North America

Shrimp and Grits: A South Carolina Lowcountry Classic, Finished Separately

Name: Shrimp and Grits: A South Carolina Lowcountry Classic, Finished Separately
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 65 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: South Carolinian
Ingredients: 160 g Coarse cornmeal or grits; 550 ml Water; 300 ml Milk; 5 g Salt; 30 g Unsalted butter; 70 g Cheddar cheese; 400 g Raw peeled shrimp; 80 g Thick-cut bacon; 120 g Onion; 60 g Celery; 100 g Green bell pepper; 8 g (2 cloves) Garlic; 8 g Cake flour; 180 ml Chicken stock or seafood stock; 4 g Sweet paprika powder; 0.2 g Cayenne pepper; 0.5 g Black pepper; 2 g Salt; 15 ml Lemon juice; 30 g Scallions; 10 ml Hot sauce

A South Carolina home dish that layers the savory sear of shrimp over smooth, coarse-ground corn grits. The origins of shrimp and grits, choosing the meal, cooking shrimp without toughening them, substitutes and storage, in amounts that work in a home kitchen. Also helps you decide which spice is worth buying and which tool you can skip.

Published: October 25, 2026Total: 1 hr 5 minLevel: Intermediate

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 8

Measure the meal and liquids

5 min

Prep with coarse cornmeal, water, milk and shrimp laid out on the counter and measured — Lining up the coarseness of the meal and the liquids first lets you adjust moisture without hesitation as it cooks

No heat is used. Mix 160 g coarse cornmeal and 5 g salt in a bowl, and measure out 550 ml water and 300 ml milk separately. The measuring is done when the meal is evenly mixed with no dry spots left. Take the milk out of the refrigerator, and wipe the refrigerator-thawed shrimp dry with paper towels. If the bag of meal says stone-ground or coarse, prefer that grind.

STEP 22 / 8

Bring the grits to a boil, then lower the heat

8 min

Adding coarse cornmeal in a thin stream to the pot and mixing with a whisk — Add the meal little by little to the boiling liquid, and do not make lumps

Put 550 ml water and the salt in a heavy pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. When bubbles rise all over, rain in the cornmeal in a thin stream while whisking, and work the whole amount in before the meal sinks to the bottom. Lower to low heat and keep whisking for just 2 minutes; move on when no dry lumps of meal remain and small bubbles have returned to the surface.

STEP 33 / 8

Cook until the grains loosen

25–35 min

Stirring grits in a low-heat pot with a wooden spoon and checking that the spoon's trail slowly fills back in — Cook until the spoon's trail slowly fills in and the hard core is gone

Keeping the heat low, stir every 5 minutes, sweeping from the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon. After 15 minutes, add the milk in three portions of 100 ml, keeping a temperature that bubbles gently. When the spoon's trail stays for a moment and the hard core is gone when you bite a grain, it is the sign that it is approaching a smooth consistency. If the meal firms up first, add 50 ml of boiling water at a time. Hurrying over high heat tends to set only the bottom of the pot.

STEP 44 / 8

Finish the grits with cheese

5 min

Stirring grits smoothly melted with butter and cheddar cheese using a wooden spoon — When the streaks of cheese are gone and it falls in a thick ribbon, it is easy to plate

Turn off the heat and add 30 g unsalted butter and 70 g shredded cheddar. Turn broadly from the bottom with a wooden spoon, and mix until the streaks of cheese are gone and the smooth mixture falls from the spoon in a thick ribbon. Cover and set it beside the low heat so it does not cool while you make the shrimp. If it becomes heavy, add boiling water 2 tbsp at a time to bring it back to a firmness that flows slowly like porridge.

STEP 55 / 8

Cut the shrimp and aromatics

10 min

Prep with shrimp, 1 cm bacon and 5 mm diced aromatics divided onto separate small plates — Separating the shrimp and aromatics first means the shrimp never wait during cooking

Sprinkle 400 g shrimp with 2 g salt and black pepper. Cut the bacon 1 cm wide, the onion, celery and green bell pepper into 5 mm dice, mince the garlic, and slice the scallions 3 mm thick. If the shrimp are piled up they release moisture, so press the surface with paper towels until little moisture remains on it and no clear droplets are left. No heat is used in this step; keep the shrimp in a refrigerator at 4°C or below and take them out right before searing. Do not share the plate that held raw shrimp with the cut vegetables or the plates for serving.

STEP 66 / 8

Cook the bacon and aromatics

8 min

Cooking onion, celery and green bell pepper in bacon fat, the aromatics starting to turn translucent — Once the bacon fat has coated the vegetables and the corners are translucent, move on

Put a griddle or frying pan over medium heat and cook the bacon with no oil for 2–3 minutes. When the fat seeps out and the edges color lightly, add the onion, celery and green bell pepper and cook for 5–6 minutes. When the corners of the vegetables are translucent and a thin brown film has formed on the bottom of the pan, add the garlic and cook for only 30 seconds. If you add the garlic first and scorch it, the bitterness comes before the sweetness of the shrimp.

STEP 77 / 8

Cook the shrimp in the sauce

6–8 min

Shrimp turning white and opaque in the red paprika sauce, just before turning off the heat — The shrimp turn opaque and the sauce coats the spoon thinly

Lower the heat, add 8 g flour, 4 g sweet paprika, the cayenne and black pepper, and stir for 30 seconds. Pour in 180 ml stock, bubble for 2 minutes over medium heat, and bring it to a thickness that coats the back of a spoon thinly. Arrange the shrimp so they do not overlap and cook about 1 minute 30 seconds per side. When the flesh has gone from pearly to white and opaque and is cooked through to the center, turn off the heat and add the lemon juice. If you put food safety first, check 63°C at the center with a thermometer, and do not judge rawness by color alone.

STEP 88 / 8

Layer onto the grits and finish

3 min

A finished plating of white grits topped with shrimp and red sauce, with scallions and lemon — Layer the shrimp and sauce on the grits and put the acidity last

Put the grits into bowls one serving at a time, and spoon the shrimp and sauce over the top. Scatter the scallions 3 mm thick, and instead of mixing the hot sauce in, put a little at a time on each eater's plate. It is a success if the surface of the grits slowly levels smoothly and the shrimp stay visible without sinking. After finishing, carry it to the table while warm.

0 / 0

Ingredients

1 / 3

Grits

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Coarse cornmeal or grits	160 g	Prefer packages labeled stone-ground or coarse. Yellow or white both work
Water	550 ml	Unsalted stock also works
Milk	300 ml	Replacing all of it with water gives a lighter result
Salt	5 g	Adjust considering the salt in the bacon and cheese
Unsalted butter	30 g	For finishing
Cheddar cheese	70 g	Shredded. If you don't like a strong flavor, 50 g

2 / 3

Shrimp sauce

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Raw peeled shrimp	400 g	If frozen, thaw in the refrigerator and wipe dry. Do not use pre-cooked
Thick-cut bacon	80 g	1 cm wide. If replacing with sausage, 120 g
Onion	120 g	5 mm dice
Celery	60 g	5 mm dice. May be omitted if you dislike it
Green bell pepper	100 g	5 mm dice. Red bell pepper also works
Garlic	8 g (2 cloves)	Minced
Cake flour	8 g	To thicken the sauce lightly
Chicken stock or seafood stock	180 ml	Unsalted is easier to adjust
Sweet paprika powder	4 g	For color and aroma, not heat. See the note below
Cayenne pepper	0.2 g	Omit if you don't want heat
Black pepper	0.5 g	Coarsely ground
Salt	2 g	To season the shrimp. Reduce for the salt in the bacon

3 / 3

Finishing

Ingredient	Amount	How to use
Lemon juice	15 ml	Add after turning off the heat
Scallions	30 g	Sliced 3 mm thick
Hot sauce	10 ml	Add the amount you like at the table

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Shrimp straight from the freezer curl up as soon as heat touches them, making red and white rings in the pan. Beneath them is hot grits, a little different from rice porridge, with corn grains that stay on the tongue.

Imagine this. When you put in a spoon, the porridge parts slowly, and one shrimp wrapped in bacon fat slides out ahead of the rest. A drop of acidity, and after the rich cheese, a seaside saltiness comes back.

What trips people up with shrimp and grits is less the seasoning than trying to finish two cooking jobs at the same time. Grits take a long time for the grains to loosen, while shrimp turn tough after waiting just a few minutes too long in the pan. Simmer the grits slowly first, and finish the shrimp briefly at the end in a separate pan. In this order, you keep the texture of the coarse meal, and even frozen shrimp keep the outline of the plate sharp.

The formula in this article takes a combination eaten in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and translates it into a form that is easy to make at home. Rather than reproduce the local plate exactly, it is laid out so you can see the grind of the meal, the moisture of the shrimp, and where to settle the heat.

The Lowcountry table: from a seaside breakfast to an evening plate

Grits are dried corn that has been ground. An encyclopedia based on University of South Carolina material describes them as a food whose coarseness varies from coarse to fine depending on how it is milled. They are a base that receives flavors the way rice or bread do; in the state, some people eat them with only salt and butter, and others serve them with ham gravy or shrimp [1].

The Lowcountry is the name for the coastal plain of South Carolina and Georgia. Tidal inlets and islands continue along it, with shrimp coming from the sea and corn and rice from the land. The closeness of the ingredients fostered the idea of placing seafood on a soft vessel of cooked grain.

However, it would not be accurate to tie shrimp and grits to one cook or one restaurant. The Levine Museum of the New South, which presents Southern history, suggests that Gullah Geechee foodways, Indigenous corn and European eating habits may have overlapped in the dish's background, and says the first kitchen cannot be identified [2]. The National Park Service also explains that Gullah Geechee foodways have been handed down as a combination of knowledge originating in West and Central Africa with the seafood and crops available on the coast [3].

It is also recorded that what began as a plain dish like breakfast spread as a dinner main course in the 1980s through the chef Bill Neal, and that a 1985 New York Times article by Craig Claiborne pushed its fame nationwide [2]. That South Carolina designated grits its official state food in 1976 is another clue that it is not merely a tourist dish but food rooted in the daily life of the land [4].

Because the exact origin cannot be fixed to one, regional differences are not a flaw in the dish but its history. A household that eats it simply as a coastal breakfast and a restaurant that layers cheese and gravy on it for dinner have, under the same name, different weight at the tip of the spoon. When taking it back to a home kitchen, deciding the grind of the meal and the order of topping the shrimp to suit your own table, rather than hiding that difference, is also more faithful to the road the dish has traveled.

So there is no single plate locally. There are white grits with melted cheese, gravy sharpened by the saltiness of ham or bacon, versions with tomato or greens, and versions with spicy sausage. The plates at restaurants introduced by South Carolina's tourism office also show differences such as okra, kale, tomato, ham and chorizo [5]. Knowing this range, you need not force yourself to think that making it with the dairy and frozen shrimp you have at home is "off from the real thing."

It does sometimes use aromatics similar to those in Louisiana's shrimp étouffée (in Japanese) or jambalaya (in Japanese), but its path differs from dishes that put rice or roux in the lead. Here, we put the grits, with the corn grains left in, in the lead.

A scene of coarse-ground corn, raw shrimp and a cast-iron pot set on a Lowcountry windowsill — The background in which seafood from the shore and corn from the land come together on one plate

Ingredients (serves 4)

Ingredients for 4: coarse cornmeal, shrimp, bacon, cheddar, milk and aromatics — Check the coarseness of the meal and the moisture of the shrimp first

Allergy and food-safety notes

This uses shrimp, dairy and wheat. Stock, bacon, cheese and hot sauce differ by product in their labeling for wheat, soy, egg, seafood and so on, so people who need to should check the labels when buying. Wash the cutting board and plate that handled raw shrimp separately from those for serving. Cook the shrimp until the flesh goes from pearly to white and opaque, and if you use a thermometer, the guide is 63°C at the center [6].

What to check on the bag of meal, and what you needn't buy

Grits and cornmeal are ingredients whose names easily get mixed up in stores. What we want this time is a coarse grind where the grains are visible. You can make it with only a fine meal labeled "corn flour," but the finished texture is smooth and the feeling of biting into corn grains is weak. In that case, start with 650 ml water from the beginning, shorten the cooking time to 15–20 minutes, and stir so the meal does not sink to the bottom.

Yellow meal brings out aroma and color easily, while white meal blends with the color of dairy. Either works as a dish as long as the shrimp sauce goes on top, but if you want to approach local stone-ground grits, it is worth checking the coarseness at an import grocery or online.

Coarse cornmeal and dried corn visible through the bag, and sweet paprika, placed on a wooden shelf as shopping clues — Check the coarseness of the meal and the mildness of the paprika rather than the product name

The paprika is not a hot chili; it adds a red-orange color and a dry, sweet aroma to these shrimp. If you have sweet paprika at home, go ahead without buying more. If you do buy it, the one thing to check is that it is sweet paprika powder, not hot paprika or chili powder.

A new jar has a reason to be bought by people who will use it repeatedly in stews, but it is not essential for someone who wants to try just the meal the first time. What decides the flavor is the coarseness of the meal and the moisture of the shrimp, more than the brand of paprika.

To spread 400 g of shrimp without overlapping at once, a pan with more width than a typical 20 cm frying pan is easier to work with. If you cook all 4 servings at once, check the pan's width and that it suits your stove. If you have an ordinary frying pan with which you can cook a little at a time, there is no need to buy one.

Six branches that change the axis of flavor

Shrimp and grits is not a dish that improves with more ingredients. Change just one of the base porridge, the saltiness of the shrimp, or the final acidity as the lead, and the same steps give a different table.

Salt-and-butter grits: Leave out the cheddar and increase the butter to 40 g. A combination for when you want to taste the stock of the shrimp and the aroma of bacon directly.
Rich cheese dinner version: Increase the cheddar to 90 g and the finishing lemon to 20 ml. This makes a plate that can take a rich sauce.
Coastal style with tomato and okra: After cooking the aromatics, add 150 g diced tomatoes and 80 g sliced okra, and reduce the stock to 150 ml. It has a lot of moisture, so simmer 5 minutes to reduce before adding the shrimp.
Dividing heat plate by plate: Don't put cayenne in the pot, and add hot sauce at the table. Even in a family with different tolerances for heat, the sweetness of the shrimp is not lost.
Smoky sausage: Replace the bacon with 120 g andouille or smoked sausage, and start with 1 g of salt. If the product is low in fat, add just 1 tsp oil.
A day to change the shrimp: With 400 g scallops, even out the thickness and sear 2 minutes per side. With white fish, cut into 2 cm cubes and add them last to the sauce so they do not fall apart. The texture changes, so it is a choice of not wasting what is in the refrigerator rather than protecting the dish's name.

Knowing regional differences makes substitutes easier to choose

What comes up repeatedly in South Carolina sources is the skeleton of shrimp and stone-ground grits [5]. What gets added to it changes by restaurant and household, and cheese, ham, tomato, greens and spicy sausage each make a different direction.

In a home reproduction, the handling of the meal tends to make more difference than the type of shrimp. If frozen shrimp are thawed slowly in the refrigerator and the surface water is wiped off, the sauce is less likely to be diluted when they are cooked. On the other hand, overly fine corn flour thickens in a short time, so cooking it with the same water and time as coarse meal makes it heavy.

So the order of what to look at first when shopping is not "is it local" but these three.

Whether grains remain in the meal
Whether the shrimp are raw, and whether you can wipe off the moisture after thawing
Whether you can separate the heat between the paprika and the hot sauce

If these three are in place, then even with white grits or with bell pepper swapped for paprika, the structure of the Lowcountry plate, "putting something from the sea on a grain," does not collapse.

Three kinds of shrimp and grits: simple bacon flavor, tomato and okra, and greens and sausage — Directions in toppings that change by restaurant and household

How to rescue a pot that went wrong

State	How to fix it on the spot	What to revisit next time
The grits are hard, with a core in the grains	Add 50 ml boiling water and cook over low heat for 5 minutes, until the spoon's trail slowly fills back in	Don't shorten the time with high heat; allow up to 35 minutes for coarse meal
The grits are watery	Remove the lid and cook over low heat 3–5 minutes. Take the shrimp out first before assembling	If the meal is fine, don't start with 650 ml water
Lumps remain	Turn off the heat, add 2 tbsp boiling water and loosen from the bottom of the pot with a whisk	Don't drop the meal into the boiling liquid all at once
The shrimp are tough	They will not fully return to their original springiness. Cut them small and mix with the remaining sauce and grits to eat	Arrange them in one layer and check from 1 minute 30 seconds per side
The sauce is too salty	Make a small amount of unsalted grits and mix the salty sauce into it. Adding only water just thins it	Check the salt in the order of bacon, stock, cheese

Pouring boiling water over hardened grits and restoring them, with the shrimp sauce kept in a separate container — Loosen the grits with boiling water, and take the shrimp out separately to protect them

Grits suddenly firm up as they cool. A feeling of "a little loose" in the pot is just the right consistency once it is on the plate. The shrimp sauce, conversely, is reduced just before serving to a point where it thinly coats the back of a spoon. Not finishing the two in the same pot protects the texture as well as the looks.

If eating the next morning, keep the grits and shrimp apart

If there are leftovers, move the grits and the shrimp sauce to separate shallow containers. If you store them mixed in one container like a rice dish, the moisture of the shrimp loosens the grits, and they tend to separate when reheated the next day.

FoodSafety.gov advises that perishable food be put into shallow containers and refrigerated within 2 hours after cooking, or within 1 hour if the room temperature is above 32°C [7]. To eat, add 1–2 tbsp water or milk to the grits and warm them slowly over low heat. Warm the shrimp sauce in a separate pot and do not let it boil, so the shrimp do not toughen. For refrigerated storage, up to 4 days is the guideline for safety, but considering the texture of the shrimp, this dish is more satisfying if finished by the next day [8].

Grits alone can also be frozen. Freeze flat in single portions, and after thawing, loosen with milk and butter; there is also a path of searing them into grits cakes. Freezing with the shrimp mixed in is not recommended, because the shrimp tend to toughen when thawed.

A table where grits and shrimp sauce are kept apart in shallow containers, stored with next-day reheating in mind — Storing the grits and shrimp apart makes it easier to restore the consistency the next day

Frequently asked questions

Are grits and polenta the same?

Both are foods made by grinding and cooking corn, but the raw material, the grind and the regional names differ. For this dish, prioritize "coarsely ground" over the product name. If you only have fine polenta, you can make it with the adjustment in the ingredient table of 650 ml water and 15–20 minutes of cooking, but the texture of the grains will be weaker.

Can I put frozen shrimp straight into the pot?

Thaw them in the refrigerator, and wipe the surface moisture before using. Frozen, they lower the temperature of the pan, the sauce turns watery, and only the center of the shrimp cooks late. Even when in a hurry, after thawing in the bag under running water, be sure to remove the moisture.

Can I make it without bacon?

Yes. Sauté the onion and celery in 2 tsp olive oil and switch the stock to seafood stock for a lighter taste. The smokiness is gone, so switching the paprika to the smoked type, or increasing the black pepper slightly at the end, brings back the outline.

Can I eat it if I don't like spicy food?

If you use sweet paprika and leave out the cayenne, it won't be hot. Rather than mixing hot sauce into the pot, adding it at the table only to the adults' plates keeps the sweetness of the shrimp and the mellowness of the cheese.

Can I prepare it the day before for breakfast?

Only the grits can be made the day before. They firm up when refrigerated, so the next morning add 2 tbsp milk or water at a time and bring them back to a porridge consistency over low heat. The shrimp sauce is better made right before eating, as the flesh is less likely to toughen.

A breakfast table plate of reheated grits topped with shrimp, with lemon and scallions — Breakfast or dinner, put the shrimp on last to match temperature and texture

Nutrition information (approximate, per serving)

Item	Approx.
Energy	about 735 kcal
Protein	about 34 g
Fat	about 39 g
Carbohydrates	about 63 g
Dietary fiber	about 4 g
Salt equivalent	about 3.3 g

The figures vary with the bacon, cheese, stock and the size of the shrimp. To reduce salt, use unsalted stock, cut the bacon to 60 g, and make up the flavor with lemon and black pepper.

Sources

South Carolina Encyclopedia, "Grits" (accessed and checked 3 August 2026, JST)
Levine Museum of the New South, "Shrimp and Grits" (accessed and checked 3 August 2026, JST)
National Park Service, "Gullah Geechee Foodways" (accessed and checked 3 August 2026, JST)
Charleston Magazine, "Shrimp & Grits" (accessed and checked 3 August 2026, JST)
Discover South Carolina, "Seeking Shrimp and Grits" (accessed and checked 3 August 2026, JST)
FoodSafety.gov, "Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures" (accessed and checked 3 August 2026, JST)
FoodSafety.gov, "4 Steps to Food Safety" (accessed and checked 3 August 2026, JST)
FoodSafety.gov, "Cold Food Storage Charts" (accessed and checked 3 August 2026, JST)