Lobster Tail Skewers with Bang Bang Sauce

These lobster tail skewers with bang bang sauce fit the bill for a fun, freakin’ delicious dinner. There’s just something about grilling lobster over an open fire that feels like a party. Plus, the tangy heat of the bang bang sauce complements the sweet lobster meat perfectly. Going with skewered lobster tails for this recipe makes it easier to flip and move them while grilling and helps ensure even cooking for the meat.

Lobster Skewers with Bang Bang Sauce garnished and served on a cutting board.

It’s always important to have a consistent heat source when cooking over the fire. It becomes even more important when you’re cooking a meat as delicate as lobster tails. I naturally reached for my Cowboy Charcoal for these lobster skewers because their charcoal provides exactly that: a clean burning, consistent heat source.

Why You’ll Love These Lobster Tail Skewers

I love grilling lobster. When you cook the meat over an open flame, it concentrates the flavor and gives the lobster a fantastic texture. You also get that smokiness from the fire that you won’t get with boiling or steaming. The butter baste in this lobster tail skewers recipe keeps everything tender and juicy, while adding some great herby flavor with the scallions and cilantro.

Lobster Skewers with Bang Bang Sauce on the grill grate with flames in the background.

The bang bang sauce rounds out this lobster tail skewer recipe with a…bang. You had to know that terrible joke was coming. I was thinking, we serve bang bang sauce with shrimp all the time, right? Why not try it with another crustacean? Turns out I was on the right track. Also, New England-style lobster rolls use mayo all the time. So, this mayo-based chili sauce is right at home with our lobster skewers.

Looking for other special sauces? Check out my recipes for Smoked Chicken with Alabama White Sauce, Animal Style Cheesesteak Recipe and Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Sliders.

Ingredients for Lobster Tail Skewers with Bang Bang Sauce

Lobster Tails: We’ll season our lobster tails with kosher salt, black pepper, garlic powder and canola oil.
Butter Baste: Adding red chili flakes, chopped scallions and chopped cilantro to our clarified butter brings the flavor next level.
Bang Bang Sauce: We’ll mix mayonnaise, sweet chili paste, rice wine vinegar, sriracha and honey together for an epic sauce.

Get stoked for life

This sauce is FYR!

an all-new line created for live fire cooking

Born from a deep passion for food and flavor. Whether you’re grilling in the backyard or live fire cooking around the world, we have what you need to transform every meal into an adventure.

Shop provisions

How to Make Clarified Butter

The reason we use clarified butter here is because it has a higher smoke point than regular butter, making it perfect for high-heat cooking and grilling. First, grab your unsalted butter — you’ll want one stick for this recipe. Melt the butter slowly over direct heat (low setting) in a small saucepan. The goal is to let the butter melt gradually and completely without boiling it. As it melts, you’ll notice the milk solids start to separate from the butter “oil.”

Next, pour the liquified butter into a clear glass container and let cool for two minutes. As it cools, the milk solids will sink to the bottom of the jar. Then, pour the top portion of the butter into a new jar. That is the golden, pure yellow portion of the butter, aka the clarified butter. Try to keep any of the white, milk solids from getting poured into the new jar.

That’s all there is to it! Now, you have your very own clarified butter. This method is the base for all my butter recipes, so give a few of those a try too.

How to Make Lobster Tail Skewers with Bang Bang Sauce

Preparing the Lobster Tail Skewers

There are so many different ways to cut open a lobster tail, but the way we’ll tackle it today is actually by flipping the tail over and cutting away the bottom/underbelly portion of the lobster tail.

To do this, flip the tail over and cut along the outside line where the thin, translucent portion of the underbelly connects with the hard outer shell. Peel that portion of the tails away from the meat, keeping the lobster meat intact with the top portion of the tail shell.

Now, we’ll make our lobster skewers! Take a small skewer and run it through the tail, starting from the bottom and ending at the top of the tail length wise. Complete this process for each of our six lobster tails.

To finish our prep, season the skewered lobster tails with a dab of oil and then a sprinkle of salt, pepper and garlic powder. You’ll need about a teaspoon of each seasoning to cover all six tails. After you’ve finished seasoning the lobster tail skewers, set them to the side.

Making the Bang Bang Sauce

We’ll quickly mix together the bang bang sauce next so that it has time to chill in the fridge.

For this sauce, all you have to do is mix all the ingredients together — 1/4 cup mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons sweet chili paste, 1.5 tablespoons rice wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon sriracha and 2 teaspoons honey — in a small bowl.

Bang bang, the sauce is done! Place it in the fridge and then head out to the fire.

Grilling the Lobster Tail Skewers

As previously mentioned, I grilled these lobster skewers over some hot Cowboy Charcoal. Since I know lobster tails are a very delicate protein, charcoal is always my go-to fuel.

I like to fill a charcoal chimney to the brim with lump charcoal and then set it over a couple fire starters. This allows all the charcoal to quickly catch fire before spreading it across the base of my grill. When cooking with lobster tails specifically, I like to dump the charcoal into the grill a bit before all the coals are bright orange in color because it slowly raises the heat. This will allow me to slowly cook the lobster, with an even controlled heat. Then, as the remaining charcoal ignites, the heat spikes, which helps caramelize the herb butter I basted on top of the lobster skewers as they were cooking.

Lobster Skewers with Bang Bang Sauce after the first flip.

Before we start grilling the lobster tails, let’s make that herb butter. Add a small skillet to the grill to preheat for a minute. Melt your 1/4 cup clarified butter, then add 1.5 teaspoons red chili flakes, 1.5 teaspoons chopped scallions and 1.5 teaspoons cilantro. Stir together and let gently simmer over the flames while you add your lobster tails, flesh side down, to the grill.

Cook the lobster tails for 1-2 minutes on the first side, then flip over so the shell is towards the fire. Begin basting the lobster with the butter sauce and continue cooking for 2 minutes. Once the lobster tails are opaque white, pull them off the grill and let them cool for 1 minute.

Lobster Skewers with Bang Bang Sauce being basted with herb ghee.

Serving the Skewered Lobster Tails

Now the fun part: finishing our lobster skewers with the bang bang sauce. Place your cooked lobster skewers on a serving dish and then give each one a generous drizzle of our homemade bang bang sauce.

Alternatively, you could keep the sauce on the side and let everyone dip and/or drizzle their lobster skewers as they desire. Use the skewer to pull the lobster meat from the shell and chow down! Best enjoyed with friends and family. Cheers!

One final overhead shot of the served dish.

What to Serve with Lobster Tail Skewers

These lobster tail skewers would be so freakin’ delicious with steamed rice, a simple green salad, some sautéed snap peas or snow peas, and white wine on the side.

Leftovers and Reheating

If you’ve got any leftovers, store the lobster tails in an airtight container in the fridge for 2 days. To reheat, wrap them in foil with a little melted butter and warm on low heat in the oven or on the grill — just until heated through.

Don’t overcook or you’ll lose that buttery texture. The herb butter baste can be reheated gently in a small pot and spooned back over the top.

Finally, you can store the bang bang sauce in a separate airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week. Pull it out of the fridge and drizzle over the tails before serving.

For More Lobster

Sriracha Butter Lobster Tails

Dirty Lobster Tails with Hatch Chile Butter Sauce

Smoked Lobster Tails

Parmesan Crusted Lobster Tails

Coal Roasted Baja Lime Lobster

Cajun Lobster Mac & Cheese

FAQs

Should I use wooden skewers or metal skewers?

For these lobster tail skewers and other skewer recipes, I tend to like metal skewers. First off, you can reuse them. Also, having a flat surface makes the food more stable so it doesn’t rotate or slide while you’re grilling.

But some cooks say the metal heats up faster than a wooden skewer and cooks the inside of the meat too quickly. I haven’t found this! But if you want to go with wooden skewers or bamboo skewers, which I did do when I made this recipe, make sure you get products with a smooth finish so they’re less likely to splinter. Soaking them in water helps with splintering and charring issues too.

How can I change the spice level in this lobster skewers recipe?

The biggest sources of heat in this recipe are the chili flakes in the butter baste and the sriracha and chile paste in the bang bang sauce. You can adjust the amount of chili flakes according to your preferences. Sriracha and chile paste heat levels vary by brand, so pick one that you know suits your tastebuds and you’ll be good to go in this recipe.

Where can I find Cowboy Charcoal?

This stuff is the best, so you can find it in plenty of hardware stores and other outlets across the country. Check out the company’s store locator to find a spot near you. You can also order bags online and have them delivered right to you!

Get The Cookbooks!

Flavor X Fire & FOOD X Fire

By Derek Wolf

All the major tastes—salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and umami—are explored in depth, along with an investigation of other components you should consider when it comes to flavor, such as aroma, heat, and texture.

Flavor X Fire

Food X Fire