The Standard’s AI-Built “Ultimate” Shrimp & Grits Recipe

History has given us several excellent ideas. This recipe puts the best of them in one bowl.

This is the first AI-built recipe from The Shrimp & Grits Standard. AI is well suited to this work: it can read across a century of printed recipes, pick out what works and why, and compile the best pieces into a single recipe. The aim is simple: make the corn taste of corn, make the shrimp taste of shrimp, and give them just enough smoky, savory gravy to belong together. The recipe borrows a restrained breakfast gravy from the Charleston tradition and the mushrooms, bacon, cheese, and bright finish of the Neal branch. It combines those ideas rather than reproducing a historical recipe.¹

Where it comes from

The earliest printed Charleston version is the 1930 Two Hundred Years of Charleston Cooking “Shrimps and Hominy,” which is grits, shrimp, butter, and salt. Charleston Receipts (1950) adds a breakfast gravy of bacon grease, onion, green pepper, flour, Worcestershire, and catsup. Bill Neal turned that breakfast into the Crook’s Corner entrée in the 1980s with cheese grits, bacon, mushrooms, scallions, garlic, lemon, and hot sauce; Crook’s Corner is a James Beard America’s Classics winner. James Beard Award-winning chef Robert Stehling carried the same structure into Hominy Grill. More recent cooks share the same bones: BJ Dennis, the Gullah Geechee chef honored with a 2025 Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation Award in Food, pairs stone-ground grits and restrained cheddar with a bacon-fat gravy, and James Beard Award-winning chef Sean Brock soaks his grits and builds a stock-based sauce. Anson Mills makes the technical case for soaking coarse grits overnight and cooking them gently in water.

Why it’s built this way

Coarse stone-ground grits, cooked in water. Too much dairy mutes the corn, so the grits cook in water and butter with only enough white cheddar to round them out, with no cream. Soaking overnight improves the texture and shortens the cooking. Marsh Hen Mill Jimmy Red Grits, from Edisto Island, are the first choice for the corn character they bring to the bowl. Anson Mills Coarse White Grits are the classical alternative.

Shrimp stock, not chicken stock. The shells are already in the kitchen. A gentle 20-minute simmer gives the gravy sweetness and a true shrimp flavor, which chicken stock cannot. The old South Carolina shrimp gravies did the same, cooking the shrimp in their own liquor.

Mid-sized shrimp. Shrimp at 21–30 per pound put shrimp in every spoonful, so the dish reads as shrimp and grits rather than three seared prawns on a bed of grits. Fresh wild Georgia or South Carolina shrimp are the best choice, and head-on shrimp give the stock extra flavor.

Tiny amounts of onion, green pepper, and tomato paste. These preserve the 1950 Charleston gravy without turning it Creole. The teaspoon of tomato paste stands in for the catsup and adds savor and a little sweetness without a tomato flavor.

Mushrooms. They are not part of the oldest versions, but Neal and Hominy Grill made them part of the modern dish, and browned hard they add a roasted background note.

A quick sear and a late finish. The shrimp go into the pan briefly and finish in the gravy, so they stay tender. The sauce is seasoned last, because the bacon, Worcestershire, and stock all bring salt.

The recipe

Serves four generously. Allow an overnight soak and about 75 minutes the following day, with the stock and topping prepared while the grits cook.

Grits

• 1 cup coarse stone-ground grits, about 6 ounces
• About 4 cups filtered water, plus more as needed
• 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt, or salt to taste
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• ⅓ cup finely grated extra-sharp white cheddar
• Freshly ground black pepper

Shrimp and quick stock

• 1¼ pounds shell-on shrimp, preferably 21–30 per pound
• 2 cups water
• 1 small bay leaf
• Clean scallion trimmings from the ingredients below

Gravy and finish

• 4 ounces thick-cut bacon, diced
• 4 ounces cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 2 tablespoons very finely chopped sweet onion
• 2 teaspoons very finely chopped green bell pepper
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced, whites and greens separated
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• ¾–1 cup of the shrimp stock
• 1 teaspoon Tabasco, plus more at the table
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon minced flat-leaf parsley
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Make it

1. Soak the grits. The night before, combine the grits with 2½ cups of the water in the saucepan you will cook them in, cover, and refrigerate. Skim off any floating chaff.
2. Make the stock. Peel and devein the shrimp, reserving the shells (and the heads, if you have them). Keep the shrimp refrigerated. Gently simmer the shells, 2 cups water, bay leaf, and clean scallion trimmings for about 20 minutes. Strain and reserve.
3. Cook the grits. Bring the soaked grits and soaking water gently to a simmer, stirring. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting, cover loosely, and cook 45 to 55 minutes, stirring and scraping the bottom regularly and adding hot water as the grits absorb it. They are done when they are tender, spoonable, and still faintly textured. Finish with salt, butter, cheddar, and pepper. Keep them loose enough to spread in the bowl, because they tighten quickly once plated.
4. Render the bacon. Cook the diced bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove it and leave about 2 tablespoons of fat in the pan. Reserve any excess fat for adjusting the pan later.
5. Brown the mushrooms. Cook them in the bacon fat without crowding until deeply colored, then remove them. If the pan becomes dry, add a little reserved bacon fat.
6. Sear the shrimp. Over medium-high heat, sear them in a single layer, working in batches if needed: about 45–60 seconds on the first side and 30 seconds on the second. Remove them while still underdone in the center. They finish in the gravy.
7. Build the gravy. Lower the heat to medium. Soften the onion, green pepper, and scallion whites for about 2 minutes. Add the garlic for about 20 seconds, then the tomato paste, and stir until the paste darkens slightly. Sprinkle in the flour and cook, stirring, for 60 to 90 seconds, just long enough to cook out the raw flour taste.
8. Add the stock. Gradually whisk in ¾ cup shrimp stock, scraping up every browned bit from the pan. Add the Worcestershire and Tabasco. Simmer until you have a light gravy, adding more stock if needed.
9. Finish. Return the mushrooms and shrimp and toss for 30 to 60 seconds, until the shrimp are opaque and firm. Remove from the heat. Add the lemon juice, parsley, half the scallion greens, and about two-thirds of the bacon. Taste, then adjust the salt, pepper, lemon, and Tabasco.
10. Serve. Loosen the hot grits with a little water if they have tightened. Spoon them into shallow bowls, put the shrimp and gravy in the center and let some gravy run into the grits, and finish with the remaining bacon and scallion greens.

Where it stops

No Gouda drizzle. No andouille coins. No Tasso on top of the bacon. No Cajun seasoning. No barbecue sauce. No fried egg. No truffle. Charleston menus take the dish a long way, with andouille and Tasso gravies and even bourbon barbecue sauce, and those can be good food. They also bury the two things this recipe is built around: the corn and the shrimp.

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Notes