Make my crispy and delicious Shrimp Tempura recipe at home! The secret to making a light, crisp coating that doesn’t absorb oil is in the batter and the deep-frying technique.
Tempura is one of the most popular and well-known Japanese dishes that is widely enjoyed around the world. At your local Japanese restaurants, you probably see Shrimp Tempura (海老の天ぷら) and Vegetable Tempura, but the Japanese make tempura with various fresh ingredients.
Besides being a standalone dish, we also serve Shrimp Tempura over a rice bowl (Tendon) or noodle soup (Tempura Soba or Tempura Udon).
What is the Shrimp Tempura?
In Japan, we call Shrimp Tempura Ebi no Tempura (海老の天ぷら) or Ebi Ten (えび天). Ebi means shrimp and ten comes from tempura.
Seafood is often used as an ingredient for tempura besides vegetables. And among seafood, shrimp is definitely the most popular one.
Hanaage Technique: Extra Crumbs around Shrimp Tempura
When you order Shrimp Tempura at Japanese restaurants, crispy crumbs usually coat the tempura.
In Japanese, we call this cooking method Hanaage (花揚げ); hana means flower and age means deep-frying. Why flower? When the chef adds the tempura batter to the hot oil, it blooms like a flower. Check this video below.
Did you see the chef dip his hand in the oil? Crazy, isn’t it?
However, if you go to tempura specialized restaurants in Japan, the tempura chefs will not serve Tempura with excess batter because they want you to enjoy the flavor of the ingredient, not the excess batter.
Typically, you will see Hanaage-style Shrimp Tempura with extra crispy batter on noodle soup dishes or tempura rice bowl dishes.
You Can Serve Shrimp Tempura with Vegetable Tempura.
5 Tips To Make Shrimp Tempura
The majority of Japanese home cooks don’t make the Hanaage-style Tempura as it’s time-consuming and difficult to make. It’s a lot easier to simply coat the shrimp with batter and deep fry.
Here are some helpful tips on making tempura:
- Keep all the ingredients (flour, water, egg) cold.
- Never overmix the batter, and it’s okay to leave some flour lumps in the batter.
- Start deep-frying as soon as you make the tempura batter.
- Keep the oil temperature steady at all times.
- Cover just half of the oil surface with ingredients.
Other Tempura Recipes
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Shrimp Tempura
Ingredients
For the Dipping Sauce (Tentsuyu)
- ¾ cup dashi (Japanese soup stock) (use standard Awase Dashi, dashi packet or powder, or Vegan Dashi)
- 3 Tbsp soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp mirin
- 2 tsp sugar
For the Tempura
- 10 prawns (black tiger prawns for home cooking, typically)
- 3 cups neutral oil (or use a 10-to-1 ratio of neutral oil to sesame oil)
- potato starch or cornstarch (for dusting)
For the Batter
- 1 cup all-purpose flour (plain flour) (chilled; weigh your flour or use the “fluff and sprinkle“ method and level it off)
- 1 large egg (50 g each w/o shell) (chilled)
- 200 ml iced water (¾ cup + 4 tsp)
For Serving
- 2 inches daikon radish (grated and lightly squeezed of liquid)
Instructions
- Before You Start: Gather all the ingredients. I strongly encourage you to weigh your flour in metric using a kitchen scale. Click on the “Metric“ button at the top of the recipe to convert the ingredient measurements to metric. If you‘re using a cup measurement, please follow the “fluff and sprinkle“ method: Fluff your flour with a spoon, sprinkle the flour into your measuring cup, and level it off. Otherwise, you may scoop more flour than you need.
To Make the Dipping Sauce (Tentsuyu)
- Gather the ingredients for the tempura dipping sauce.
- Combine ¾ cup dashi (Japanese soup stock), 3 Tbsp soy sauce, 2 Tbsp mirin, and 2 tsp sugar in a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. Lower the heat and let it simmer until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from the heat and set aside. Tip: For a quick dashi, use ¾ cup (180 ml) water + 1 tsp dashi powder.
To Prepare the Shrimp
- Peel 10 prawns, leaving on the tail and last shell segment (closest to the tail). Straighten the shrimp so it looks gorgeous; learn how in my post on how to prepare shrimp. Pat dry with paper towels to completely remove any surface moisture. Any excess moisture will keep the tempura from getting crispy and make it soggy. Tip: We typically use black tiger prawns to make shrimp tempura at home. Tempura specialty restaurants in Japan use the more-expensive Japanese tiger prawns.
To Prepare the Oil
- In a wok or a medium-sized pot, add 3 cups neutral oil or enough for 1½ inches (3 cm) of oil in the pot. Heat the oil to 340–350ºF (170–180ºC) and check the temperature using a thermometer. To check with wooden chopsticks, dip them in the oil; when small bubbles form around the tips, the oil is ready. Be sure to maintain the oil temperature at all times. Tip: For enhanced aroma and taste, I like to add 1 part sesame oil for every 10 parts neutral oil.
To Make the Batter
- While the oil is heating up, prepare the tempura batter. We‘ll use a 1-to-1 ratio (by volume) of flour to egg + water. First, gather the batter ingredients.
- Next, sift 1 cup all-purpose flour (plain flour) into a large bowl.
- Add 1 large egg (50 g each w/o shell) and 200 ml iced water to a measuring cup or bowl.
- Whisk the egg mixture vigorously and discard the foam on the surface.
- Slowly pour the egg mixture into the flour. Mix the batter, but do not overmix; it‘s okay to leave some lumps. Keep the batter cold at all times. I store mine in the refrigerator until ready to use. Make the batter right before deep-frying to avoid activating the wheat gluten in the flour.
- Dust the shrimp lightly with potato starch or cornstarch. The starch acts as a glue that helps the batter adhere to the shrimp.
- Now, dip the shrimp in the batter and add them to the hot oil. Add a few shrimp pieces to the batter bowl. Pick up one piece by the tail, dip in the batter, let the excess drip off for 1–2 seconds, and very gently place in the hot oil. Continue to dip and add one piece at a time. Do not crowd the pot. Tip: When you deep-fry, do not overcrowd the pot because the oil temperature will drop quickly and your food will absorb too much oil. Your ingredients should take up no more than about half of the oil surface area at any one time. For more helpful hints, read my post on how to deep-fry food.
- Deep-fry until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Don‘t overcook the shrimp; otherwise, the texture will be tough and dry. Transfer the shrimp to a wire rack or a plate lined with a paper towel to drain the excess oil. Between batches, skim and discard the crumbs in the oil, which will burn and turn the oil darker if left in the pot.
To Serve
- Peel and grate 2 inches daikon radish (I love this grater) and gently squeeze out some of the liquid.
- Prepare 3–4 Tbsp warm tentsuyu in each individual dipping bowl with 1 Tbsp grated daikon per serving on the side. Add the grated daikon to the dipping sauce, then dip the Shrimp Tempura in the sauce to enjoy.
To Store
- If you have unused dipping sauce, you can store it in the refrigerator for up to 1–2 weeks.You can keep the leftovers in a single layer between paper towels and put in an airtight container or a resealable plastic bag. Store in the freezer for 2 weeks. To reheat, place the tempura on a wire rack in the preheated oven (400ºF or 200ºC) or the toaster oven for 5 minutes or until crisp on the outside and heated through on the inside.
Nutrition
Editor’s Note: The post was originally published on July 6, 2011. The images and the recipe have been updated in November 2013.
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What if I didn’t have cornstarch to dust the top of the shrimp?
HI Latasha! You can skip it or use flour. It’s just a tiny trick (and you can totally make it without it). 🙂
I made the tempura for dinner but fish not shrimp. Very good batter because yes i agree with you coasting did not overpower the fish. Am excited to do all veggies. Thank you. Love your recipes.
Hi Chit! Wonderful! The batter works for other seafood or meat or veggies too. 🙂 Thank you for trying this recipe! 🙂
I have a question about the dashi used in this recipe. I have faced confusion all over the internet about how much hondashi to use when making dashi. In your “how to make dashi” article you reference a much lower ratio of granules to water (I think it was ~1 tsp per 2-3 cups) than you do here. Is it just that this recipe calls for a stronger dashi?
When you make udon what ratio of granules would you use? I used 1 tsp to 1 cup of water when I made dashi for your beef udon and it came out great.
Hi Andy! I don’t use dashi powder so I can’t remember or confirm, but 1 tsp (6 g) for 2-3 cups (480 – 720 ml) was the measurement specified in the package, I believe. Dashi powder always give good taste when you add dashi powder, but flavors start to disappear as time passes (commonly known). So it is understandable that adding more dashi gives more rich dashi taste. 🙂
Hello Nami,
Greetings from Barcelona!
I would like to know whether it could be cooked ahead,because I would like to offer it to guests coming and I don’t have time to do it at the moment and keep it warm to serve it everyone at the same time.
Thanks,
Sílvia.
Hi Silvia! You could cook ahead, but tempura is meant to serve right before it’s eaten… so if your guests eat shrimp tempura for the first time, I recommend serving crispy tempura right out of the deep fryer.
Another option is to keep them warm in the oven until you serve. It’s not best but it’s better than they get cold. I’ve done this before and it is “okay” option. 🙂
Hope that helps!
Our tempura dinner was interrupted and we weren’t able to eat immediately. Many hours later we put everything into our air fryer and all became nice and crunchy again. I’d rather eat it fresh but in a pinch the air fryer saved the day.
Hi Debbie! What a great way to use the air fryer! I don’t own one, but this is such a great idea to keep the tempura fresh (unlike keep in the oven)! Thanks for sharing your tip with us!
for the batter can you not use egg, but just ice water (with ice) and potato starch?
Hi Spencer! You can make the batter without the egg, but please use flour instead of potato starch. 🙂
sake is not available in the middle east, any replacement?
Hi Romeo! You can skip and replace with water. 🙂 Hope you enjoy this recipe!
Just followed this tempura recipe to the t and it was amazing. Thank you, I can make tempura now.
Hi Patrick! Awesome! I’m so glad to hear your tempura came out well! Thanks so much for your kind feedback! 🙂
i was just wondering, what type of shrimp best soothes making tempura?
Hi Chris! I usually use black tiger or large shrimp for shrimp tempura. 🙂
Whoa. That’s some tempura. I have a new found respect for restaurant tempura (done the way in the video). My chopsticks simply aren’t long enough as I hate hot oil on my skin…but I then again I love tempura so I persevere!
Thanks yet again for an informative lesson!
Thank you Kathleen! Tempura requires some skills in order to achieve that crispy texture, not soggy or oily butter. I’ve been practicing for many years but still I feel like I could improve. Practice makes perfect. 🙂
Nami – You should know that I found your website through a google search on shrimp tempura. I was amazed with your step by step picture instructions on preparing the shrimp tempura and subsequently got hooked with your other recipes. I did make shrimp tempura and it was a huge success with my guests. I also appreciate your explanation on why we have to follow certain steps. Helps me to remember what I should do or avoid. Thanks so much for your good work on your blog.
Hi Alana! I’m so happy to hear my instruction was easy to follow – that’s one of my goals when I write my recipes. I’m glad shrimp tempura came out well. Thank you so much for your feedback!
Hi there! You have a really wonderful site and I love the way you show how easy some of this stuff is (I really feel like I could make them haha). I just have a question about the garnish in this recipe. Now this may sound kinda dumb, but do you want to include the liquid from the daikon? Or is it like you squeeze it out from the grated pieces then put those into your sauce? Just a little confused sorry.
Hi Keegan! Thank you for your kind words! I’m glad to hear step-by-step pictures are helpful. For grated daikon, I squeeze most of liquid, but I won’t squeeze really hard, just enough moist (but not dripping). Hope that helps! Thanks again!
Hi Nami! I just found your tempura recipe and I would like to give it a try. Would it be okay to use baking soda instead of baking powder? Or will it make a huge difference? Thanks and keep it up with this great blog!
Btw, I also found another tempura recipe that uses a whole egg, not just the yolk. How does using or not using the egg whites affect the finished product? Thanks again!
I used a whole egg for my Vegetable Tempura recipe. To me, the use of egg white doesn’t really make a huge difference as Tempura recipe requires so other important skills to make perfect tempura. Personally I won’t really see the difference, or it’s more like it’s hard to compare as each time I cannot make tempura the exact same way… Sorry I cannot help much. 🙁
https://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/vegetable-tempura/
Hi Neko! Baking powder and baking soda are both leavening agents, and even though they are not the same chemical we can substitute one for another in recipes.
I googled and found out that triple the amount of baking powder to equal the amount of baking soda. So, you just need 1/3 of baking soda. Hope this helps. 🙂
THANK YOU MUCH!!!! The tempura was simply PERFECT!!!! Light and crispy.
Hi Terri! Yay! I’m glad you enjoyed this recipe! Thank you so much for letting me know! 🙂
Hi nami,
I just tried this recipe yesterday. It was nice n crunchy right after frying but my only problem was the shrimp tends to get soggy after a while. Do you know what I am doing wrong?
By the way, I tried your chawanmushi recipe. It’s excellent. Exactly like those in the restaurants. My 3 year old daughter is a picky eater but chawanmushi wins every time. She finishes it all!!
Hi Mary! Tempura is meant to be eaten right after being deep fried (the best experience is to eat tempura at the bar in tempura specialized restaurant). It will never been crispy and crunchy like the moment you deep fried after a few minutes. It’s hard to tell what went wrong as I wasn’t in your kitchen, but you can try your best to remove excess oil when you pick up tempura from oil. Extra oil definitely makes it soggier. And if you have a wire rack, please use it instead of paper towel, so it helps moisture to escape from the bottom of tempura. Hope this helps!
I’m so happy to hear that your daughter enjoyed my chawanmushi recipe! Thank you for letting me know! 🙂