Prawn cocktail, also known as shrimp cocktail, is a seafood dish consisting of shelled, cooked prawns in a Marie Rose Sauce or cocktail sauce, served in a glass. It was the most popular hors d'œuvre in Great Britain, as well as in the United States, from the 1960s to the late 1980s. According to the English food writer Nigel Slater, the prawn cocktail "has spent most of see-sawing from the height of fashion to the laughably passé" and is now often served with a degree of irony.
The cocktail sauce is essentially ketchup plus mayonnaise in Commonwealth countries, or ketchup and horseradish in the United States. Recipes may add Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, vinegar, cayenne pepper or lemon juice.