This grits a ya ya dish was prepared by a friend of mine for a Mardi Gras celebration. Because it was so good, I had to have the recipe.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 50 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
Ingredients
- 3 ½ cups chicken stock
- ¾ cup old fashioned grits
- ¼ cup heavy cream, plus more as needed
- 1 cup shredded smoked Gouda cheese, or more to taste
- ¼ cup butter
- 8 slices bacon, chopped
- 1 tablespoon minced shallot
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 splash white wine
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 pound jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 2 cups chopped spinach
- 1 cup chopped portobello mushrooms
- ¼ cup sliced green onions
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 dash hot pepper sauce, or to taste
- salt and ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Prepare the grits: Bring chicken stock to a boil in a saucepan over high heat.
- Slowly pour grits into stock while stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low; simmer until grits are tender and thick, 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Stir in heavy cream to thin out the grits. Stir in Gouda cheese and butter until melted and smooth.
- While grits are cooking, make the shrimp sauce: Place bacon in a large, deep skillet over medium heat; cook until bacon fat is rendered, about 3 minutes.
- Stir in shallot and garlic; cooking and stirring until shallots are tender, about 5 minutes.
- Pour in white wine and stir in butter, cooking and stirring until butter has melted.
- Drop shrimp in the skillet; cook and stir until they are bright pink on the outside and the meat is no longer transparent in the center, about 3 minutes.
- Stir in spinach, mushrooms, and green onions; cook and stir until the spinach wilts, about 2 minutes more.
- Remove shrimp with a slotted spoon.
- Stir in heavy cream to the sauce. Simmer until the cream is reduced by about a third, about 10 minutes. Season with hot sauce, salt, and pepper. Return shrimp to the skillet to heat through.
- Serve shrimp with sauce over the prepared grits.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 839 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 22 g |
| Cholesterol | 322 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 30 g |
| Saturated Fat | 39 g |
| Sodium | 1109 mg |
| Sugars | 2 g |
| Fat | 71 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This is so good!!! I have never had gits and cheese and decided to make it for a Mardi Gras party I was going to. There’s a lot going on here and I’ll know to have everything ready before hand the next time I make it. The only thing different I did was remove the shrimp before I added the spinach, mushrooms and green onion because I didn’t want to overcook the shrimp. I added it back in after the cream sauce was reduced and it was perfect. I couldn’t find original grits so just cooked the quick variety a very long until it was smooth and creamy. I did add more spinach and mushrooms as suggested by another reviewer and didn’t use the entire 2 cups of cream, but almost. Thank you for this…
Absolutely delicious!! I will definitely be making this again. I followed the recipe with recommendations from the reviewers to only use 1 cup of heavy cream in the sauce instead of 2. I went one step extra and put a crab cake on top of the main dish when I was done. It was a huge hit with my husband. He talked about how delicious it was the rest of the evening. Update: I made it again and it was once again a hit with my husband. The gouda cheese that I chose was extra potent so I don’t think my kids liked that flavor as much. I am interested to try it next time with a smoky cheddar to see if they prefer that.
This recipe is everything! We just had a huge birthday bash, Mardi Gras themed and I made this along with gumbo and fried okra. I didn’t hear one thing about any of the other foods because this was so amazing! Thank you for the recipe!
Very good! Made it by the directions except I made it for 4 people vs. 6. Like others before, I would cut the heavy cream in half and use water to make the grits. Other than that, this is an outstanding recipe and tastes wonderful!
Fantastic. Made as written. Kids loved it. Keeper.
Completely awesome. It is identical to the delicious grits they serve at The Fish House in Pensacola. The chicken stock I used made it a little too salty so I made round 2 without the stock and it is perfect!
Delicious!
Great dish. I’ll add more salt next time though.
Really wonderful recipe, easy to tweak and substitute. Family favorite!
Excellent shrimp and grits dish. Based on reviews, I used 2 lbs. of wild shrimp rather than 1 lb., cut back the heavy cream to 1-1/4 cups rather than 2 cups, and used about 2X the mushrooms and green onions only because I wanted to use up what I had. Next time, I’ll go with another modification suggested by a reviewer to 2X the baby spinach. There was ample cream sauce even after cutting back the heavy cream. Served with “Perfect Fried Green Tomatoes” and “Sour Cream Cornbread”. Great recipe Irene and thank you for sharing.
I doubled the smoked gouda in the grits. I like to have the gouda be almost bold. I plan to increase the time I reduce the shrimp sauce to 12-15 minutes. The flavor was great but the sauce was runny at 10 minutes.
This is a great recipe. The only thing I would recommend is to double the sauce which I did. Each person gets more shrimp, about 5 pieces. I served 6 people and had about 2 servings of the sauce left over. Everyone raved about the dinner. Absolutely will make again.
SUPER rich but very, very good. Would definitely make it again.
This is a 10 or 15 star meal. One of the best things I’ve ever made. I used the 5 minute grits and it came out just fine. I can’t say enough good things about this delicious recipe!
Ridiculously good.
Grits with cheese has always been one of my favorite meals. This is a new twist. I like the grits cooked with cheese, butter, cream and stock so much that sometimes I simply make my grits that way. We’ve made this complete dish as written a few times now and love it each and every time. I have found that there is always extra sauce so we do one of two things: double the grits or put the leftover sauce on pasta. I prefer this dish with gouda rather than smoked gouda, but that is truly just a personal preference. One time I didn’t have enough grits and I used some grits and some Cream of Wheat. While I prefer it with grits, it worked surprisingly well with Cream of Wheat. This is a very rich dish. It is easy to overeat because it tastes to delicious.
I could not find regular grits anywhere and was forced to use the packets of Instant. Use 6 packets and add a little extra cream if needed. Recipe still comes out GREAT. I also prefer the shrimp chopped instead of whole. Doesn’t look as pretty but tastes better because you get some shrimp in every bite.
Amazing! The ONLY thing I changed was adding crushed red pepper flakes instead of hot sauce. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed this.
Awesome! Will make over and over minus one cup of cream. Family went back for thirds but, many noted you couldn’t really find the grits, so to speak, because it was so soupy with cream. I recommend just one cup at the end. You can always add more, if needed. I despised grits until this recipe. Thank you SO much for sharing!!! I can’t wait to make it again.
Love, love, love this recipe. I had never had shrimp and grits before trying this recipe but, now after trying this recipe I’m hooked.
Oh My Stars this was delicious!