As warmer weather approaches, Shrimp Salad will be a fabulous light entrée to add to your go-to recipe collection. There’s nothing quite so refreshing and tasty than a luncheon of shrimp salad mounded on a bed of crisp lettuce. Serve it with saltine crackers and an ice cold glass of white wine (or sangria), like Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc.
Shrimp Salad Dressing
The shrimp salad dressing we use here calls for Old Bay Seasoning, lemon juice, fresh dill and Dijon mustard. This combination of flavors produces a cold shrimp salad recipe with a zing that your family will love.
Old Bay is a zesty spice blend that everyone should have in their cupboard. It’s composed of many herbs and spices and is the quintessential seafood seasoning that enhances any seafood chowder or seafood dish.
How to Cook Shrimp for Salad
My favorite shortcut for this recipe is to buy a shrimp ring when they’re on sale and when guests show up, I simply chop up the shrimp!
If you need to cook the shrimp, it takes almost no time at all. You can tell when each shrimp is done because they turn bright pink and curl up. You can even cook shrimp straight from the freezer with no thawing necessary! Here’s how to cook frozen shrimp
- Bring about three quarts of water to a full boil.
- Dump in the frozen shrimp, peels and all.
- Wait for the water to come back to boil. It will take about 4-5 minutes.
- Then cook the shrimp another two-four minutes, depending on how large they are. Do not overcook! Drain and allow to cool, then peel.
To Make Grilled Shrimp Salad: start by using thawed jumbo shrimp and leave the peel on. Brush with oil and grill for about 2 minutes on a side on the cooler side of the grill. Allow the shrimps to cool, then peel and rough chop them for salad. If they are small shrimp, you can leave them whole and make a very simple shrimp with salad by sprinkling them over chopped romaine or any other salad greens you have on hand.
How to Make Shrimp Salad
To make shrimp salad, start by cooking your shrimp and let them get cool enough to peel.
- Roughly chop the shrimp into uniform chunks and finely dice the eggs.
- In a mixing bowl, mix the shrimp and eggs with the diced green onion, celery and other ingredients.
That’s all there is to it! If you want, you can add chopped avocado for a delicious avocado shrimp salad.
Serve this easy shrimp salad over a bed of lettuce to make a great low carb/keto option! Make this cold shrimp salad recipe stretch to feed a crowd by adding some rotini pasta for a more substantial filling shrimp pasta salad!
For a super yummy shrimp salad sandwich, use croissants sliced through horizontally or pile it high on fresh homemade bread.
More Shrimp Faves
- Bang Bang Shrimp – a fun appetizer!
- Easy Shrimp Ceviche Recipe – great in the summer!
- Shrimp Tacos – perfect for patio lunches
- Lemon Shrimp Linguine – fresh and creamy
- Easy Shrimp Scampi Recipe – so easy
Shrimp Salad
Ingredients
- 1 pound medium shrimp cooked, peeled and chilled
- 2 ribs celery diced
- 1 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 in a bowl and mix well to combine.
- Serve over salad, on a croissant or with tortilla chips.
Video
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Fish, Salad
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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!