These homemade shrimp quesadillas have tasty shrimp, seasoned veggies, and melty mozzarella cheese for a delicious and easy meal.
I love making quesadillas for lunch or a quick weeknight meal. You’ll want the shrimp already cooked for this, so you can use leftovers or use one of my quick and easy methods for cooking shrimp (see below) while the fajita seasoned vegetables are cooking. These shrimp quesadillas are easy, cheesy, and ready in less than 20 minutes.
Scroll down to read more about how it all comes together or click here to jump straight down to the recipe.
Video: Making Shrimp Quesadillas
What Type of Skillet To Use For Quesadillas?
I use a nonstick or a cast iron skillet so that nothing really sticks to the pan. I also use a bit of oil, but this is more to brown and crisp the tortilla than it is to stop it from sticking.
Usually when I make quesadillas, I use olive oil cooking spray misted onto one side of the tortilla before adding it, oiled-side-down, to the heated skillet. This way, I don’t need to use very much oil, and the oil that I do use has great contact with the tortilla to nicely brown it.
But, if I want it to get really brown and crunchy on the outside, like in the pictures, then I heat a teaspoon of olive oil in the skillet, swirl it around, add the tortilla, then move it around a bit to get it nice and coated in the oil.
What Kind Of Shrimp To Buy?
Any cooked shrimp will work for this shrimp quesadilla recipe. You just want to make sure that they’re deveined, peeled, and without their tails before you put them into the quesadillas. You definitely don’t want to be biting into a shrimp shell in there!
If the shrimp are medium or larger, I chop them roughly. That’s so that the shrimp meat is more evenly distributed through the quesadilla, and also so that they are bite-sized and you don’t end up in that situation where you bit into the quesadilla and a whole shrimp comes sliding out.
Buying frozen shrimp is great because they freeze the shrimp right on the boat, ensuring they still taste fresh when they make it to your plate. So buying them frozen, and cooking them from frozen, is often the freshest way to do it. Keep a bag of frozen raw shrimp on hand, and you’ve always got the start of a great meal ready to go.
My favorite way to cook shrimp from frozen very gently cooks them in water and only takes about 15 minutes, including boiling the water. You’ll know they are done when they turn opaque, giving you perfectly tender shrimp.
Other Ways To Cook Shrimp
If you don’t want to poach frozen shrimp, you can try one of these other easy methods!
Type of Cheese
The ideal for quesadillas is to have nice stringy and melty cheese. The best types for this in quesadillas are pepper jack, Monterey jack cheese, part-skim shredded mozzarella, and Cheddar cheese. I like the combination of the shrimp with mozzarella cheese, so that’s what I used for mine.
Other Fillings In A Shrimp Quesadilla
I love fajita vegetables in my quesadillas. That’s sauteed bell pepper and onions with some seasoning.
For the seasoning, you can use a store-bought seasoning packet or make a batch of homemade fajita seasoning or taco seasoning. Or you can just sprinkle some cumin and chili powder over your veggies if you don’t want to make a whole seasoning blend. The packets of fajita and taco seasoning contain 1 ounce, which ends up being 2 tablespoons. So if you’re using a homemade seasoning blend, or if you want to just go in with a blend of other seasonings, you’ll want to use about 2 tablespoons total.
We’re also adding in some chopped tomatoes and green onion to our shrimp quesadilla filling.
Can You Make Air Fryer Quesadillas?
Yes, you can! I have some tips and tricks for doing this in this Air Fryer Quesadillas recipe.
Basically, because of the fan in the air fryer, I find it easiest to fold a tortilla in half for each quesadilla instead of using two whole tortillas. I also think it’s helpful to put something on top of them to weigh the tortilla down so they don’t get blown around, a light pan lid works, or a metal fork. Just make sure to use oven mitts to take the hot metal lid or utensil off of the quesadilla.
Cook your air fryer quesadillas at 400°F for about 5 minutes, then flip and cook an additional 3-4 minutes until the tortilla is nice and browned.
Serving Shrimp Quesadillas
These easy shrimp quesadillas are amazing served by themselves or with some sliced avocado, sour cream, and/or salsa. Try out my black bean and corn salsa and our homemade pico de gallo recipes.
More Delicious Recipes
If you love quesadillas, you’ll definitely need to try my Steak Quesadilla recipe and these other Tex-Mex inspired recipes too:
- Shrimp Tacos Recipe
- Classic Shrimp Fajitas
- Easy Carne Asada Tacos
- Shrimp Enchiladas Recipe
- Air Fryer Chicken Fajitas
Shrimp Quesadillas Recipe
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 17 minutes
- Yield: 2 servings 1x
- Category: Entrée
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
DESCRIPTION
These homemade shrimp quesadillas have tasty shrimp, seasoned veggies, and melty mozzarella cheese for a delicious and easy meal.
Ingredients
- 12 cooked medium-sized shrimp, deveined, peeled, no tail
- 2 tsp. olive oil
- 1/2 green bell pepper, sliced
- 1/2 onion, sliced
- 2 Tbsp. taco seasoning
- Cooking spray*
- 4 six-inch flour tortillas
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 medium tomato, chopped
- 1 green onion, chopped
Instructions
- Roughly chop the cooked shrimp. Set aside.
- Heat the oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the bell pepper and onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until darkened in spots and softened, 3-5 minutes. Add the taco seasoning and stir to coat. Remove from heat.
- Transfer peppers and onions to a plate and wipe out the skillet.
- Spray the skillet with cooking spray. Set it over medium-low heat. Add two flour tortillas such that they’re not overlapping or not overlapping much.
- To each tortilla add 1/4 cup of cheese. Top each with half of the pepper and onion mixture, then with half of the chopped shrimp, half of the tomatoes, and half of the green onion. Then top each with another 1/4 cup of cheese. Place a tortilla on top of each stack and spray it lightly with cooking spray.
- Increase heat to medium. Cook until bottom tortillas are browned underneath, 2-4 minutes. Use a spatula under each quesadilla stack and one over each to flip them over. Cook until bottoms are browned underneath, another 2-4 minutes.
- Transfer quesadillas to a cutting board and cut each one into 4 wedges.
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Notes
*You can use a teaspoon of oil instead of cooking spray. Use a wooden spoon to spread it around before adding the tortilla.
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