Shrimp Cocktail with Pickled Daikon Radish

Last Updated on April 21, 2025

Shrimp cocktail with pickled daikon radish.  It’s an unusual combination of flavors sure to excite your taste buds. It’s a perfect appetizer everyone will enjoy.

Recipe for Shrimp Cocktail

Eat this shrimp cocktail by wrapping the shrimp with a little fresh basil, then a wrap of the pickled daikon and finally dipped into the homemade cocktail sauce.  It tastes fantastic.  Who’d have thought basil and radish with shrimp and cocktail sauce would be good?  You’ve got to try it to believe it.

A daikon radish looks like a white carrot but tastes like a fine-textured, mild radish.  Very tasty.  I used a vegetable peeler to remove the outer skin, then used the peeler to make ribbons from the radish. A mandolin could also be used.

The pickling liquid is brought to a simmer, then poured over the peeled daikon. Let it cool slightly, then cover tightly and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours. This will give the radish a nice vinegar tartness.

The shrimp pictures here are sized 30 to 35 per pound, shell on but cut and deveined. Larger shrimp like size 16 to 20 per pound, would be lovely, but the price is more than double what the 30 to 35 cost.  Get what you can afford for the occasion.

Poaching the shrimp works out great for the shrimp cocktail. Using the shell on shrimp also adds a little more flavor to the shrimp, even though it is a little more work to peel. I always try to find the easy peel shrimp, which are cut down the back and deveined.

Frozen shrimp is fine to use also. Thaw the frozen shrimp in a pot of room-temperature water. This usually will take 20 to 30 minutes.

Place the shrimp poaching spices into a pot with around 6 cups of water. Bring that to a boil and let the flavors develop for a couple minutes of boiling. Then, remove the pot from the heat and add the shrimp. They should be nice and pink and fully cooked in 3 to 5 minutes. 

Use a kitchen spider or strainer to remove the shrimp from the pot and drop the poached shrimp into an ice bath to cool. Once cool enough to handle, peel, then refrigerate until eaten.

The cocktail sauce is pretty traditional except that I added some Mae Ploy sweet Asian chili sauce and a bit of soy sauce. This bit of Asian flavor really complements the pickled daikon and the fresh basil.

Shrimp cocktail with pickled daikon radish is amazingly good, especially when combined with the basil and homemade sauce.  MaryJo and I devoured it in short order. Give this unusual combination a try.

And here are some more tasty shrimp recipes to try:

• Bonefish Grill Bang Bang Shrimp
• Creamy Shrimp Scampi
• Shrimp Penne alla Vodka Sauce
• Oven Baked Butterflied Shrimp

Shrimp Cocktail with Pickled Daikon Radish

Very tasty light appetizer with tangy pickled daikon radish.

5 from 2 votes

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Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: American, Asian inspired

Keyword: cocktail shrimp, shrimp cocktail, shrimp cocktails recipe

Prep Time: 2 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 3 hours hours

Servings: 4 servings

Calories: 170kcal

Author: Joe Boyle

Ingredients

Daikon

• 1 lbs . daikon radish , peeled lengthwise into thin strips with a vegetable peeler or mandoline
• 1/2 cup mirin
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar , unseasoned
• 15 or 20 black peppercorns
• 2 star anise
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp kosher salt

Cocktail sauce

• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup sweet Asian chili sauce, Mae Ploy
• 2 tbsp prepared horseradish
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 tbsp soy sauce

Shrimp

• 1 lbs raw , unpeeled shrimp, size of choice, preferably not smaller than 30 per pound
• 4 garlic cloves , crushed
• 1 jalapeno sliced lengthwise into quarters
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tbsp kosher salt
• 15 or 20 black peppercorns
• 1 cup loose packed fresh basil leaves

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Instructions

Daikon

• Place daikon strips into a heat proof bowl.
• Put the remaining ingredients into a small pot and bring to a simmer stirring to dissolve the sugar.
• Pour the brine over the daikon, let cool slightly, then cover and refrigerate at least two hours.

Cocktail sauce

• Combine the ingredients in a small bowl. Cover and refrigerate until used.

Shrimp

• Prepare an ice bath.
• Put 4 to 6 cups of water into a large sauce pan and add the spices, (not the basil leaves), and bring to a boil.
• Remove the pan from the heat and add the shrimp to poach, 3 to 5 minutes depending on the size of the shrimp. (It will look noticeably pink).
• Remove with a strainer and place into the ice water bath until cool.
• Peel and devein the shrimp.
• Serve chilled with pickled daikon, basil leaves and cocktail sauce.

Notes

1. The prep time for this recipe includes active and passive times and is an estimate.

Nutrition

Calories: 170kcal