Ina Garten's Baked Shrimp Scampi Gets Extra Crunch From One Pantry Staple

Flavor is the most important aspect of a dish, but for a well-rounded meal, you need to have a strong texture balance, too. Celebrity chef Ina Garten knows this all too well, and when she prepares a baked shrimp recipe, she balances the softer baked shrimp and stuffing with a little crunch from Japanese panko. Garten's dish includes panko in the shrimp scampi topping, where it not only provides crunch but also absorbs some of the moisture from her other ingredients, like olive oil and white wine.

Panko is commonly used in all kinds of dishes — you might even see it sprinkled atop your sushi rolls. You can pick up Japanese panko in just about any grocery store; it's usually either sitting in the international aisle or near the bread crumbs. Traditional panko is similar to bread crumbs, but it's much thicker and flakier, and it's generally only made with white bread. The process results in less-ground, thicker flakes of bread, which is lightly fried, giving panko its iconic crunch. Once you buy panko, it will last for several months in the pantry, so while the containers are large, you can get plenty of use from them.

Ina Garten's baked shrimp scampi specifically calls for panko, but you can also certainly substitute panko for regular breadcrumbs. Still, those ultra-fine bread crumbs you find in the grocery store aren't the best option to mimic that panko crunch. While nothing is exactly like those Japanese fried bread flakes, you can get a similar crunch from croutons if you can't find panko at the store.

You can either make your own croutons by toasting stale bread, or buy a packaged version. Use a rolling pin to crush the croutons into pieces similar in size to panko, then incorporate them into your recipe. Croutons are great because they're a little harder to crush, meaning you won't accidentally make them too fine, but other grocery store staples like butter crackers and corn flakes would work as good panko substitutes as well. For a saltier substitute, you can even swap them for potato chips or nuts.