Bobby Flay's Shrimp And Grits Recipe

Bobby Flay is a city boy by birth — New York City, to be exact, where he launched his restaurant career by opening the legendary Mesa Grill as a grizzled industry veteran all of 25 years old. As the name of his first restaurant indicates, Flay's never been one to let his city roots stand in the way of embracing regional foods. While his first love was Southwestern cuisine, he's subsequently made a name for himself by embracing many types of "down-home" cooking. While he may be best known for barbecue, Flay's also unafraid to throw down over other Southern comfort foods, including fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits. It should come as no surprise, then, to realize that he also has his own version of that low-country classic, shrimp and grits.

While we'd never go mano a mano with the notoriously hot-tempered Bobby, Mashed realizes that even his recipes can come in for a little tinkering. We asked healthy eating advocate Sher Castellano to see if she could give Flay's recipe a makeover, so she came up with a few tweaks to improve its nutritional profile in her Bobby Flay's shrimp and grits with a twist.

One thing you may notice and be slightly confused by as you read over the recipe for Bobby Flay's shrimp and grits with a twist is the fact that the title says grits but the recipe itself calls for stone-ground cornmeal, as does Flay's. So is it cornmeal you want, or grits, or what? Relax — The Spruce Eats says the difference really isn't all that crucial. Grits are a type of coarse-ground cornmeal which may or may not be made from hominy (corn treated with lime), and can come in several different colors: white, yellow, and blue. Flay's recipe and Castellano's both call for the yellow kind, but you can use whichever one you please.

The one thing you should not do, however, is use either instant grits or the type of fine-ground cornmeal that is used for baking, as neither of these will have the right texture needed to stand up to the shrimp. As long as you see the words "stone-ground" on the package, though, you should be good to go whether the product calls itself cornmeal or grits. Oh, and if you want an extra pro tip, The Kitchn recommends you soak your grits overnight before cooking them to cut down on the overall cooking time.

Once the onions are all sliced and diced, you can then caramelize them. The key when it comes to caramelizing onions is to cook them low and slow. First, add one tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, then heat it up over a low flame. Once it's hot (but not too hot), add the onions and sauté them until they are just beginning to caramelize. This may take longer than you expect ˆ in fact, Bon Appétit suggests that truly caramelized onions can take 45 minutes are more.

Castellano says that if you mince the onions finely enough, they should caramelize more quickly, perhaps as quickly as five minutes. Even if they're not quite caramelized at this point, you can still go ahead and add them for a delicious sautéed flavor, but if you prefer, you can always keep cooking them until they reach the desired degree of doneness.

Wipe out the pan — there's no need to dirty a second one to make Bobby Flay's shrimp and grits with a twist, after all — and pour in the remaining olive oil. Warm the oil over medium-low heat, then add the shrimp and cook them just until they turn pink. At this point, stir in the lemon juice and the parsley, then cook the shrimp for one minute longer.

Spoon the shrimp over the grits — you may either serve the shrimp and grits up family-style or else portion the grits out into four separate bowls before topping each serving with a quarter of the shrimp. If desired, garnish the dish with a sprinkling of black pepper and a little more chopped parsley.