Copycat Bang Bang Shrimp Tacos are spicy, saucy shrimp in a soft taco drizzled with zesty sauce, inspired by the Bonefish Grill recipe.

Copycat Bang Bang Tacos

by Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

Jump to Recipe

Some months back, Bill and I had gone out to eat and we ended up at the Bonefish Grill. I don’t even recall what entree I had although I did get some yummy butternut squash ravioli on the side (or were they pumpkin?). Bill got the Bang Bang Tacos. Both the ravioli and tacos were great (we share bites like the lovebirds we are!).

Print Recipe

I knew I would love those ravioli, as I am already a big fan of a certain type of butternut squash pierogies that are sold down at the Findlay Market in Cincinnati in the autumn. (And guess what? Autumn is coming up!) But Bill is more of the taco with seafood kind of guy, loving the cantina style Baja fish tacos he sometimes craves. So getting shrimp tacos was almost a given.

I haven’t posted anything for ravioli or pierogies yet although it has been in my heart. Where does the time go?! I still have unposted recipes dating back to January.

Ahem. *hangs head in shame*

I really am going to try to get one or the other of ravioli or pierogies up before the snow flies! I do have some Baja tacos posted if you haven’t seen them already. Those are really good, and economical as well.

Crispy Baja Fish Tacos with Cilantro Crema

But I decided to do a mock-up of the Bonefish Grill tacos since I like making things people crave. And Bill craves these. As with any proprietary corporate recipe, there is no way I can verify if this recipe is *exactly* the same as theirs and probably not. I could get a job there to find out but why? It isn’t really that difficult to decode.

The sauce is just a chili mayo, and the proportions I can generally get spot on by looking at the amount of chili flake in the sauce from their website. Also the color helps me determine what goes in it, and as well, I do in fact know what the sauce tastes like. And it is a common sauce, also used at some sushi bars for their specialty rolls, although they don’t call it by this name.

The sauces I used to make these, besides the mayonnaise (which I used Hellman’s) is the Mae Ploy Thai sweet chili sauce and Huy Fong’s chili garlic sauce. The mae ploy is like a very spicy sweet and sour that has bits of Thai chiles in it. Huy Fong, you might recognize.

They make the rooster sriracha sauce that everyone loves. As well, they make a couple kinds of sambal, which is an Indonesian style of chili sauce. One is marketed just as sambal, the other as chili garlic sauce, the only main difference there that the chili garlic has garlic added to season it the way sriracha does, but neither of the sambals are fermented while sriracha uses fermented red peppers.

But they are all pretty close and similar in taste. The sriracha is strained but all have similar levels of heat on the Scoville scale, between 1800-2200 Scoville units.

The rest you will just have to decide for yourself if I have done a good job. Looking at their photo, the rest is pretty simple. My shrimp may be just a bit bigger but I don’t really think size of shrimp makes a big difference.

Bill thinks these are good, and says my sauce is even more flavorful. I am not sure if I coated my shrimp with mayo as heavily as they do theirs, but I am not going to apologize for that. In the same vein, I don’t overload my burgers with mayo the way some fast food places do.

But each to his own. You can always load it up with more. In the end, what counts is that you like it, right?

Copycat Bang Bang Tacos

Click stars in the recipe card to rate.

Copycat Bang Bang Shrimp Tacos

Sue Lau

No ratings yet

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Total Time 30 minutes mins

Course Main Dish

Cuisine American, Southwest

Servings 4

Calories 491 kcal

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

Tacos:

• 1 pound shrimp peeled and deveined
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons black pepper
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tomato finely diced
• 1-2 cups shredded lettuce
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 1/2 tablespoons milk
• grilled flour tortillas
• fresh lime wedges

Bang Bang Sauce:

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons Mae Ploy Thai sweet chili sauce
• 1 tablespoon Huy Fong chili-garlic sauce/paste

Instructions

 

• Stir together ingredients for bang bang sauce and chill until needed.
• Dice tomato, shred lettuce, and thin sour cream; set aside until needed.
• Place flour, pepper, salt and garlic powder into a large plastic bag and set aside.
• Whisk egg with water in a bowl and set aside.
• Place shrimp in the plastic bag with the seasoned flour; crimp end of bag shut and shake vigorously until shrimp are flour coated.
• Heat cooking oil in a large skillet about 1/2-inch deep until hot, but not smoking.
• Lift the shrimp out of the coating flour, shaking off excess; and coat them with beaten egg.
• Place the egg-dipped shrimp back in the bag with the remaining seasoned flour and repeat the shaking.
• Lift shrimp out of bag, shaking off excess flour and place on a platter.
• Fry shrimp in batches until golden on both sides, 2-3 minutes.
• Drain cooked shrimp on paper toweling.
• Griddle tortillas until warm and pliable.
• Toss cooked shrimp with bang bang sauce.
• Make tacos with lettuce, coated shrimp, diced tomatoes and a drizzle of sour cream (thinned with the milk to a drizzling consistency). I put my thin sour cream in a squeeze type bottle typically used for ketchup, but you can drizzle with a spoon. Serve with lime wedges.

Notes

From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com

Nutrition

Serving: 1gCalories: 491kcalCarbohydrates: 35gProtein: 29gFat: 26gSaturated Fat: 5gPolyunsaturated Fat: 13gMonounsaturated Fat: 6gTrans Fat: 0.1gCholesterol: 244mgSodium: 2379mgPotassium: 536mgFiber: 3gSugar: 7gVitamin A: 539IUVitamin C: 5mgCalcium: 129mgIron: 3mg

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

You might also like:

Lemongrass Grilled Shrimp

Thai Chicken Wings

Portobello Mushroom Tacos

Above all, join my recipe group on Facebook for more recipes from blogger friends around the world!

Palatable Recipes

or scan the code to join

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links which offer sources for ingredients and equipment, if needed. You can click the links with no charge to you. If you do purchase anything during your visit it helps pay the electric bill here and keep the blog lights on! Thanks for your support.