Africa → Mozambique → Maputo
🍽️ DINNER
Camarão Grelhado (Grilled LM Prawns)
Large prawns grilled over charcoal and basted with a fiery, garlicky piri-piri butter, the star of the Mozambican coast.
Mozambican · easy · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 10 min · plus 30 min hands-off time
~476 cal · 55g protein · 2g carbs · 27g fat · 0g fiber · 0g sugars · 14g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Camarão grelhado, the grilled prawns of Mozambique, are famous across southern Africa. They are often called LM prawns after Lourenco Marques, the name the capital Maputo carried until 1976, and few dishes say Mozambican coast more clearly.
The country's warm Indian Ocean waters yield superb king and tiger prawns, and the classic treatment is deliberately simple: split them down the back, grill them shell-on over hot coals, and baste them with a butter loosened with garlic, lemon, and bird's-eye piri-piri chillies. The shell protects the meat over the fire while the buttery, chilli-hot baste soaks in. They are served straight off the grill with lemon and rice.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
- 2 lb large prawns, shell-on, butterflied
- 7 tbsp butter
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 bird's-eye piri-piri chillies, minced
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp paprika
- to taste salt
Instructions
- 1Melt the butter gently, add the garlic and chillies, and cook briefly, then take off the heat and stir in the lemon juice, olive oil, paprika, and salt.
- 2Brush the butterflied prawns generously with the piri-piri butter and leave them 30 minutes to take on the flavour.
- 3Grill over hot coals shell-side down first, turning only once they have taken colour, about 2 to 3 minutes a side, basting as you go.✎ Chef’s noteTurn the prawns just once; a minute too long over the fire and they go rubbery.
- 4Pour the remaining warm butter over the prawns and serve with lemon wedges and rice.
Mozambican Indian Ocean coast tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Maputo. Mozambique's capital cooks peri-peri prawns, coconut-rich curries, and Portuguese-influenced seafood. The Indian Ocean and a colonial past flavor Maputo's lively table.
🗺️
Mozambique. For much of the twentieth century Mozambique was the world's leading producer of cashews, responsible at its height for around half of global output, and Africa's first industrial cashew processing plant opened here in 1960. War, nationalisation and structural adjustment collapsed the industry, and the country now grows a small fraction of the world's crop, though the nut still turns up in the cooking.
🌍
Africa. Africa's fifty-four nations hold cuisines as different as Morocco's slow-cooked tagines and South Africa's open-fire braai, yet shared threads run through them: ancient grains like millet, sorghum, and teff; stews thickened with groundnut, okra, or palm; and fiery condiments from Tunisian harissa to Ethiopian berbere. Staple starches, fufu, injera, ugali, couscous, anchor communal meals often eaten by hand from a shared dish, where hospitality is a point of honor.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Mozambique
Frango à ZambezianaChicken marinated in lemon, garlic and piri-piri with coconut milk, then grilled slowly over calm coals and basted with more coconut until it is gold outside and soft within.
Frango Piri-PiriButterflied chicken grilled under a lemon-garlic piri-piri baste, the original of a dish the world now queues for.
BadjiasCrisp Mozambican chickpea-flour fritters flecked with onion and served with fiery piri-piri.
Browse all Mozambique recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Grill or barbecue.
Storing it: Best straight off the heat. Leftovers keep 2 to 3 days refrigerated and reheat well in a hot oven rather than the microwave.
Make it a Mozambique meal
Sumo de MúcuaDrink
Bolo PolanaDessert
MatapaLunch
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Frequently asked questions
What is Camarão Grelhado (Grilled LM Prawns)?
Large prawns grilled over charcoal and basted with a fiery, garlicky piri-piri butter, the star of the Mozambican coast.
Where does Camarão Grelhado (Grilled LM Prawns) come from?
Camarão Grelhado (Grilled LM Prawns) is a Mozambican dish from Maputo, Mozambique.
Can Camarão Grelhado (Grilled LM Prawns) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Camarão Grelhado (Grilled LM Prawns) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Camarão Grelhado (Grilled LM Prawns) safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Camarão Grelhado (Grilled LM Prawns) take to make?
About 1 h in all: 20 minutes prep and 10 minutes cooking, plus 30 min of hands-off waiting the method needs, serving 4.
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