Easy Homemade Shrimp Stock – Low Sodium

This easy homemade shrimp stock is much lower in sodium than regular shrimp stock cubes in supermarkets and it is a great way to use your left over shrimp shells rather than tossing them away. This easy homemade stock recipe is also quite low in calories and made from fresh onion, ginger, and garlic. I used shells from 12 oz of large shrimp to make the 2.5 cups of shrimp stock in this recipe but you can always make a lot more if you have access to a lot of raw shrimp shells.

Regular store bought seafood stock contains at least 550 mg of sodium per cup while this recipe provides no more than 230 mg of sodium per cup. In general we want to limit our sodium intake to no more than 2300 mg per day and if you are 50 years or older, have higher risk factors, or have cardiovascular health issues, you will need to limit your intake to no more than 1500 mg per day.

I don’t have calorie or macro info for this recipe but I suspect it is quite negligible because the solid ingredients are thrown away at the end (similar to tea brewing).

Recipe:

Ingredients for 2.5 cups of shrimp stock:
Shrimp shells from 12 oz raw large shrimps (I bought frozen ones and thawed them in the fridge first)
1/2 of a small onion
1 clove of garlic sliced
2 inch fresh ginger root sliced
Freshly ground sea salt (1/4 tsp or less)
Freshly ground pepper
Dried Italian seasoning
Chili powder
2.5 cup filtered water

Instruction:
1. Put the shrimp shells, onion, garlic, ginger, sea salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and chili powder into a pot.

2. Pour filtered water into the pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Simmer at low heat for 60 min or longer.

3. Uncover the pot and let it cool before filtering.

4. Use a colander and a large bowl to collect the stock. You can also use a fine mesh to further filter out the shrimp stock.

Store the stock in the fridge for up to a week or store in the freezer if longer time is needed.

I use shrimp stock to make stir fries, stews, steamed vegetables, and pasta meals.