How to Peel Shrimp

Basics - What you need to know before you start

If you already know the basics, skip to "The Method"

• Keep 'em cold: Shrimp are highly perishable! You MUST keep your shrimp cold. This means keeping cold water and ice on them at all times. Personally, I even pack them on ice to bring them home from the fish market (or grocery).
• Shrimp heads: If you purchased your shrimp from the grocery store, the heads have probably been removed. If you are lucky enough to have purchased them from a local shrimp boat, they might still have the heads on. If so, you will need to remove the heads first by pinching them off or cutting them off. If you caught them yourself...good for you! Now take the heads off. It's no big deal to remove the heads. But be careful, the "horns" on the head can poke you and even draw blood.
• Peeled? Shell on? Or a little of both?: There are several ways to prepare shrimp for cooking. But since you are here reading this article, I'm gonna assume you need your shrimp peeled. You peel shrimp BEFORE cooking for frying, stir frying, when adding to pasta dishes etc. You DO NOT peel shrimp before you boil them. Boiled shrimp are peeled AFTER boiling and as they are eaten. Now grilling...that's more a matter of preference. My best advice for grilling is to leave the tail section on and peel the rest of the shrimp. You'll have to adjust the method I'm sharing here if you want to leave on that tail section. This method peels the WHOLE shrimp.
• That vein: I don't remove the vein prior to cooking. Now, don't get all squeamish on me. It's simply a matter of time. Taking that vein out takes a heck of a lot of time and I just don't have it considering the amount of shrimp we eat. And what a lot of people don't know is that if you catch your own shrimp and remove the heads immediately after catching them, that vein pulls out with the head (but not if you cut the head off of course). And one more thing...if you FRY your shrimp, you can remove that vein effortlessly AFTER frying them. But it's up to you.

Materials List

You'll need:

• Newspaper
  If using a countertop instead of a sink, the newspaper will protect your countertop from what we call "shrimp juice" and help with clean up.
• Surgery gloves
  Yes, these are the latex (or vinyl) gloves you find in a pharmacy. Latex are a better fit than vinyl. You'll also find them for sale near cleaning supplies in stores. Funniest thing...I've never seen them for sale in the food section. I much prefer to keep my hands clean and dry during this process.
• Two large bowls
  If possible, use bowls big enough to hold all of your shrimp at one time. If you have several pounds of shrimp you may have to peel them in 2 batches or more.
• Ice and cold water
• Zip top bags - gallon size preferred
  These bags are actually part of the clean up process, and you might as well prepare to throw those shells out ASAP. If they sit around for even just a few hours, you will have a smelly mess. And I mean SMELLY.

The Method

Once you get the hang of this you'll be peeling shrimp in seconds

• Get a shrimp from bowl #1
  Hold it horizontally so the tail is to the right and the head-end to the left, feet pointing down. Notice the shell "sections". There is the tail itself which is connected to the first section (we'll call it section #1). Then there are 5 more sections.
• Break the shell connection between sections 3 and 4.
  Take a look and you'll see there is a very small connection between the shell sections on each side of the shrimp. You're going to break those 2 small connectors and end up with 2 shell portions. Hold the shrimp with your right hand (thumb and pointer finger) on section 3, and your left hand (thumb and pointer finger) holding section 4. Now twist the shrimp back and forth a little until you feel that connection break. Now the shrimp shell is in two portions.
• Pull off the back portion you just created.
  With your right hand, squeeze (with thumb and pointer finger) slightly on section #1 (the one connected to the tail) while pulling a little. This forces the shrimp meat out of it's shell. Throw the shell in the zip top bag. Good job, you are almost done.
• Remove the front portion of the shell.
  Turn the shrimp upside down so the feet are now up in the air. Using the thumb on your left hand "unwrap" the rest of the shell. With a little pressure the rest of the shell will come right off. Throw the rest of the shell in the zip top bag.