Name: New England-Style Shrimp Rolls
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 55 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 2 lb shrimp (900 g), shelled, deveined, tails on and butterflied; 1 tbsp (15 ml) olive oil; salt and pepper to taste; ½ cup (120 ml) mayonnaise; 1 tsp (5 ml) lemon zest; 2 tbsp (30 ml) lemon juice; Pinch of cayenne pepper; ½ cup (120 ml) celery, diced; 2 tbsp (30 ml) shallots, minced; 1 tbsp dill, minced; salt and pepper to taste; Split top hotdog buns; 2 tbsp melted butter; 8 Ears Fresh Corn, husked; 1 cup (240 ml) cherry tomatoes, diced in half; 1 cup (240 ml) orange bell peppers, diced; ¼ cup (60 ml) fresh basil, cut into ribbons; Juice of 1 lime or 1 tsp (5 ml) red wine vinegar; 1 garlic clove, minced; ½ tsp (2.5 ml) dried tarragon; 3 tbsp (45 ml) olive oil; salt and pepper

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These New England-Style Shrimp Rolls are easier and less expensive than traditional lobster rolls but just as delicious! When served with a simple corn salad, you’ll have a classic New England dinner!

Both of these dishes can be made ahead, and all you have to do before serving is grill the buns! It’s the perfect meal for summer entertaining when it’s just too hot to fire up the grill!

a New England Style Shrimp Roll on a plate with a spoonful of corn salad.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

When entertaining in the heat of the summer, who wants to be slaving over the grill?
Instead, you can whip these up ahead of time and serve a chilled dinner! (All you have to do at the last minute is toast the buns)
The combination of the chilled shrimp salad and toasty bun is just fantastic!
The day before, all you have to do is roast the shrimp to bring out its best flavor. Or to save even more time, you can buy already cooked and shelled shrimp.
Then mix up the dressing, add some celery, shallots, and dill, combine it all, and load it into a buttery split-top bun.
The shrimp rolls pair beautifully with my simple corn salad, which can also be made ahead of time! (Recipe also in the recipe card below)

★★★★☆

“Been craving this style of rolls and this recipe satisfied the taste buds. So happy to be able to make these with shrimp. Served them to my family and they all gave two thumbs up! Thank you Beth for this recipe and LOVE your videos!”

– Julie

Step#1: Prep the Shrimp

Purchase your shrimp with the tails on.
This will prevent your shrimp from drying out when you roast them in the oven. I also find they are less expensive this way, too!
You can also use frozen shrimp, since you are roasting them, which brings out more flavor, and tossing them with dressing, no one will know you used frozen!
Or buy already cooked, shelled shrimp.
Cut the cooked shrimp into bite-sized pieces (this will prevent them from drying out in the oven). They will be easier to load up in the buns if the pieces are bite-sized.

Small cooked shrimp being chopped on a cutting board.

How to Make Shrimp Look Like Lobster

I like to score the backs of the shrimp after cleaning them and removing the vein. Otherwise known as “butterflying”.
This plumps them up while cooking and gives them a texture similar to lobster, but for a lot less money!
It also helps the shrimp fill out the bun and create a generously stuffed appearance, too!

a bowl filled with ingredients like cooked shrimp, celery, herbs and mayonnaise.

Step#2: Prepare Dressing

You’ll love the flavor of the shrimp roll dressing! It is a wonderful lemony mayo dressing that is loaded with crunchy celery, shallots, and dill.
It pairs beautifully with the shrimp, and its flavors become even better the longer the salad sits in the fridge.
Add the dressing to the cooked shrimp and toss to coat well.
I also like to reserve 3 tablespoons of the dressing in a separate bowl. That way, I have a little more dressing to toss in to freshen the salad right before serving.

a bowl of shrimp salad tossed in mayonaise.

Step#3: Grill the Buns

A critical component of this shrimp roll recipe is, of course, the split-top buns, which are a bit of a unicorn in Los Angeles. No, seriously, they don’t exist. Not anywhere!
It’s the strangest thing I’ve come across, being an “east coast” transplant, the complete absence of a split-top bun. Why is that? I’m sure Westerners would love them as much as New Englanders do, but alas, to no avail.
Then I moved to France and found them here! They aren’t the exact kind like we had in New England; they don’t have the sides that you can grill, but they are made of brioche bread, which is a delicious complement to the shrimp, and you can butter the insides and pop them in the oven to get toasty, which I’ve found is just as good.

Split Top Buns being buttered on a baking sheet.

Assemble + Serve

After grilling or toasting the bun, all you have to do is fill the buns with the shrimp salad and set them out on a platter. How easy is that?!
I also like to garnish them with some freshly snipped chives.
Serve with my simple corn salad, recipe in the recipe card below.
You can store any remaining shrimp salad in the refrigerator for up to two days.
For an easy summer dessert idea to pair with this meal try my Plum Crumble or my Strawberry Cobbler.

a side angle of a shrimp roll showing shrimp loaded into a split top bun.

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