We all should eat more salad. Tons of veggies, nutrients, the freshness, the crunch…yadda, yadda, yadda. Boo. Hiss. Salad is diet food. Don’t get me wrong. I like salad. It’s fine. It’s even really good sometimes. But when you get right down to what I like MOST about salad, it’s that it is a conveyance for wonderful salad dressing. Which is not diet food. Which makes me like it more.
This salad dressing is one of the best I’ve ever had; certainly one of the best I’ve ever made. I would swim in it, wash my hair in it, eat it with a spoon. If I had any left, I would put it on just about anything. I loved it so much I ate three bowls of salad just so I could have more dressing. Now that’s love.
To give credit where credit is due, the original recipe for this salad and dressing came from another web site I came across on Pinterest, skinnytaste.com. I did take some liberties with the salad recipe, changing it up a bit for our tastes, adding and subtracting items and adding some cooked elements to make it more dinner-like. The shrimp is warm, flavorful, but not spicy. The dressing I left alone for the most part, since it’s already perfect!
Southwestern Shrimp Salad with Creamy Cilantro-Tomatillo Dressing
Southwestern Shrimp Salad
1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup frozen corn (or fresh corn kernels)
1/2 cup chopped red onion
Juice of 1/2 lime
6 cups romaine lettuce
1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 english cucumber, diced
1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 avocado, diced
Start building the salad in a large serving bowl, layering romaine lettuce, beans, cucumber, and tomatoes. Combine raw shrimp with chili powder & salt in a small bowl. Heat 1 tsp. olive oil in a skillet over med-high heat. Add chopped onion and corn to skillet. Cook, stirring, for a couple of minutes until onion is soft. Add shrimp. Saute until shrimp is done. Squeeze lime over the top of the shrimp. Pour over the top of the salad. Top with avocado and chopped cilantro. Serve with Creamy Cilantro-Tomatillo Dressing (recipe follows). I drizzed a little over the top of the serving bowl and then let everyone apply more as they saw fit.
Southwestern Shrimp Salad with Creamy Cilantro-Tomatillo Dressing on the Side
Creamy Cilantro-Tomatill0 Dressing
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 small jalapeno, seeds removed
1/4 cup cilantro
1 tomatillo
1 clove garlic
1 scallion
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/2 tsp. dry parsley flakes
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
Combine all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth. Apply generously to Southwestern Shrimp Salad or anything else that strikes your fancy.
3hungrymonkeys 