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Just tried this recipe last night, and it’s a keeper! So fresh and flavorful. The dressing is amazing, the subtle mint and lime combo was delicious.
Alyssa Mertz
It’s time for another version of Chopped Salad Deliciousness.
And I am not mad that this version includes spicy jalapeño garlic shrimp, chopped carrots and edamame, roasted cashews, baby spinach, and the lightest, crispiest, most addicting little golden brown wonton strips PLUS (wait for it…) a garlic-lime-herb-packed tangy dressing.
One thing real quick: I live for dressing. In my contemplative food life, I ask deep questions like: what is a salad without a knockout dressing? Answer: it is nothing.
Dressing dressing dressing dressing dressing. Flavor flavor flavor flavor flavor. Lime lime lime. Garlic garlic garlic. Herbssss.
This salad is SO super crunchy, flavor-loaded, and delicious. I seriously have no interest in messing around with salads unless they are DAAAAAANG good, and this one passes all my tests for the yum factor.
Salad angels. They be singing.
I’m also hearing the springtime weather angels singing (together with the salad angels, obvi) because it’s basically been a steamy tropical paradise here in Minnesota this week. 60 degrees and sunny – SAY WHAT? The amount of joy I get from having the sun warm my face and arms while just sitting on our front steps is sort of alarming.
Generally speaking, I don’t love spring – if we’re being honest, it’s pretty ugly with all that snow melting into dirt puddles, revealing the brown soggy grass underneath, and I’m always always always either wishing I was wearing a T-shirt instead of a sweater, or wishing for sunglasses instead of my thickest winter jacket, or wishing I hadn’t pulled the flats-without-socks move so early in the year – but other than all that stuff that I don’t love about spring, there is a big part of it that I do love.
Primarily these are the things involving babies, dogs, sunshine, and happy neighbors cracking their windows and coming out of Winter Hibernation. Minnesota is such a fun place to live in the spring because you can literally watch everyone coming back to life again.
Also, the new daylight hours? They were made for my procrastinator, always late lifestyle, which usually involves a superfast (read: short) run around the lake, ehhhrrr, the block, whatever – at THE VERY LAST POSSIBLE SECOND OF DAYLIGHT and settling in for dinner sometime around 9pm. The late person schedule not something I’m necessarily proud of, but it’s my life right now, and it just jives so much better with the newly adjusted daylight hours.
So welcome, Spring Daylight, sustainer of happiness, giver of energy, joy of my soul. ♡
Thank you for allowing me to be more of my late schedule self.
Now that it’s spring and you can still take pictures of your dinner in daylight (wheee!), please make this crunchy, colorful, flavor-packed party of a shrimp salad and send me a picture of you. Or the salad. Or the spring sun. Or all three together – oh my goodness, the amount of perfect in that combination is out of control.
Carry on, Salad Lovers!
PS. I am calling this a Thai salad just to give some indication that there is Asian flavor in the house, but it’s really a little bit of everything – between the mint, the jalapeño and serrano, the parsley, the cilantro, the edamame, and the wonton strips, we’re crossing lots of borders here. Salad flavor mashup!
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Chopped Thai Shrimp Salad with Garlic Lime Dressing
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 4–6 servings (I got five huge meal-sized salads) 1x
Description
This Chopped Thai Shrimp Salad is loaded with veggies and tossed with a homemade garlic lime herb dressing. Crunchy and delicious!
Ingredients
For the Garlic Lime Dressing:
- 1/2 cup olive oil (or other oil)
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
- juice of two limes (lemons also work)
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 serrano pepper, keeping the ribs and seeds if you like spicy
- 1 cup packed fresh herbs (mint, cilantro, green onions, parsley)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
For the Salad
- oil for the pan
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 serrano pepper, minced
- 1 lb. shrimp
- 4 cups spinach or other greens
- 4 large carrots, peeled
- 2 cups edamame, shelled and cooked
- 3/4 cup cashews
- fresh wonton wrappers + oil for frying if you want to REALLY take it over the top
Instructions
- Dressing: Pulse all the ingredients except the herbs together in a food processor or blender. Add the herbs and pulse until they are just green specks (not green puree) in the dressing. Add salt, taste, and adjust. Set aside.
- Shrimp: Heat a little bit of oil in a large skillet over medium low heat. Toss in the garlic and the serrano pepper and stir-fry for 1 minute or until fragrant, being careful not to burn or brown the garlic. Add the shrimp, sprinkle with a little salt, and turn up the heat a little bit – enough to cook the shrimp but not so much that you burn the garlic. Saute for a few minutes – when the shrimp is no longer translucent, remove from the pan and set aside until cool enough to handle. Roughly chop the shrimp.
- Veggies: Chop the veggies very finely – I do this by just running each ingredient (cashews first, then edamame, carrots last) through the food processor a bit. It gets everything to have that nice “chopped salad” texture without taking a ton of time.
- Serve: Toss the chopped veggies, chopped shrimp, greens, and dressing together. Top with wonton strips if you have them (see notes).
Notes
Crispy Wonton Strips: heat oil in a heavy duty frying pan over medium low heat, about 1 1/2 inches deep. Cut fresh wonton wrappers into strips. When the oil is hot (it’s ready when a drop of water sizzles across the top), add the wonton strips and gently flip every 30 seconds to 1 minute until very light golden brown. Remove with tongs or a slotted spoon and place on paper towels to drain excess oil. Sprinkle with salt. And now – good luck not eating every last one.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Thai-Inspired
Keywords: chopped thai salad, shrimp salad, garlic lime salad dressing
this is soooo delicious!! ….question: how long does the garlic lime dressing keep in the fridge?
Hi! The dressing should keep in a sealed container in the fridge for about 5-7 days. Enjoy!
There is nothing to add or subtract from this recipe. So good! Everyone in my family loved it !!
This dressing is sooo good and if I add too many serranos, my sinuses are cleared lol
Love this salad. It was delicious. Amazing flavors.
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I Love this recipe !! thank you for sharing 🙂 My husband and i really enjoyed this salad today, will definitely keep making it! I like that it includes mint, honestly didn’t expect it to be that Amazing <3
Officially one of my favorite salads to pack for lunch! Yum!
This salad is amazing and you are a genius! I loved it so much!! It was the perfect salad! My mother in law had 3 helpings! I really enjoy your recipes! Thank you!
This salad was delicious! I made it for my boyfriend and a friend and both were raving.
The spice level is perfect (I left the seeds and veins in both peppers).
I tried to keep it healthier so I did not do the wonton strips, but I’m sure they would be good.
This is definitely staying in my salad rotation.
Awesome, Sally! Glad to hear that. 🙂
Awesome blog, love it so much. I was wondering, How do you get the nutritional facts image? It is a plugin or something or do you just create it in Photoshop?
Thanks, Naomi
I use a nutrition label tool available on our membership site Food Blogger Pro – https://nutrifox.com/ – it’s just a copy and paste for ingredients and then the label is available as a download. 🙂 There are also several other websites like where you can generate the labels for free and take a screen shot if you want to save the label. Here’s a link to the free Calorie Count tool: https://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076
Hope that helps!
Great question, Naomi! I will pass it along to Lindsay.
Just tried this out today! Loved the dressing, it tastes so fresh and flavourful 🙂
I had this salad last night at our monthly book club gathering (we drink wine, but we DO talk about the book too!).
This salad was the main event and I couldn’t get enough of it! We just brought all the appetizer plates over to the table, and there was nothing else, just this salad. Our hostess had made ample enough that there was still some left over.
First I noticed the flavor just popped in my mouth! Then with the shrimp and the nuts in it, there was plenty of substance in it to hold it’s own. I literally can’t wait to make it for my husband now (with more for me of course!). Thank you Lindsay, I love your site! Jane
Gorgeous photos and recipe, it sounds so gourmet and flavorful! That’s the salad I was looking for for these first days of spring 🙂
Awesome! I hope you like it Sylvie!
I made this for dinner last night and it was divine. The dressing is to die for, I could barely stop myself from eating it by the spoonful.
I used a mix of dinosaur kale and spinach for my greens (added a nice texture), and added 2 cups of vermicelli rice noodle to the mix as I am GF and couldn’t use wontons.
Amazing… and I dare to say almost even better for lunch the next day! This recipe is a keeper.
Just tried this recipe last night, and it’s a keeper! So fresh and flavorful. The dressing is amazing, the subtle mint and lime combo was delicious.
I love hearing that! Thanks for the comment Alyssa!
My sister made this and it was a total hit. I have 2 questions: can I make the dressing a day or 2 ahead? Will the salad keep for a day so I can take it to work the next day? Thanks so much.
The dressing will be fine to make a day ahead. But I would wait to toss everything together until right before you serve. The wonton strips get soggy pretty fast.
Tried this last night. Was SUCH a hit. I am totally making this again. My guests were so impressed.
Thanks for the comment – I’m so glad to hear that you liked it Ayesha!
Very nice! Pinning this to be used this weekend! 🙂
Time to get some cashews!
That salad was pure heaven. My carnivorous son and husband just loved it and fought for what was left in the bowl. Yum!
Wow! This salad looks amazing!
My hubby: Shrimp = happiness.
Me: Cashews = happiness.
This salad will go down very very nicely this weekend. 🙂 Thanks!
OMG! I am so excited to try this recipe -Hello Spring! I haven’t done my first spring run yet but I did do my first hike! Yay to daylight savings time! So nice to have the sun in our faces again!
p.s. your pictures of food are so lovely!
Thank you Khadija! Enjoy your first run!
This looks INCREDIBLE! Making this TONIGHT! 🙂
LOL – to the flats without socks move. I’m in MN, too, and totally caved to doing that this week. However, I haven’t put away the shovel… that’s just asking for another snow storm.
Can’t wait to try to salad. Looks amaze! 🙂
I know… I’m just waiting for it.
Cilantro is my favorite! 🙂