Easy Mexican Shrimp Ceviche (Camarones en Aguachile Verde)

Jump to:

• What is Mexican shrimp ceviche
• Incredible textures
• Mexican shrimp ceviche with passion fruit
• Tiger Milk - Mexican shrimp ceviche sauce
• What shrimp to use
• How to make Mexican shrimp ceviche
• More Mexican recipes
• Latest recipes
• Mexican shrimp ceviche recipe

Mexican shrimp ceviche (Camarones en Aguachile Verde) recipe that is beautifully green (verde) - spiked with heat, sharp lime and sweet and zingy passion fruit.

What is Mexican shrimp ceviche

Aquachile is an ever growing popular appetiser throughout the world, although its roots actually go back many hundreds of years. Aguachile is a Mexican ceviche which uses fresh raw shrimp (tiger prawns or Madagascan crevettes) that are cooked not by heat but by being cured in fresh lime juice and some vinegar. The flesh firms up and turns white and pinky orange and takes on a sweet and citrusy sharp flavour which is then added to a marinade made with coriander (cilantro), lime juice with garlic, onion, cucumber and jalapeños. It is a vivid green, delicious dish with a bright fresh flavour spiked with spicy heat, sharp lime and clean aromatic coriander (cilantro).

Incredible textures

The textures are quite incredible too, with the shrimps cooked in lime, they are firm and meaty and not too dissimilar to the tail meat of a luxury lobster. The marinade, which is blended, is smooth and velvety, almost creamy which is a juxtaposition to its sweet, spicy and sharp flavour. Then there is a crunch that comes from slivers of fresh red onion, jalapeños and cucumber and the soft leafy texture of fresh coriander which are all scattered over the dish. And finally, we add one more taste and texture dimension that comes from the pulp of fresh passion fruit. Although this embellishment may seem unauthentic, the roots of ceviche lie with the Incas two thousand years ago marinated white fish in “tumbo” which is tart flavoured passion fruit banana. Passion fruit here, adds another unique texture as well as a welcome fruity twist to the dish, which is why it works so well. 

Ceviches have come a long way since the times of the Incas with cuisines all over the world using similar techniques to cure raw fish. Although ceviches don’t always use raw fish, there are many vegetarian versions that use palm hearts or beans for example or in fact any vegetable you want to use. There are meat ceviches too and cooked shredded chicken is a great ingredient to use too, but it is the fish ceviches that are the most popular. 

In Peru where ceviche hails from, traditional white fish such as corvina and lenguado are used but succulent sea bass is popular as well as scallops too. This dish is called Aguachile (“chilli water”) in Mexico. There are commonly two types, Verde (green), which uses green chilli such as chiltepin peppers, a common pepper to the Sinaloa coast of northwest Mexico, serrano and jalapeño peppers and Rojo (red), which is somewhat spicier as it traditionally uses red piquin pepper which are about five times hotter than a jalapeño. In Mexico, Aguachile is served alongside tostadas which are toasted tortillas and clearly define this dish as Mexican.

Mexican shrimp ceviche with passion fruit

Although we add passion fruit to our Mexican shrimp ceviche/Aguachile, it is not an uncommon ingredient. Ceviche has been evolving for generations. With the Incas cooking fish in tumbo, it was the citrus fruits such as lemons and limes and even oranges that were brought to South America by the Conquistadors from Spain that worked better for the dish. Even the name has been derived from the Spanish “escabeche” which was a technique of marinating fish, meat or vegetables which itself was brought to Spain by the Muslim inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula who originally brought over spices, citrus fruits and onions and a dish called Sekba which is a soup made with meat a vinegar.

Today many varieties of ceviche exist including versions from Nikkei cuisine which is the Japanese / Peruvian fusion and Tiradito which is a Japanese dish which uses solely raw fish similar to sashimi that is topped with a ceviche sauce often blended with a variety of fresh fruit such as passion fruit. 

Tiger Milk - Mexican shrimp ceviche sauce

It is this ceviche sauce that is the thread that really links them all. Known as Tiger Milk, this citrus dressing can be made with a whole host of ingredients as long as it has a fresh citrus base. Typically, garlic, chilli and coriander are added to Latin American ceviches. Soy sauce and Mirin make this more Asian and the addition of tropical fruits such as mango, papaya and passion fruit make it more pan-pacific. The only science to it is to cure the fish in the citrus long enough to cook the meat, the rest is really up to you.

What shrimp to use

To make this Mexican shrimp ceviche it is important to use fresh raw shrimp. We love to use large varieties such as Madagascan or Argentinian crevettes as the texture becomes meaty and firm. The larger the shrimp/ prawn the more time it takes to cure, thirty minutes to one hour tends to do the job. Cutting the meat into smaller pieces will speed up the time but a butterflied shrimp will give a perfect portion to put onto the tostadas. If you want to use cooked prawns for this dish rather than cure raw shrimp, then just omit the marinating altogether and add the cooked prawns to the Tiger Milk.

How to make Mexican shrimp ceviche

To prepare the raw shrimp, take the head off and carefully peel the shell off so that you do not pull the tail off. Then, take a small sharp knife and lightly score down the back of the tail so that you can devein the prawn by removing the black intestinal tract. Next, place the prawn belly-side up and run a knife from the head to the tail being careful to cut deep enough but not entirely through the tail so that you can then flatten it out. This will give the prawn a much better surface area to be sure to thoroughly cook the meat in the lime.

Place the butterflied shrimps on a flat plate with a lip and squeeze over enough lime juice to cover the meat along with some white wine vinegar and some fresh passion fruit, generally, 2-3 limes will do, you can use rice wine vinegar or red wine vinegar if you prefer and sherry vinegar works exceptionally well too. The meat will turn an opaque white and the grey-blue hue will turn orange/ pink when the meat is cooked. Take care not to marinate them for too long as overcooked prawns will become tough. 

Whilst the shrimps are curing, simply place a big bunch of coriander with half an onion, 1-2 peeled garlic cloves, roughly a third of a cucumber with the juice of another lime in a blender and process until smooth. This is the base of Tiger Milk.

Add the extra ingredients to your taste. One of the distinguishing aspects of this Aguachile Verde is that it should be spicy, but of course, not everyone likes so much heat, so when adding the spice, if you want to, add the fresh chilis one by one or half at a time then blitz and taste test the sauce to get it to your liking, the same goes for adding the fresh passion fruit pulp. To get the perfect zing from the limes you can add more lime at this time but remember you will have all the lime juice left over from the shrimps that you are marinating that you can add too, as this marinade will have also taken on a lot of the flavour from the shrimp.

The only things left to do are to prepare the garnishes by finely dicing some cucumbers, red onion and some more jalapeños and preparing your tostadas in preparation for when the shrimps are ready. 

Once the shrimps are “cooked” in the lime and vinegar, remove them from the marinade and place them in a bowl.  Add the reserved juice to the Tiger Milk and blend to incorporate.

Pour the contents of the blender in with the shrimps and stir. At this point, you can leave your Mexican shrimp ceviche in the fridge until you are ready to serve. To present the dish, transfer the ceviche/Aguachile to a sharing dish and scatter the red onion, cucumber and jalapeños over the top with some fresh coriander leaves and dollops of passion fruit. Then, lightly fry the fresh tortillas in some oil in a frying pan moments before serving the Mexican shrimp ceviche/Camarones en Aguachile Verde to make sure they are warm and crisp enough and let everyone dig in.

More Mexican recipes

Spicy Mexican Shrimp Cocktail - Easy + Crowd-Pleasing
Mexican Black Bean Soup - Vegan + Easy Recipe

Latest recipes