Honey Walnut Shrimp Recipe

This Honey Walnut Shrimp is better than most restaurant versions. Generously battered shrimp, sweetened walnuts, and the sweet honey sauce is Mind Blowing!

Have you ever visited a restaurant and fallen in love with something on the menu? How about fallen so head over heels that you made plans to return to the restaurant the next day? I have, of course, eating out every night fits in with just about no one’s schedule, and just about no one’s budget. That’s why I began working on this Honey Walnut Shrimp recipe.

For years our family would eat at a lovely, high-end Chinese Food restaurant in Roseville, California called “Fats”. The food there was really fabulous. One of our all-time favorite dishes, and frankly one of the main reasons we ate there so often, was because the entire family couldn’t get enough of their Honey Walnut Shrimp. Chinese food was always a family favorite but when we discovered this dish, it was a “Katie bar the doors” kinda situation.

If you’ve tried this dish before and weren’t too thrilled, try my recipe, it’s absolutely phenomenal… It’s the perfect blend of sweet and savory, and it’ll be all you can do to keep your family from literally licking their plates clean. You’ll find similar recipes all over the web; there’s the Panda Express Honey Walnut Shrimp recipe, for example, but honey walnut shrimp Panda Express recipe has got nothing on this one.  Or you can find recreations of the Honey Walnut Shrimp Trader Joe’s sells. Nope. Not quite.

Want to know the secret? It’s the mochiko. Those other recipes are great, but they use cornstarch, which is quite different from mochiko.

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What is mochiko?

“What is mochiko?” you ask. I’m so glad you brought it up! In America, mochiko is usually pronounced mo-chee-ko, though that varies depending on where you live. It’s a kind of a glutinous rice flour, made from sweetened “sticky rice” and it’s got a really distinct texture to it – it could be described best as “toothy” or even chewy.

It’s not just the texture that separates the mochiko from cornstarch or different flours. It’s also the flavor. Like I mentioned, mochiko is made from sweetened flours. In fact, it’s often used in desserts in Japanese dishes.

You can find mochiko locally if you have an Asian market in your area. If you live in a larger city, you may even be able to pick up a bag at the grocery store. For those of you in the smaller towns, though, you can find mochiko for sale on Amazon.

If you do buy your mochiko online, be sure to check the seller’s reviews. The last thing you want is to end up with a bag of expired mochiko. Like white and other flours, mochiko changes taste as it ages, and older flour can mean a bitter taste for your food.

Can you use cornstarch instead of mochiko?

Yes! You can use cornstarch instead of mochiko in this recipe. But I say that hesitantly because the mochiko really does bring out the flavor of the honey walnut shrimp. It gives it a sweet flavor and that texture I was talking about – cornstarch just fries differently than mochiko does.

You’ll find cornstarch in other recipes like the Honey Walnut Shrimp recipe Food Network promotes. The way I figure it, there are three reasons for this. Maybe mochiko isn’t locally available and you don’t want to wait for an online delivery. Most of us already have cornstarch on hand, so it’s an easy substitute.

The second reason is that people are trying to make a healthy Honey Walnut Shrimp recipe, so they use cornstarch instead. Yes, cornstarch does have fewer calories. But I don’t think the difference in taste is worth it. Besides, one cup of mochiko has 578 calories, and one cup of cornstarch has 488.

The third reason might actually surprise you. I mentioned that mochiko is a “glutinous” rice flour. Some people substitute cornstarch (which is gluten-free) for mochiko because they want to avoid gluten, but they don’t need to! Both contain no gluten at all.

Besides being gluten-free, is Honey Walnut Shrimp healthy?

If you’re looking for info on Honey Walnut Shrimp calories, I’ll just give it to you straight – honey walnut shrimp isn’t exactly a low-calorie meal. This particular recipe contains about 600 calories per serving. The dish is sweet, and has honey, sugar, mayo and sweetened condensed milk in it. And while you could absolutely make substitutions, you’d have to experiment because some substitutions may change the texture and, of course, the taste of the dish.

For an easy way to cut a few calories, try making your honey walnut shrimp not fried. Just pan-fry your shrimp without the batter using a bit of olive oil. There are other adaptations of the recipe, for sure – there’s even a honey walnut shrimp wiki on the web. That’s how much people love this dish! If the calories in this recipe are just too much to justify, you’ve got a few options. First, try one of my other recipes, inspired by dishes from some of my favorite Chinese restaurants.

You’ll love the Shrimp Lo Mein. It’s an easy meal – everything comes together in your wok or large skillet. Another favorite is my Szechuan Beef. Again, this is an easy one, it takes just 30 minutes to prepare. Last but not least, there’s Mongolian Chicken. The chicken in this recipe is pan-fried, cutting down on some of the fat and calories.

How do you make honey roasted walnuts?

The Walnuts in this recipe are sugared. The technique in our recipe produces a slightly sweet, tender walnut that works perfectly in this dish. If you’d prefer a honey roasted walnuts, here’s how to make them:

• To make honey roasted walnuts, you’ll need a half cup honey and a half teaspoon of salt. Combine that with a quarter cup raw sugar in a saucepan, toss in a cinnamon stick, and cook until the sugar is dissolved.
• Some people like to add a dash of cayenne pepper. If that’s not your thing – skip it. Once the sugar is dissolved, toss in a cup of walnut halves, and stir to coat the walnuts.
• Once everything has simmered for about 5 minutes, toss the cinnamon stick in the trash, then drain the mixture through a sieve. Spread the nuts out evenly on a wire rack over a pan. To protect your pan from burnt sugar, cover the pan with foil.
• Bake for about 10 minutes, then take them out of the oven. There you have it! Perfect honey roasted walnuts. Toss these in your honey walnut shrimp recipe and you’ll see what I mean.
• Once you’ve tried this recipe for Honey Walnut Shrimp, you can play around with it a little. One of the best adaptations I’ve tried is using honey roasted walnuts instead of simply candying them. Oh. My. Gosh. It turned out so good that it was me who came close to licking the plate.

Recipe Notes for Honey Walnut Shrimp :

Shrimp size – You can really use any size shrimp you want. Keep in mind, though, that the smaller the shrimp is, the more of the sauce it will pick up. That may sound like a good thing, but it’s easy for the flavor of the shrimp to be overwhelmed. Restaurants that serve honey walnut shrimp near me use medium shrimp, but I’ve had the best success with large. Jumbo shrimp tend to be too big.

Frozen shrimp – I’ve been asked several times whether you can use frozen shrimp in this recipe. You can. Be sure, though, that you rinse the shrimp in cold water before you cook it, and that you let the shrimp dry, or pat it with a paper towel, before dipping it in the batter. Pre-cooked shrimp will not work with this recipe.

Mayonnaise substitutions – Some recipes work well using Greek yogurt instead of mayo to cut calories. I don’t recommend that in this particular. You can certainly try it, but Greek yogurt has a tang to it whereas mayo is a combination of sweet and tart. I’ve found that there’s a big taste difference when you skip the mayo in favor of more “healthy” ingredients.

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