Grilled Shrimp Louie Salad
Grilled Shrimp Louie Salad is classic louie salad with smoky grilled shrimp and fresh, creamy homemade louie salad dressing! {GF, DF}
In my last post, I shared my Louie Salad Dressing, so you must’ve known a salad was coming next right? I forgot to mention it, which may have had you all on the edge of your seats in suspense.
That’s silly because the only logical recipe I could post for louie dressing is louie salad. The only suspenseful part would be whether I chose to top it with crab, shrimp or go rogue and do a vegetarian spin.
When I was developing my dressing, I tried out every variation I listed above. I enjoyed it with grilled shrimp, fresh crab and ate the leftovers with chickpeas.
While I loved each variation, I finally went with my original plan for this Grilled Shrimp Louie Salad. 🙂
Shrimp Louie Salad
I’ve loved louie salads for years. Normally the shrimp is bay shrimp and I used to be happy with that until I came across one with grilled prawns at one of my favorite restaurants.
The smoky, succulent prawns were so much better to me than cold bay shrimp, and now I only want grilled shrimp atop my louie salad.
You just have to try it and see for yourself. 🙂
You may be wondering…what is a Louie Salad?
Crab Louie Salad (also known as Crab Louis Salad or the King of Salads) originated in the early 1900’s on the West Coast of California. There were a few restaurants on record in San Francisco that served the crab louie salad as early as 1914.
Louie salads are typically served cold or at room temperature with fresh crab meat or bay shrimp, hard boiled egg, olives, tomato and sometimes asparagus.
They’re normally served with a creamy dressing similar to Thousand Island, but it’s not as sweet.
If you’re in a really fine restaurant, you may even get lucky and come across a lobster louie salad. 🙂
Recipe Notes
- I realize that this shrimp louie salad recipe has a few different components to prep, but it’s all completely doable, especially if you tackle them separately. Prepare the beets and hard boiled eggs a day or two in advance to make salad prep much quicker. You can certainly opt to use pre-cooked beets instead of roasting your own.
- The shrimp can be handled a number of ways. Prep and skewer in advance then douse in lemon juice, salt and pepper before you’re ready to grill them, or cook them a day ahead. If grilling isn’t your thing, you can sauté them in a pan or use cold bay shrimp. Crab meat is also a delicious option!
- I highly recommend that you use my louie dressing recipe. My dressing includes lots of fresh ingredients and you can taste the quality. It may also be made in advance…just stir and serve!
- Normally louie salads are served with cold ice berg lettuce, but I prefer to use lettuce that has more nutritional value. I used a spring – butter lettuce blend.
- This shrimp louie salad is very customizable — omit the ingredients that you don’t care for and pile on the ones that you love!
More scrumptious salad recipes!
Wedge salad from The View From Great Island
Grilled Shrimp Louie Salad
Ingredients
- 4 baby beets (or pre-cooked beets)
- 4 large hard boiled eggs
- 16 ounces large uncooked thawed shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1 large lemon halved and divided
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 4 large metal or wooden skewers
- 6 ounces lettuce mix I used spring and butter lettuce
- 1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes halved
- 1 avocado pitted and sliced
- 1 cup black olives drained
- Homemade No Mayo Louie Salad Dressing
Instructions
Prepare the beets:
- If using fresh beets, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Trim the top and bottom of the beets and wrap tightly in aluminum foil. Place on a baking sheet and roast for 45-60 minutes until tender.
- Once cool enough to handle, rub the skins off of the beets with paper towels and cut into wedges.
Preheat the grill to medium.
- Place the shrimp in large bowl and toss with the juice from half of the lemon (reserve the other half), and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
- Place the shrimp on the skewers and grill for 2-3 minutes per side or until pink. Remove from heat and remove from the skewers once cool enough to handle.
Assemble the salads:
- Cut the remaining half a lemon into (4) wedges.
- Divide the lettuce, beets, hard boiled egg, cherry tomatoes, olives and avocado between (4) large plates. Top with the shrimp then drizzle with the desired amount of dressing. Serve with lemon wedges and enjoy!
Notes
- The beets, hard boiled eggs and shrimp may all be made a day or two in advance to make the salad much easier to prepare the day that you're serving it.
- If you prefer not to grill your shrimp, you can either sauté it on the stove top, roast it on a baking sheet in a 400 degree oven for 8-10 minutes, or serve it with bay shrimp. This salad is also wonderful with crab meat!
- For a vegetarian option, omit the seafood and serve with chickpeas or white beans.
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
11 Comments on “Grilled Shrimp Louie Salad”
Marcie, I’ve never heard of a louie salad, but I can tell you that your salad here is definitely one I want to try!! Especially that dressing!
I hope you get to try it Katherine — I think you’ll love it! 🙂
I love the variations of this salad, Marcie! I think I would like it topped with all three too, but shrimp sounds perfect for today. I’ve got to try your dressing and this salad looks gorgeous! So perfect for the summer, too. I can’t get enough of salads, especially this time of year!
Thanks so much Gayle — I hope you get to try it!
Okay I have to admit I’ve never heard of louie salad before but it sure does sound delicious!! So pretty too with all those colors! I love it!
Thanks Ashley! It’s pretty popular out here on the west coast…I hope you get to try it! 🙂
I love customizable salads. When you have a good salad dressing and base ingredients, it’s so fun to play with different add-ins. I’ve been on a shrimp kick lately, so this one is calling my name Marcie! Hope you have a great weekend!
I do too…you can always put a delicious salad together when a great dressing is in the fridge! Thanks Leanne!
Now, THIS is my type of salad! My husband doesn’t care for seafood but he’ll nosh on shrimp so this salad is an excellent way for us to enjoy some seafood before summer is over. It looks amazing!
Sounds like a win-win situation! Thanks Christina!
This salad is making a come back…I saw it last week at a restaurant in Florida. Yours certainly does look good.