Shrimp Salad

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A common appetizer or party dish, this shrimp salad is tangy, tasty, and easily customizable with any of your favorite spices!

For more shrimp party dishes, why not try this shrimp dip or make a shrimp cocktail with Homemade Cocktail Sauce.

Shrimp Salad

Shrimp salad has a bit of a reputation as being old-fashioned, suitable only for parties in the 1950s. However, back in the day, it was one of the trendiest things you could hope to find at any party, so why not try and relive a bit of history and try and make it yourself?

The best part about making a shrimp salad is customizing it yourself; my favorite is using a bit of curry powder, but you could spice it however you like to make it your own.

Shrimp Salad Ingredients

Don’t forget to read the recipe card at the very bottom for the exact amounts needed to make this.

• Cooked shrimp
• Celery
• Green onion

Mayonnaise dressing

• Mayonnaise
• Yellow mustard
• Salt & pepper
• Lemon juice

Optional spices

• Dill
• Curry
• Old bay

How to Make Shrimp Salad

• Combine the base ingredients together in a medium bowl
• In a separate small bowl, mix together all of the mayo ingredients, adding in the lemon juice and salt to taste
• Use any of the extra optional spices to mix it up
• Stir the whole thing to coat completely, and then serve in green lettuce cups

How to Spice Your Shrimp Salad 

The base of this recipe is an exceptionally simple mayonnaise dressing with some shrimp and finely chopped vegetables, but this is only the beginning.

You could spice this literally however you like, with whatever flavorings you feel like at the moment. My favorite is some curry powder, but you could also turn it into an Old Bay shrimp salad or even make it Mexican-themed with some cumin, oregano, and a little bit of hot sauce.

If you are worried about adding the wrong seasoning in and ruining the dish, take a little bit of the mayonnaise dressing out of the bowl and mix it together with a small amount of your planned seasoning. This lets you try a few different seasoning combinations without worrying about having to make a whole new batch of mayonnaise if you seasoned it poorly.

Type of Shrimp to Use

Shrimp salad might be a famous dish but isn’t famously regarded as a great use of fresh seafood. Feel free to use frozen shrimp here, as it won’t at all impact the quality of this dish.

Any type of COOKED shrimp is good here but try to go for ones that are large enough to be picked up by the tail. While you could certainly just use those tiny shrimps in a can, try and get those big ones that still have the shell on. This is better when you cut the shrimp into chunks, in my opinion, but hey if you only have little canned shrimp and don’t know how to use them, this is a great way!

De-vein the Shrimp

Make sure you de-vein the shrimp if they don’t already come de-veined. It’s a bit tricky, but the trick is to get a sharp knife underneath the intestinal tract. Without cutting it, remove the vein at the bottom in one swift movement.

Not deveining won’t poison you or anything, don’t worry, but it will definitely look a lot better with the vein removed!

Looking for more tasty Seafood recipes? Try these out:

• • Bacon Wrapped Scallops
  • Manhattan Clam Chowder
  • Lemon Garlic Dill Shrimp & Potatoes in Foil Packets

This is the perfect light salad to eat this spring!

Enjoy!

Love,

Karlynn

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