s melted. I was worried about the beef flavor combined with the shrimp but it didn’t taste weird at all.
- Next defrost your shrimp. I just put them in a bowl and ran it under some hot water - takes no more than a few minutes!
- According to the recipe I was following you’re supposed to season the shrimp with the salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika. I’m all about shortcuts, so I just combined all the spices with the flour. (Cameron thinks I’m just lazy and argued that sprinkling it on the shrimp isn’t any extra work. This is one reason why we pretty much never cook together)
- Make a little assembly line: first, your seasoned flour, then your whisked eggs, then your Panko.
- This is a good point to start your broccoli if you only have 20 or less shrimps like we did.
- Grab your first shrimpie by the tail, dunk him (or her) in the flour mixture, then the egg mixture, then the bread crumbs, and then finally drop them into the tallow like a little beef-flavored hot tub.
- Now grab your husband or closest helper, slap on a cutesy apron, and get them frying while you do the dunking!
- If they complain, just ask them “Do you want deep fried shrimp or not?!” That shuts them up because, you know, people like food and stuff.
- I kept the tallow hot enough not to smoke, but enough to start sizzling a bit when the shrimp gets dropped in. If it takes less than 5 minutes to cook, you’ve got it too hot and your shrimpies will still be raw in the middle. Take them out when they are golden brown and just put them on a paper towel on a plate to soak up the excess tallow.
Notes
Gluten Free Option: You can swap out the flour for Amaranth flour (a little bit of a nutty flavor) or arrowroot.
One little test I use to decide that this is ACTUALLY a healthy meal is that you don’t feel like there’s a brick in your stomach. You just simply feel full, which is much better than how you feel after pigging out at all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster. I think last time we went there Cameron ate about 50 little popcorn deep fried shrimp! All you can eat food is NOT a good idea with Cameron.
I love being able to eat this real food diet and eat whatever I want with just a few adjustments. For example, this recipe called for the oil of death instead of beef tallow – one little substitution and it magically became real food compliant.
Tell me what you thought of this recipe and how you felt after eating these healthy deep fried shrimp!
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