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Shrimp Cocktail Burger

Take a look, there is a new patty in town! Sweet, succulent ground shrimp with a panko crumb crust encompassed between toasty buns, zippy cocktail sauce, fresh tasting crispy lettuce, tomato and cucumber topped with some spicy red onion.
You can make shrimp patties ahead of time, even the day before. Then all you have to do is sauté the patties to a golden-brown loveliness and assemble your masterpiece sandwich.
To create that perfect shrimp burger it is important to finely grind a third of the shrimp. This, with the addition of mayonnaise, will create the glue that will hold the patties together. The roughly chopped last two thirds of the shrimp will maintain the sweet qualities we all love about shrimp. There are no fillers in the patties, they are all about the shrimp. You don’t have to use a food processor. You can chop with a knife if you maintain a finely chopped portion and a coarsely chopped portion.
The ground panko crumbs will give us more crunch in comparison to breadcrumbs. The crunchiness of deep frying without the splatter and mess.
Our zippy cocktail sauce is a uniting of tartar sauce and cocktail sauce. It has the creamy texture of tartar sauce and adds the punch of horseradish, lemon and hot sauce from cocktail sauce. Want a short cut? Use a jarred cocktail sauce with equal amounts of mayonnaise and sour cream. Want some more of that zip, add some additional horseradish, lemon and/or hot sauce.
Course Main Course
Keyword burger, sandwich, Shrimp

Ingredients

Cocktail Sauce

  • ¼ cup Mayonnaise
  • ¼ cup Sour Cream
  • ¼ cup Ketchup
  • 1 ½ tablespoons Horseradish drained
  • 1 ½ tablespoon Fresh Lemon Juice
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
  • 2-4 dashes Hot Sauce depending on how much "oomph" you like

Shrimp Burger

  • 1 1/2 cup Panko Crumbs ground
  • 2 pounds Frozen Shrimp thaw, peel, devein, remove tails (will weight out to 1.5 pounds raw shrimp
  • 1/4 cup Scallions finely chopped, approx. 2 scallions
  • 2 teaspoons Lemon Zest chopped
  • 2 tablespoons Mayonnaise
  • 1 teaspoon Granulated Garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon Celery Salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon Black Pepper
  • pinch Cayenne Pepper
  • 1/3 cup Canola Oil

Toasting the Buns

  • 6 Brioche Buns
  • Oil Spray or Soft Butter

Assembling the Shrimp Patties

  • 6 leaves Green Leaf Lettuce
  • 6 slices Tomato
  • 18 slices Cucumber thinly sliced
  • 6 slices Red Onion thinly sliced

Instructions

Cocktail Sauce

  • In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients. Whisk thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate for an hour or more. This will help thicken the sauce. It can be made a day or two ahead.

Shrimp Burger

  • In a mini processor or food processor, finely grind the panko crumbs.  Place it in a shallow bowl.
  • In a food processor, grind 1/3 of the shrimp until it is finely ground (about 15 pulses).  Remove from food processor bowl.  Add the remaining 2/3 of the shrimp to the bowl and coarsely grind (about 6 pulses). Don’t over pulse.  You can hand chop any pieces that are too large.
  • In a small bowl, combine the lemon zest, scallions, mayonnaise, granulated garlic, celery salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper. Add the mixture to the ground shrimp and mix thoroughly.
  • Make 6 patties the size of a hamburg bun.  Dredge each patty in the ground panko crumbs (pressing crumbs to adhere to the patties, making sure you get the sides as well).
  • Heat canola oil in a 12-inch nonstick pan over medium heat.  Place all six shrimp patties in the pan.  Cook for 6-8 minutes or until golden brown.  Flip the patties and cook an additional 5-7 minutes. Turn the heat down if they start to brown too quickly.  They need to reach an internal temperature of 145 degrees. Place on paper towel to drain.

Toasting the Buns

  • Heat a large skillet over medium heat.  Spray with oil or spread butter on the cut sides of the buns. Place buns in a pan, cut side down.  Brown buns for 30 seconds to a minute or until golden brown.
  • Smother each cut side of the buns with the cocktail sauce. 
    Place a leaf of green leaf lettuce on sauce.
    Add shrimp patty.
    Top with tomato, cucumber and red onion.
    Place top bun over your shrimp cocktail patties creation.
    Enjoy!

Notes

Creating Cucumber Ribbons
Cut off both ends of an English Cucumber. Using a vegetable peeler along the length of the cucumber, cut off ribbons.