Southwestern Shrimp Salad
Southwestern Shrimp Salad is a chopped romaine salad with corn, black beans, tomatoes, avocado, grilled chili lime shrimp, and a homemade cilantro dressing. It's great for meal prep or a light summertime dinner!
We've been on a salad kick in our house, and this just might be my favorite, yet! I love a good chopped salad and this Southwestern Shrimp Salad is no exception.
Ingredients in Southwestern Shrimp Salad
Romaine Lettuce - I buy romaine hearts and finely chop them up. I like them chopped into pretty small pieces, but you can chop it to your liking.
Tomatoes - I use cherubs, but cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes would work well, too.
Corn - Frozen, fresh, or canned work.
Black Beans
Avocado
Cilantro
Plain Greek Yogurt
Garlic
Olive Oil
Honey
Garlic Powder
Jalapeno
Lime
Chili Powder
Cumin
Shrimp - I use tail-off, deveined and peeled shrimp. If you like tail-on shrimp, that works as well!
Steps to Make Southwestern Shrimp Salad
The first thing you'll do to make this salad, is marinate the shrimp. It doesn't need long, only 10-20 minutes, so you can get the shrimp marinating and then prep the rest of the salad. The shrimp is marinated in a combination of olive oil, chili powder, cumin, garlic, and salt. Easy!
Next, make the salad dressing. To a large food processor or a blender (I used a blender to get it super smooth), add the cilantro, Greek yogurt, jalapeño, lime juice, garlic, honey, olive oil, and salt. Blend or process until creamy. You can set this aside for now.
The next step is to prep all of the remaining salad ingredients. So this would be chopping the romaine, heating up the corn if using frozen, chopping the tomatoes, cutting up the avocado, and straining and rinsing the black beans.
If you are going to make this for meal prep salads, you can add the various ingredients to each tupperware/meal prep container. If you are making this as a large salad, add all of the salad components to a large bowl where you can toss it all up with the dressing.
At this point, you cook the shrimp. I grilled the shrimp, but you can also make it on the stove in a skillet. Cooking shrimp is so fast and easy. On the grill and skillet, they should take just a few minutes on each side. You know they are done when they are no longer translucent, are pink in color, and curled up.
Lastly, add the shrimp to the salad and toss with the dressing. Enjoy!
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Ingredients
For the Shrimp:
- 3 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 teaspoon chili powder
- 2 tablespoon lime juice
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 16 ounces shrimp peeled, deveined, tail-off
For the Salad:
- 6 cups (approximately) finely chopped romaine lettuce
- 15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 2 cups frozen corn, cooked and cooled
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 avocado, diced
For the Cilantro Dressing
- 2 cups fresh cilantro about one bunch of cilantro - I use the stems and leaves
- ½ cup plain Greek yogurt
- 1 jalapeno, stem and seeds removed
- 3 tablespoon lime juice
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 1 teaspoon honey
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
For the Shrimp:
- In a small bowl and the olive oil, lime juice, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, and salt and stir well to combine.
- Add the shrimp to a large bowl and toss with chili lime mixture. Let marinate until ready to cook, at least 10 minutes.
For the Dressing:
- Place all of the dressing ingredients in a food processor or blender, and puree until blended.
- Prep the rest of the salad ingredients.
- Preheat grill to medium-high heat. (If not using a grill - heat a skillet over medium-high heat over the stove)
- Place the shrimp on the grill/skillet and cook 3 minutes on each side, until pink and cooked through. If you find putting each shrimp individually on the grill tedious, you can cook them in a grill pan.
- Add the shrimp to the salad and drizzle with dressing. Toss to combine.
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
- If you know you won't eat the entire salad immediately, don't put all of the dressing on. Store leftovers undressed in airtight containers and add dressing immediately prior to serving.