Spicy Shrimp Stacks with Mango Salsa - The Girl on Bloor (2024)

These Spicy Shrimp Stacks are a fun twist on the spicy California roll topped with fresh guacamole, bang bang sauce and homemade mango salsa.

Ingredients and substitutions

• Frozen cooked shrimp – you can also try making these with salmon, tuna or your other favourite kind of sushi seafood.
• Nori sheet – soy bean sheets would also work but will have a different flavour or you can leave this out altogether.
• Wonton strips – tortilla strips would also work for this recipe.
• Sesame seeds – white or black sesame seeds would be good or you can leave these off altogether.

Bang bang sauce

• Light mayo – you can use regular mayo but it’ll be higher in calories.
• Sweet chili sauce – leave out the sweet chili sauce and just use a combination of light mayo and sriracha.
• Sriracha – sambal oelek is the best substitute for sriracha sauce.

Guacamole

• Avocado – instead of making guacamole you can just use mashed avocado without any of the seasonings.
• Lime juice – freshly squeezed lime juice is best but bottled lime juice works too.
• Garlic – fresh minced garlic is best but jarred minced garlic will work in a pinch.
• Salt – to taste.

Mango salsa

• Mango – swap out the mango salsa for regular salsa or pico de gallo.
• Red pepper – or any other colour bell pepper like yellow or orange pepper.
• Red onion – white or yellow onion will work but will have a milder flavour.
• Cilantro – parsley would also be good or you can leave this out altogether.
• Lime juice – see substitution notes above.
• Salt – to taste.

Sushi rice

• Dry sticky rice – I highly recommend using sushi rice since it helps everything stick together.
• Salt – to taste.
• Rice wine vinegar – leave this out altogether for plain rice.
• Sugar – leave this out altogether for plain rice.

How to make shrimp sushi stacks

1. Cook the sushi rice.
2. Make the guacamole, mango salsa and bang bang sauce.
3. Layer everything in a measuring cup.
4. Dump the stacks onto a plate.
5. Top with sauces and garnish with sesame seeds.
6. Serve and enjoy!

Tips to getting the perfect shrimp stack

The actual dumping of the ingredients from the measuring cup is the hardest part of this whole recipe! It can be tough, but here are my best tips:

• Make sure to press down hard on all the ingredients to smush them together and encourage them to stay intact.
• Use a knife to loosen the outside edges of the stack while it's in the measuring cup.
• Dump the cup upside down with a plate underneath and bang the bottom of the measuring cup HARD so that the ingredients slide out.
• Worst case scenario, you can always shape the stacks after the fact with freshly washed hands.

Frequently Asked Questions

Storing and serving

You can store any leftover stacks in the fridge for 2 or 3 days. After that, they probably won't taste as fresh. I serve them cold when I make them fresh the first time, and I serve them cold again when eating as leftovers. I doubt you will have much leftovers though, they're so good!

Freezing the sushi rice

If you'd like, you can make the sushi rice ahead of time for up to 6 months. Just follow the instructions on the package and then wait until the rice cools slightly before freezing in an airtight glass container or freezer-safe Ziploc bag. When you’re ready to make your shrimp stacks, pull the sushi rice out of the freezer and defrost it in the fridge overnight before making the shrimp stacks as directed.

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More sushi-style recipes

• Ahi Tuna Sushi Stacks
• Dynamite Shrimp Sushi Bowls
• Shrimp Sushi Jars

Meal prep tools for this recipe

• You can get sushi rice here.
• And a rice cooker makes meal prep so much easier! This is the one I use.
• I use the 1-cup measuring cup from this set – metal cups make it so much easier to dump all the ingredients out into a stack.