Buttery, cheesy grits is topped with big, juicy shrimp that has been cook in bacon grease. The dish is made with comforting flavors of bacon and sun-dried tomatoes.
Bring water and chicken broth to boil in a medium pot and season with some salt. Add grits and lower heat to medium-low/low heat. Cover and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Stirring occasionally.
Once grits is cooked, take it off the heat. Stir in butter and cheeses until melted.
Shrimp:
Peel and devein shrimp if needed.
Prepare ingredients by dicing bacon into small pieces, slicing shallots, green onion, and sun-dried tomatoes, and peeling garlic.
In a medium cooking pan, over medium heat, cook diced bacon until brown and crispy. Take out bacon bits only and set them aside. Pour off most of the leftover bacon grease if a lot accumulated, leaving about 2-3 tbsp in the pan.
Add shallots and sun-dried tomatoes to the pan with bacon grease. Saute until golden.
Smash and mince garlic and add it to the pan. Saute until fragrant.
Add chicken broth and lemon juice to the pan. Stir and bring to simmer.
Add shrimp and cook until shrimp turn pink and opaque on one side. Flip shrimp to the other side and let it cook until that side turns pink and opaque.
Take the pan off heat.
Divide prepared grits among large bowls or deep plates.
Divide bacon bits, shrimp with broth, and some green onions among the plates, over the grits.
Video
Notes
Grits - use stone-ground cornmeal, not instant grits! When cooking it, flavor the water that grits is cooked in. So season water with salt before adding stone-ground cornmeal that way it will soak up the flavor as it cooks. Using water and broth mixture will also increase the flavor.
Grits takes about 20 minutes to cook so shrimp and bacon can be made at the same time as grits. If you make both parts of this dish at the same time, the dish will only take about 30 minutes.
Shrimp - make sure to clean and devein shrimp before cooking! If you don't feel like taking time to do that, you can always purchase shrimp that are already cleaned.