Featured comment
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!
Print
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 looks like my kind of salad!
I am also so pumped about daylight savings. I haven’t gone for my first spring run yet but you’re inspiring me, so hopefully I’ll do it soon. And then make this salad!
I dunno, daylight savings jams me all up. Not to mention the kids who get all weird with the time change, like we’re trying to get them to go to bed an hour early or something silly like that. So needless to say, we are eating healthy (but cowabunga dude Lindsay…..dinner at 9 p.m., um, I’m in bed by then?!? Insert loser quote here). So yes, we are eating so many healthy salads to offset lack of sleep. Adding this to the list! Okay, and I’m going to deep fry those wonton wrappers, I mean, that’s the way to go!
This looks so fresh and delicious and flavorful! Totally matches the “feel” of this weather. I can go outside and not feel like my face is going to fall off! Yesterday, I walked outside and was wearing TOO MANY layers?!?! What is this madness? But I love it and spring is fabulous, just like this salad. 🙂
This salad reminds me of one that I just fell in love with at Applebees of all places!
You’re right, a salad without a killer dressing is, well, just a lettuce.
And that is boring.
This dressing, the crunchy won ton goodness and the shrimpies? DROOLFEST. Pinned!
First off, I have to tell you that I love that close-up shot of the mint leaves! (That’s mint, right? Whatever it is, it’s awesome!) And I just had a Thai salad last weekend! Gotta try yours 🙂
This looks so good…particularly the dressing which I may just have to steal for other more boring salads! Yum!
I’ve just recently started eating seafood after about 5 years of being a vegan, and I cannot wait to make this. I’ve also never cooked shrimp before, so this look like a delicious adventure that is definitely happening this weekend!
I could go back to eating salads everyday if I had recipes like this one. Garlic lime dressing, say what?! Of course I’m not gonna do that as there are so many food options out there. Plus I want to keep a variety of recipes going on my blog. Either way this is amazing and so pinned this!
OK, I just found out what’s for dinner tonight!! Thanks!! Hugs from http://www.ohhappydane.com
This is SO gorgeous, Lindsay! A woman after my own heart. You need to come through Portland and eat at Pok Pok. It will change your LIFE. Not to be over dramatic or anything.
Oh my gosh, we ALMOST went when we were there last fall but we couldn’t get in! Dang. But the curry I made earlier this year was from a recipe from the head chef there. Booyah!
This salad sounds amazing! I don’t make a ton of chopped salads, because of all the chopping. The use of a food processor is brilliant! I don’t know why I haven’t done that sooner. Washing food processor is still much quicker than chopping up all those veggies!
I agree. that food processor, I tell ya… magic!!
I want this ASAP!!! Garlic dressing speaks to my heart of hearts. Shrimp, fresh herbs, fried wontons it’s like you put my dreams into one amazingly incredibly delicious salad. And the food processor trick-er-oo? Love. Chopped salad heaven. Pinned!
One occasion where I do eat shrimp is when I go out for Thai food. Now I can make it at home. I love this recipe!
Wow, this salad looks really yummy. Wondering if I can leave out the shrimp though?
Yes but sad. But seriously, you can. 🙂
Yummy! I think I’d be really motivated to eat my greens if I had this garlic lime dressing on hand!
Kari
http://www.sweetteasweetie.com
I love this salad flavor mashup! The dressing alone makes my mouth water…
its been a while since Ive had shrimp and ive been craving it lately. This seems like the perfect recipe to bring it back in to my life 🙂
We love Thai food. When we lived in the city we ate it often. Not a lot of Thai choices out here in the boonies!
I’ll have to give this a try. If I want Thai food I guess I’m going to have to make it. 🙂
Love all the yummy flavors packed into this salad! Will definitely try this one soon!
DANG! This looks so gorgeous and full of flavour!
That garlic lime dressing sounds absolutely scrumptious! I’ve been making all of my salad dressings for the past year or so, and it’s always so exciting to discover a new one. Can’t wait to try it!
Sold! Dressing with garlic and lime goodness, who can pass on that? Glad spring has sort of arrived for you. It’s pretty springy here in San Francisco.
Juju
http://jujusprinkles.com/
Hey Pinch of Yum….I have been getting all your recipes in my in-box till a couple days ago…I have to now click on the link in the e-mail to go to the web site…what gives??
Also, I had gotten a link to the Photography info, that disappeared from my e-mail. as well as the link to the 2014 E-book of your Recipes…not sure what is going on BUT wanted to let you know…..I was very disappointed when this happened…!!!
Loved your pics from your Charleston visit…THX for sharing
Sincerely, Miss Judith…I love in Lovely (Breaux Bridge, to be exact) Lafayette, LA…I too, love our Spanish Moss..♥♥♥
Hey Judith! I’m not sure what that’s all about – everything looks fine on our end and we haven’t had anyone else reporting these issues. Can you send me an email with a screen shot of what you see in the email? That would be really helpful to figure it out. Thanks Judith!
omg this looks absolutely delicious and tasty 🙂
https://aspoonfulofnature.wordpress.com/
Spring is quite the opposite down here in Australia. It’s a beautiful time of year where all the flowers come into bloom and the trees start growing leaves again. No mushy melted snow in my land!
I’m right there with ya, Lindsay! The MN early spring, salad, sunshine, doggies, and all!! 🙂 Thank God for the warm spring break, so I’m not stuck with unbreakable cabin fever this week. Definitely going outdoors every day almost all day, and not getting to my computer until the sun goes down. With a heaping salad 🙂 🙂 🙂
We are on the same page!