Avocado & Shrimp Spinach Salad
This avocado & shrimp salad is a fabulous rich-tasting salad, but lighter in calories than you would imagine. Serve with something off the grill, and perhaps another plainer, leafy salad.
Ingredients
- 2 Lime
- 2 Chile red
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 2 tablespoons Soy Sauce
- 2 tablespoons Oil
- 1/2 pound Shrimp cooked
- 1/4 pound Spinach fresh
- 2 Avocados soft
Instructions
- Wash and zest the lime; put the zest in a measuring jug. Then juice the limes and add the juice to the measuring jug as well.
- Slice the chiles in half, discard the seeds and stem, then chop both halves of the chiles up and add to lime juice. Mince the garlic and add as well. Then add the soy sauce and oil, stir.
- Rinse the cooked shrimp, peel if necessary, and pop the shrimp into the dressing mixture to marinate for 15 minutes (you can let it marinate for up to several hours, if you wish: just refrigerate.)
- Remove the shrimp from the dressing with a slotted spoon (or by hand) and set on a small plate for a minute.
- Wash and dry the spinach leaves, then toss them in the dressing mixture that the shrimp were in. Put them in a salad bowl.
- Wash and peel the avocados, remove and discard the pits, then slice and arrange the avocado slices, then the shrimp, on top of the spinach. (Note: only do this part when you are ready to serve, otherwise the avocado will brown on you. Don't toss after the avocado slices are on, or you may end up with a mooshy salad.)
- Serve.
Notes
Use as hot or as mild a chile pepper as you please. There's nothing wrong with using a green one; red just adds more colour.
For the oil, try to use olive oil or sesame oil.
For the shrimp (prawns), use good sized ones, not canned teeny "salad shrimp" (though the world wouldn't end if you did). Try to buy them already cooked, to save you having to cook them before you start this recipe. If you're buying them frozen, thaw them in advance.
Get good spinach leaves, the young baby flat ones -- not the miserable curled stuff in a cello bag that you can never get the dirt off of. You'd waste 20 minutes trying, and this recipe is meant to be low-labour. 1/4 pound (115 g) fresh spinach leaves = 3 cups
If you are feeding a spinach-hating crowd, try romaine lettuce instead. Or Iceberg Lettuce, to make it like a big shrimp cocktail.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!