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The classic appetizer at Asian restaurants in Europe, prawn crackers are a delicious crispy treat. They’re also naturally gluten-free, grain-free, and paleo.
Table of contents
Chinese restaurants in Spain are quite different from Chinese restaurants in the US. That makes you wonder, of course, which, if either, is the most authentic? While certain dishes, like my favorite almond chicken, can be found in the restaurants of both countries, other dishes, appetizers, and desserts are not existent in one country or the other.
What are Prawn Crackers?
Prawn crackers are one of those. I have never been to a Chinese restaurant in Spain that doesn’t greet you with a plate of prawn crackers before your meal, nor have I ever seen them at any Chinese restaurant that I’ve been to in the US.
My son is obsessed with them, and I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with them.
Why love them?
Prawn crackers are usually made with tapioca flour. They don’t normally include wheat flour, so they are naturally gluten and grain-free. Plus, I like the texture and find them addictive.
What I don’t love
At restaurants, prawn crackers come with a lot of unknowns.
You don’t know what oil has been used to fry them, or for how long it’s been used.
The prawn crackers served are often dyed strange colors. Sometimes they are white, but sometimes they’re an unnatural pink, probably to cover up the fact that they lack a significant amount of prawns in them. I’ve even seen them in strange shades of blue, yellow, and green. (I have nothing against color, but prefer natural colorants when possible.)
Some prawn crackers include “flavor enhancers” like monosodium glutamate. I am especially sensitive to large amounts of MSG and find myself sweating and with heart palpitations when I get dosed with it. (Even without those symptoms, though, I’d prefer to avoid it.)
Without being able to see the ingredient list of the particular prawn crackers being served, it’s difficult to know which ones have ingredients I’d prefer to avoid.
Why Make Your Own Prawn Crackers?
Making them at home isn’t difficult, but most people’s idea of making them at home is buying a box of prawn cracker disks and frying them at home.
That method does help with some of the problems associated with the prawn crackers from restaurants. By frying them yourself, you can choose which oil to use. (You can also make sure it’s fresh.) Plus, you have access to a list of ingredients and can choose which ones to buy accordingly.
Sadly, though, none of the available prawn crackers seem to have much seafood in them at all.
So, I decided to make some prawn crackers from scratch.
Yes, you read that right; completely from scratch!
Watch me make Prawn Crackers
How to make Prawn Crackers from Scratch
While they aren’t difficult to make, there are a few tips to making prawn crackers that will crisp up as they should.
The Ingredients
First, of course, you need to get ahold of some prawns or shrimp.
Prawns or shrimp
People here would probably think that I’m crazy for using fresh, Denia red prawns for my prawn crackers. (I told you more about the Denia red prawns in my post about special Spanish Christmas food.)
Denia red prawns are seen by most here as an expensive, gourmet food saved for special occasions. With my husband being a shrimp fisherman, though, I tend to have some to spare. 😉 (Jealous?)
This is actually a great way for me to use up leftover prawns or pieces of those that are broken and not so pretty to serve as-is. The prawns my husband brings home are naturally red so my crackers end up with a natural coral pink color. The flavor and color of your crackers will depend on the shrimp (or other seafood) you use.
Tapioca Starch
The other main ingredient needed for making prawn crackers is tapioca starch. Tapioca starch comes from the yuca tuber. It is commonly used in both Asian and Latin American cuisines.
Tapioca starch is an ideal grain-free replacement for gluten in some wheat-based foods. I used it to make paleo pitas and grain-free churros and buñuelos (pumpkin fritters).
When cooked, tapioca starch has an interesting characteristic. It becomes a bit “rubbery” in texture. I love making boba for bubble tea with it.
In the case of prawn crackers, we’ll be steaming the tapioca starch-based dough until it obtains a rubbery texture.
Forming the dough
To make the crackers, first, we make a dough from equal amounts of prawns and tapioca starch. By processing the prawns into a paste, they already have enough moisture to easily form a dough with the added flour.
To make things clean and easy, we can process and mix the dough together in a food processor. First, process the shrimp or prawns until you end up with a paste.
Then add the starch with a bit of salt. You can also optionally add other seasonings. Adding baking powder can also help the crackers puff up more when fried. The first time I made these, though, I only used prawns, tapioca starch, and salt, and the finished crackers turned out fine.
Peel the shrimp or prawns. Make a paste from the shrimp. Add tapioca starch. Form log-shaped roll.
Finish processing all of the ingredients together in the food processor. You should end up with a workable dough.
If the mixture is too dry, you can either add more prawns or add a touch of water. If the mixture is too wet, add a little more flour.
Take the dough and form it into log-shapes. They should be a size that will fit into a steamer.
Cooking the dough
Once the logs have been formed from the dough, they need to be steamed. I used a bamboo steamer. It can be lined with lettuce or parchment paper. I forgot, though, and left mine unlined. Luckily, I didn’t have problems with it sticking.
Continue to steam the dough for about an hour. You’ll notice that it will change in color and texture throughout the steaming process. It becomes much more firm and should have a rubbery texture when cooked.
Slicing the crackers
After allowing the logs to cool, slice them as thinly as possible. The first time I made prawn crackers, I sliced my crackers in a food processor. It worked really well to get thin and even slices.
There is a problem with using a food processor, though. While it made the best prawn crackers, it is also very easy to break your food processor with the hard, rubbery dough.
The next time I made prawn crackers, the dough slipped into the space between the disks of my food processor and the lid. If that happens, and you don’t turn the machine off in time, it can break your disk. (Don’t ask me how I know!)
I have also tried using a grater and a peeler, but, in the end, the easiest method was to slice the crackers as thinly and as evenly as possible with a knife.
I tried smashing some of the thicker pieces to make them thinner. Those pieces (shown in the picture on the right) didn’t fry as well or as evenly. It’s best to just slice as thinly and as evenly as possible.
Drying the crackers
Once you’ve sliced the crackers into thin disks, you’ll want to dehydrate them. This makes it so that they will fry more evenly and also is a great way to preserve the disks for later.
Once dried, you can store the disks in a cool dry place for several months, until you are ready to fry them.
I’ve used several different methods to dehydrate the prawn cracker disks. One time I used a dehydrator. Another time, I sun-dried them. When doing that, I suggest covering the slices with a netting to prevent flies from landing on your crackers.
If you don’t have a dehydrator, and it’s not sunny and dry in your area, you can also dry them in the oven at the lowest heat setting.
When the disks are completely dry, they won’t be at all flexible and will snap when bent.
Frying the crackers
Once the disks have completely dried, you can cook them.
Prawn crackers are normally deep-fried in oil. Choose whichever oil you feel most comfortable using for deep-frying. Those with a subtle flavor are best so as not to overpower the flavor of the prawns.
The oil should be around 360ºF/180ºC. You can test the oil with small pieces of the prawn cracker disks. When added to oil that is the right temperature, they should form bubbles and float up almost immediately.
The crackers normally puff up and fold over themselves somewhat before opening up completely. Once they’ve opened and puffed up, remove them from the oil using tongs or a strainer.
Place the hot crackers on a plate lined with cloth or paper towels to help absorb any excess oil.
Once cooled, they can be served immediately.
Interestingly enough, a microwave oven can also be used to puff up the prawn crackers. When cooked in a microwave, they don’t turn out exactly in the same way, but they do crisp up.
Prawn Cracker Recipe
Prawn Crackers from Scratch
Ingredients
- 500 g tapioca flour
- 500 g shrimp or prawns – peeled and deveined
- 1 tsp. salt or to taste
- oil for frying
- garlic, pepper, other spices optional
- 1 tsp. baking powder optional – for puffier crackers
Instructions
Form the dough
- Add the peeled shrimp or prawns to a food processor. Process until you have achieved a fine paste.
- Add in the tapioca flour, and continue to process until the mixture comes together into a thick dough.
- Add the salt and any other spices or herbs that you want to add. Adding cayenne pepper will give spicier prawn crackers. If you want the crackers to puff up more when deep-frying them, add in a little baking powder. Process again until all of the ingredients are well incorporated into the dough.
- Check the consistency of the dough to see if it can be formed into a roll shape. If it is too dry, add a bit of water. If it is too wet, add more tapioca flour.
- Knead the dough until it is smooth, adding more flour or water as needed.
- Shape the dough into two log-shaped rolls that will fit into your steamer. Place the rolls in a steamer. Consider lining it with banana leaves or parchment paper first to keep them from sticking.
Steam the dough rolls
- Steam the dough rolls for about an hour. You will notice that the color and texture of your rolls will change quite a bit throughout the steaming process. Add more water, as needed.
- Remove the dough rolls from the steamer, and let them cool. They should now have a rubbery texture.
- Cut thin slices from the rolls of dough. You can use a sharp knife or a food processor.
Slice the dough into disks
- Dry the slices using the sun, a dehydrator, or an oven at the lowest heat setting. If sun-drying the crackers, cover them with netting to keep insects away.
They may curl up a little. You can flip them halfway through to get them to dry more evenly. They should dry up into hard little disks. - Make sure the prawn crackers are fully dried. Dry crackers will no longer be flexible and will break when bent.
Deep fry the crackers
- Once completely dry, you can deep fry the prawn crackers.
Use enough oil so that your crackers can be submerged in the oil completely. To achieve the right temperature (around 360ºF/180ºC), wait until a small piece of cracker sinks down in the oil and then immediately floats up to the surface and begins to expand. You may have to press down on the crackers to submerge them completely in the oil. If they aren't fully submerged, they may not expand completely, leaving dry, hard, un-fried areas. - Once the crackers have puffed up, remove them from the oil. (A strainer can help drain the oil off.) Place the crackers on plates that have been covered with cloth or paper towels to help absorb any excess oil.
- Serve immediately, and enjoy!
Notes
Update Information
This post was originally published on February 21, 2015. It was rewritten adding more details, photos, and video in January 2020.
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Hi, great recipe, many thanks. I’ve followed all the instructions and all went well, the discs were nice and hard and puffed up really well when frying, but a lot of the crackers are chewy even though they look crispy and puffed up well, any I doing something wrong?
Hi Gary,
I found that if the disks were on the thicker side, they ended up being chewier rather than crisp. I had the same problem when trying to use the end pieces of the rolls after slicing from them.
I’m not sure if it’s because they aren’t as fully dehydrated in the center. (They may dry so well on the outside that the center stays slightly moist and can’t fully dry anymore. This happens when you try to cure a sausage in an area that is too dry.)
It also can depend on the frying process itself. If the oil isn’t the right temperature and not all of the disk completely puffs out, the areas that haven’t fully puffed stay chewier.
I hope that makes sense and helps you pinpoint the problem.
I’ve found that the best homemade crackers were made very, very thin in a food processor. That said, I tried to make them again with the same method and ended up breaking one of the disks of my food processor. So, there’s that problem, if you aren’t careful. 😉
Hi, lovey recipe! I’ve been hoping to find this recipe from a long time. Since my country is in quarantine I do not have access to Tapioca Starch 🙁 is it possible for me to use corn starch instead?
Hi Cleo,
I don’t know, but I kind of doubt it would be the same?
I had the same problem here and bought some over the internet a couple of weeks ago. Is that an option for you?
Thank you for the recipe. I was thinking of experimenting with dried pork or beef so I looked up various recipes for prawn chips to see if I can exchange prawns for other kinds of meat.
You are right about Chinese food being different in each country even in other Asian countries like Japan or Thailand. Being an ethnic Chinese who was born in Canada, I’ve learned that restaurants have needed to adjust their recipes to the tastes of the community around them or people won’t come. Using what is locally available as ingredients is also key to staying in business since ingredients used in recipes may not always be easily acquired. It might not allowed to be shipped to the country they’ve moved to. Or it may go bad before it can get here or also may be too costly to get it.
So cooks have to be creative and sometimes create new dishes. Doesn’t mean it isn’t Chinese, just means it was created by someone Chinese outside of China.
Different dishes could also mean different regions of China, cooking is different between Cantonese, Szechuan, Beijing or even Taiwanese. The differences could be in cooking methods, ingredients or even types of cookware.
Anyhow thanks for the recipe.
Hi Wendy,
That’s an interesting observation!
I haven’t tried making them with other meats, but I’d imagine you could do it. If you do give it a try, I’d love to hear how it goes!
I find the difference between how various countries interpret food from elsewhere absolutely fascinating! The difference in how chinese (and also korean, thai etc) food is made between the UK, US, Germany, Spain and France (where I live now) is amazing. Which is fine, but every now and then I do just want the (no doubt completely inauthentic) UK version of things… which brings me to this recipe.
One thing that France don’t seem to do is Prawn Crackers, and I’ve been missing them so much. Now I’ve found a way to make them myself, and it looks so much easier than I was expecting. Just need to google a translation of “tapioca flour” 🙂
Thank you so, so much!
Hi Mathew,
I agree!
In the US, they don’t normally serve prawn crackers in Chinese restaurants either. At least I’ve never seen them served in Michigan.
I was also amazed at how large the egg rolls were in the Chinese restaurants here in Spain. They are much larger and rolled differently than the ones I was used to.
Here, I miss things that we had back home like sizzling rice soup and sesame or bourbon chicken. 😉
Hi Tracy,
Bangkok Cuisine in the Detroit area serves them (at least they used to). I always put them in my hot and sour soup.
Hi Jim,
Really?
That’s funny because I used to live in Ypsilanti and we would occasionally go into Detroit to eat at a Chinese buffet there. I don’t remember there being prawn crackers at the one we went to, though.
That was years ago, though. Perhaps things are changing. 😉
I think it depends on which part of the far east influenced the type of Chinese food available.
In the UK its Hong Kong so Cantonese, in France its Indochina so Vietnamese and in the States its Chinese but has a much longer history and the cuisine reflects that. It may actually be that prawn crackers are quite a modern food and so the Chinese in the US don’t have that as a dish
A good example of how colonial assets had this effect is to compare Indian food in the UK and France or Spain. Its authentic in the UK with many variations depending on where those particular immigrants came from in the sub-continent, but in France its a mishmash of restaurants many run by Immigrants who don’t come from India at all but rather from places like Mauritius and so the food is to say the least strange. its changing now the French are beginning to taste real Indian food traveling to the UK but its still very hit and miss.
The first time I visited an Indian restaurant in the US was back in 1980 and it was terrible. It was run by Indians but not caterers but rather as many where in those days by immigrants that thought it would be a good idea to open a restaurant and anyway Americans wont know the difference. In the UK the first Indian restaurants were for their own community and so the food had to be authentic. The US version was poor quality home cooking, all heat and very little flavour. The tandoori Chicken was cooked in a western oven, that alone was a crime against good taste. If you don’t have a tandoor don’t cook tandoori food simple, even nans taste horrible unless they are cooked in a tandoor.
When I travel around the UK my trick to find a good Indian Restaurant is to see how many Indians are eating there and if it’s more than half take a table.
Wow- That’s so interesting. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but love your comment (and your tip for choosing a restaurant)!
Thanks, Michael, for your insight!
To make slicing easier, refrigerate the steamed rolls overnight. They will form up and be easier to slice, or, partially freeze them, like you do with meat when you want very thin slices.
Great idea! Thanks for the tip, Bill!
I’m planning on making again soon, so I’ll give it a try- and will update with my findings. 😉
If you freeze them after they come out of the steamer (after cooling) then use a very sharp knife, veg peeler or a mandolin slicer, you can get very thin slices from them.
Hi Hastha!
Thank you so much for the tip. That’s a great idea!
awesome!! I have never tried fresh homemade prawn crackers but these look so amazing I love the ones they serve at my local chinese resturants but I guess there isn’t any prawns in them and I think I may give these a go these would be lovely to serve with some drinks at dinner party with friends!!
Hi Melissa,
Yes, depending on the shrimp/prawns used they can have a lot more flavor than the ones you buy or are served at restaurants. (Even those vary a lot from restaurant to restaurant.)
They’re a bit of work, but it’s a fun process to watch. The hardest part is getting the slices thin enough for them to expand in the oil. If you can get thin, even slices, though, they are really nice.
I didn’t know that prawn crackers had prawns in them! I gave them to my daughter who is allergic to prawns and she’s been on a mazza ever since. I think that you should revaluate your recipe.
This is not a laughing matter
My daughter Sharon is heartbroken.
Well, commercially made prawn crackers may not have a high quantity of prawns in them, but most do have some. I guess some may be artificially flavored, but I’d personally avoid those. Some use crab meat or other fish to flavor them, but most people with an allergy to one type of shellfish probably have an allergy to others. By making them yourself, though, you could replace the prawns with something else similar (some sort of fish, perhaps).
Are you having a laugh!! You made prawn crackers and didn’t know they had prawns in then FFS are you thick or something??
Its a weird, weird world we live in Michael.
Dorothy, i’d advise you not to feed you daughter anything with “Prawn” in the name, it’s usually indicative of the contents.
🙂
your mum
fucking hell Michael and Ben. You absolute twats. was a joke. don’t cry. call me thick again and I’ll shag your grandad on Sunday,.
I’ve had the exact same issue with my son Albert who has a severe nut allergy. Ever since I fed Albert Nutella he’s not been breathing and he appears to be very tired as he hasn’t opened his eyes since. I honestly think this is an issue that needs to be addressed as it is becoming harder for parents like myself to identify which foods have nuts in them and which don’t. It’s honesty disgraceful.
Wow that’s shocking… I really thought my issue was bad when my son has a walnut allergy and I fed him snickers which has hazelnuts in them. Who knew that they would have the same effect?! They are completely different nuts. @ben @michael you should be more considerate towards other people and their real life issues… YOU GUYS ARE KEYBOARD WARRIORS who think it’s funny to mock concerned parents
Kollie, I’m afraid they are joking.
With the first comment, I wasn’t completely sure myself, so I tried to be open to either possibility.
Once it became clear, though, it was also apparent that there really is no brutal fighting going on in the comment section. That’s why I allowed it to stay with no moderation. 😉
Yes, dealing with food allergies and intolerances can be very difficult. My cousin has a very severe peanut allergy, and I remember having various scares growing up. It definitely can be stressful having to deal with that.
The case of different nuts is completely different than what they are joking about. I can see how something like that can happen and be very difficult to deal with. I feel for you and wish you the best. <3
Can these be made with Almond or Coconut flour? There are WAY to many carbs in Tapioca Flour for me. My son and I love these. I have never tried to make them but would love to try it. Even if I can’t have them, well maybe one.
Hi Kat,
I’m afraid that neither of those flours would work. Tapioca flour has a special (somewhat rubbery) texture that it acquires when it is steamed. That’s what makes it special for being able to use in certain recipes like this one.
I can only suggest keeping them as a special treat to limit your carbs (which is what I do). 😉
Hi, in my search today to find out if my newly diagnosed as allergic to both eggs and dairy son can have prawn crackers, I found your recipe. It not only looks fantastic but if we make them at home he can have them. Thank you VERY much!
Hi Georgia,
I’m so happy to have been able to help you! 🙂
Normally, most prawn crackers don’t have eggs or dairy, so your son should also be able to have most of the ones that can be bought in the Asian markets for frying at home. That said, a lot of them do have other additives that can be problematic. I have sensitivities to MSG, for example. If I eat a few of them, I’m fine, but with an excess of MSG, I get shaky and get an irregular heartbeat and vertigo. It’s very scary. My husband studied my symtpoms and read that it’s actually a good thing to get them as MSG can be quite harmful whether or not you have symtoms to help show you that something is wrong.
Hi
Thanks fir the recip . What is the suitable thickness cutting should be .
Hi Afhal,
The thinner you can cut them, the better!
If they are too thick, it’s very difficult for them to puff up when fried in oil. I’ve found that the thinnest disks work best.