This shrimp salad recipe is a light and refreshing summer-worthy dish that can be served in so many ways.
Chopped shrimp and crisp veggies are mixed in a creamy dressing accented with Old Bay seasoning and fresh dill, perfect to serve on a sandwich, salad, or crackers.
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Holly’s Recipe Highlights
- Flavor: Cool, creamy, and refreshing with zesty seafood flavor in each bite.
- Skill Level: This recipe keeps it extra easy using precooked shrimp.
- Prep Note: Shrimp salad tastes best when it’s really cold. So, make it a day ahead, and keep it chilled until ready to use.
- Swaps: Replace the cucumber with fresh zucchini.
Ingredient Tips for Shrimp Salad
- Shrimp: Use precooked shrimp that are shelled and deveined; this saves so many prep steps. If using frozen shrimp, fully thaw and pat it dry so it doesn’t water down the dressing. Frozen bay shrimp or canned shrimp are also time-saving alternatives.
- Eggs: Hard-boiled eggs add texture to shrimp salad. If time is short, buy them pre-boiled and shelled.
- Veggies: Celery and cucumbers add crunch to shrimp salad. If using garden cucumbers instead of English cucumbers, they should be peeled first.
- Dressing: Homemade mayonnaise is a cinch to make and adds a velvety richness to shrimp salad; otherwise, choose your favorite store brand or mayo. Lemon juice and a dash of Dijon mustard balance the flavor of the mayonnaise. Buy or DIY your own Old Bay Seasoning and have extra for shrimp boils and crab cakes.
Variations
- Chopped avocado, diced red bell peppers, red onion, shredded zucchini, carrots, or chopped spinach are other colorful and crunchy additions to shrimp salad.
- Add some fresh ground black pepper. Minced jalapenos or a little jalapeno juice adds a spicy zest.
- Add a garnish of chopped fresh parsley for extra color.
Serving and Storing
Shrimp salad can be served on a bed of greens or mixed into coleslaw for fewer calories. It’s picture-worthy served on a fresh croissant, tucked into a pita pocket, or made into a wrap with a spinach or sundried tomato tortilla.
Keep leftover shrimp salad in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Stir, drain (if needed), and add a splash of lemon juice to refresh the flavors. Leftovers can be added to a zesty shrimp pasta salad.
Tasty Seafood Salad Recipes
Did you love this Shrimp Salad Recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 pound medium shrimp cooked, peeled and chilled
- 2 ribs celery diced
- 1 stalk green onion finely diced
- 2 hard boiled eggs finely diced
- ½ English cucumber finely diced
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ½ teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning
- 1 ½ teaspoon whole grain dijon mustard
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Chop shrimp into small pieces.
- Combine all remaining ingredients, including celery, green onion, hard-boiled eggs, cucumber, dill, lemon juice, mayonnaise, Old Bay Seasoning, and whole grain Dijon mustard in a bowl and mix well to combine.
- Serve over salad, on a croissant or with tortilla chips.
Video
Notes
- Serve shrimp salad over greens, in coleslaw, or wrapped in a tortilla, croissant, or pita.
Store leftovers in the fridge for up to 3 days. - Stir, drain if needed, and add lemon juice to freshen.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Appetizer, Fish, Lunch, Salad, Sandwich, Seafood
Cuisine American© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
Will regular customer work on this recipe instead of English? Also, dried dill instead of fresh? Would it still be the same one tablespoon or less?
You could use regular cucumber, but it does produce more liquid. Make sure you cut out the middle seed portion to help remove some of the liquid. You could also let them sit a bit if you had time to drain a bit of the excess liquid. For dried dill, you’d want to use about 1 teaspoon. If you notice a bit of liquid (from the cucumbers) before serving, just pour it off. Enjoy the shrimp salad, Dorothy!
Great recipe, curious if I could use lime instead of lemon?
I’m sure that’d work just fine Marjie! Enjoy!
To much cucumber! Need to reduce cucumber by at least 2/3 and replace with bell pepper.
That’s the great thing about this shrimp salad recipe Bud, you can easily adapt it to your tastes. We love the cucumber in it!
This was a great recipe, and I simply used leftover defrosted cocktail shrimp and did nothing aside from adding some pepper! I’m impressed!
I had some shrimp leftover from a low country boil and looked up some recipes for shrimp salad. So glad I found this. It was easy to make and it turned out wonderful! I will definitely make it again.
This is a wonderful and super easy recipe. I don’t enjoy cooking anymore, but occasionally enjoy having friends over for lunch. Everyone who has tried this LOVES it. I plan to serve it for Mother’s Day lunch this year.
Tastes awesome. I used frozen salad shrimp, let them thaw in a colander while I chopped the veggies. Then rinsed the shrimp with cold water to make sure they were all thawed, drained thoroughly and patted them dry. Used a heaping teaspoon of Old Bay as I love the spice it brings to seafood. This will be on our summer rotation for sure!
I made your Shrimp Salad recipe last night & it was Excellent. I left out the egg & the cucumber – but
followed the recipe exactly. This is a KEEPER will definitely make this again. Better than any restaurant. Dee
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it, Dee.
Fantastic! Thank you so much, Holly. I love every recipe I’ve tried on your site.
Thank you so much Teresa! So glad you’ve loved the recipes!
I was looking for a light lunch to serve for a girls lunch. One friend is gluten free, so she ate this with lettuce, the others had the salad on croissants. It was delicious and a big hit with everyone. I plan to make it again next week! Thank you for the recipe.
So glad you and your friends enjoyed it, Deborah!
Wonderful! Fresh and tasty.
Delicious! Five star from the troops here at home.
Thanks so much, Wanda, that means a lot! :)
Made this for dinner. So delicious. Used lettuce cups instead of bread. Left out the dill(not a fan) and added worchestershire to the dressing. Will definitely make again!!!
So disappointed – my shrimp salad turned out very runny! What did I do wrong? Think it was probably the cucumber. Should that be soaked in salt to release the water in it before I add to salad? (Your directions said nothing about that) And I doubled recipe, so had a lot of money into this salad I was making for others, embarrassed to serve with all the juice & no creamy texture.
Oh no Carol, how disappointing. I have never had issues with a runny salad so it’s hard to say what went wrong. The cucumber is not salted before adding to the salad. I do have a video of this recipe here on Facebook.
Was your shrimp completely defrosted? Did you use light or low fat mayonnaise?
It was most likely the shrimp that caused it to be watery. Especially if you used frozen seafood; it tends to give up a lot of water. But even if I didn’t use frozen shrimp; still fresh shrimp that is washed/rinsed off holds lots and lots of water so I make sure to really REALLY pat them dry. I had this happen when I was making a stir fry shrimp meal. They just kept giving off water and the stir fry did not turn out as nice as I wanted because I couldn’t get a good sear on the shrimp. So now I wrap my shrimp in several paper towels for at least 30 minutes before I plan on cooking them on using in a salad.
Thank you for the great tip Tee.
I just made this and it’s really good now. By tomorrow it should be to die for after all the spices get a chance to marinade together and blend. Thank you!!!!
Did yours become watery, like mine? What. Did I do wrong, followed directions.. I think it was the cucumber.. doubled the batch to give to others, very embarked with finished dish.
Love your recipes and so do my picky eaters. Thank you for your wonderful recipes.
You’re welcome Vivian! Glad they enjoyed it.
Just made Shrimp Salad for a Croissant. Will all lettuce in on the sandwich. Looks absolsutely amazing, and will taste even better. Try to remember to send yiu a pic.
Thanks Holly for sharing.
So happy you enjoyed it Sioux! We’d love to see it, be sure to tag us on Instagram!
I love to cook and and I like all the recipe you put out there so keep up the good work and like to trying out your recipe.
YUMMO! Just the way I remember it when my Dad brought it home from the club on a Friday night!
This was amazing! I made it just like you said! I’m serving it as an appetizer for Christmas in little phyllo cups!