Grilled bang bang shrimp skewers with halloumi
- Preparation 15 min
- Cooking 8 min
- Servings 4
- Freezing I do not suggest
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🦐 The combo nobody puts on the same skewer
I made this one up. No tradition behind it, no restaurant I’m copying. I like shrimp, I like halloumi, and I had no bang bang sauce anywhere on the site yet, so the three things collided on one skewer on a Saturday afternoon and never came apart. Grilled shrimp turn sweet and briny. Halloumi goes salty and deeply caramelized, and it holds its shape the whole time instead of running through the grate. The bang bang sauce ties them together with something creamy and hot. You eat one and you’re already reaching for the second.
🌶️ My bang bang sauce, pushed further than the standard one
The usual version is three things in a bowl: mayo, sweet chili sauce, sriracha. Mine adds fresh grated ginger, rice vinegar, soy sauce and a spoonful of sugar, which drags the whole thing east. Creamy, hot, bright, sweet and salty all at once. It also keeps. Make it the day before and the ginger and the soy have time to settle into each other, which is honestly when it’s at its best. You spoon it over the skewers the second they come off the heat, and you leave a bowl of it on the table, because someone is going to want more.
🔥 Eight minutes of grill, four people fed
Fifteen minutes of prep, eight minutes on the BBQ, and you’ve served a main course nobody at the table has eaten before. Serve it with my sugar snap pea salad, my air fryer sweet potatoes, or plain rice if you want somewhere for the extra sauce to land.
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📏 Everything on the skewer at the same thickness
This is the one that matters. Cut the halloumi into flat rectangles that match the thickness of your shrimp, not into fat cubes. If the cheese is taller than the shrimp, the shrimp never actually touch the hot surface. They cook in ambient heat instead, and you end up with pale, sad shrimp and beautifully grilled cheese on the same stick. Same height everywhere means everything caramelizes at the same time. It doesn’t have to be surgical, but the closer you get, the better it looks and the better it tastes.
🍤 Grilled, not fried
The bang bang shrimp most people know is battered and deep-fried, which buries the shrimp under coating. Grilling gets you the opposite: char, smoke, and shrimp that still taste like shrimp under the sauce. The sauce goes on after cooking, never before. Sugar and mayonnaise on a hot grate will burn before the shrimp are done. If you want the sauce on its own for wings, fries or a rice bowl, I wrote it up separately as my homemade bang bang sauce.
🌡️ Room temperature, and bone dry
Take the halloumi out of the fridge 30 minutes to an hour ahead and pat it dry properly. Cold wet halloumi sticks and turns rubbery. Warm dry halloumi browns.
🪵 Two skewers instead of one
Run two skewers in parallel through each row. With a single skewer, every shrimp pivots on its own axis the moment you flip, and half of them end up facing the wrong way. Two skewers lock the whole row flat against the heat. Metal ones are worth buying once and never thinking about again. Bamboo works if you soak it for 30 minutes first, otherwise the ends burn off.
🔥 Full heat, and a grill mat
Get the BBQ as hot as it goes, then lay the reusable grill mat down and let it preheat for a few minutes before anything touches it. Halloumi sticks to bare grates. It doesn’t matter how seasoned they are or how much oil you used. The mat ends that argument permanently, and you still get the marks.
🌶️ The Sriracha is your dial
I use 2 tbsp because I like it hot and I like it red. Drop to 1 tbsp, or even 1 tsp, if you’re feeding people who don’t. To keep the colour without the heat, make up the difference with smoked paprika.
🔄 If you can’t find halloumi
Indian paneer behaves the same way on a grill: same firm texture, same refusal to melt, same cooking time. No shrimp, though? Then you’re making something else. The contrast between the two is the entire point. If you want to go all cheese, I have grilled halloumi skewers with honey, thyme and lemon, and if you want the same sauce on poultry there’s my bang bang chicken skewers.
✅ What to serve with my grilled bang bang shrimp skewers?
These go with almost anything off the same grill. My sugar snap pea salad is the one I reach for most, all crunch and no weight against the creamy sauce. My air fryer sweet potatoes lean into the sweet-salty thing, and my maple roasted sweet potatoes push it further if that’s what you want. For something cold and crunchy on the side, my creamy broccoli salad does the job. Plain basmati rice is never wrong either, mostly because it soaks up whatever sauce is left in the bowl.
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Homemade bang bang sauce
- ½ cup (125 ml) mayonnaise
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) sweet chili sauce
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) Sriracha
- Juice of 1 lime
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) rice vinegar
- 1 tsp (5 ml) garlic powder
- 2 tbsp (25 g) sugar
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) soy sauce
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) freshly grated ginger
Shrimp and halloumi
- 1⅓ lb (600 g) 16-20 count shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 14 oz (400 g) halloumi, at room temperature, cut into rectangles the same thickness as the shrimp
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp (5 ml) smoked paprika
- 1 tsp (5 ml) garlic powder
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
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Preparation
- Make the bang bang sauce first. In a small bowl, whisk the mayonnaise, sweet chili sauce, Sriracha, lime juice, rice vinegar, garlic powder, sugar, soy sauce and grated ginger until completely smooth. Cover and refrigerate until serving. Made a day ahead, it tastes better.
- Pull the halloumi out of the fridge 30 minutes to 1 hour before you cook. Unwrap it, pat it dry all over with paper towels, then cut it into rectangles the same thickness as your shrimp.
- In a large bowl, toss the shrimp and the halloumi rectangles with the olive oil, smoked paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Let them sit 10 minutes while the grill comes up to heat.
- Heat the BBQ on high, lid closed, until it is properly hot. Lay a reusable grill mat over the grates and let it heat through for 3 to 4 minutes.
- Thread the shrimp and halloumi alternately onto skewers. Use two skewers side by side for each row rather than one. Everything stays flat, nothing spins when you flip.
- Set the skewers on the hot grill mat. Grill 3 to 4 minutes per side, two sides only, until the shrimp are pink and lightly caramelized and the halloumi is golden and marked.
- Move the skewers to a serving platter and spoon the bang bang sauce over them generously. Serve right away, with an extra bowl of sauce for dipping. Do not let them sit around. The shrimp go cold and the halloumi turns tough.
Three to four minutes a side over high heat, and only two sides. That’s it. These are 16-20 count shrimp, which are big enough to survive a hot grate. They’re done the second they turn pink and curl into a loose C. A shrimp curled into a tight O is already overcooked. Because the halloumi on the same skewer wants roughly the same amount of time to brown properly, the two finish together, which is part of why this combination works at all.
Halloumi is a firm, salty cheese from Cyprus, traditionally made from sheep’s and goat’s milk. It’s brined, which is why it tastes so salty, and it squeaks against your teeth. The important part: it does not melt. It’s made at a high temperature, which sets the proteins so they hold together instead of flowing when heated. On a hot grate it browns, crusts and softens inside while keeping its exact shape. That’s why it can sit on a skewer next to shrimp and come off whole.
Mayonnaise, sweet chili sauce and Sriracha are the base. I add rice vinegar, soy sauce, fresh ginger, lime juice, garlic powder and a bit of sugar, which makes it brighter and more savoury than the plain three-ingredient version. Heat is moderate and completely in your control, because the only hot ingredient is the Sriracha. At 2 tbsp it has a real kick that the mayonnaise rounds off; at 1 tsp it reads as sweet and tangy with a whisper of heat.
Yes, if you’re using bamboo or wooden ones. Thirty minutes in cold water before you thread them, and the exposed ends won’t catch fire on a grill running this hot. Honestly though, metal skewers solve the problem for good, and they hold heat, which helps the halloumi brown from the inside of the piece as well as the outside. Either way, use two skewers per row.
Something crunchy and cold, mostly, because the sauce is rich. My sugar snap pea salad is the default around here. My air fryer sweet potatoes play up the sweet-salty side, my creamy broccoli salad gives you the cold crunch, and plain basmati rice catches every drop of sauce that comes off the skewers.
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