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Mango and Avocado Salad with Shrimp

A fresh, bright and easy summer salad becomes dinner when shrimp are added. Sweet mango and creamy avocado make this a most memorable salad
Course Main Course, Salad
Cuisine North American
Keyword avocado, mango, shrimp
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Servings 4

Ingredients

Salad

  • 4 cup mixed greens, you can used massaged green kale, Lacinato kale, romaine, butter lettuce, radicchio etc
  • 1/2 cup roughly sliced snow peas
  • 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
  • 2 Honey or Alphonso mangoes, thinly sliced or diced
  • 2 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced
  • 2 tbsp basil, thinly sliced or chiffonaded, divided
  • 1 avocado diced
  • 1 tbsp fresh lime or lemon juice

Lemon Poppyseed Salad Dressing, see Notes below for the link

  • 1 small red chilli pepper, seeds removed, minced

Shrimp, can be made in advance and chilled in the fridge, or made just before serving if you want to serve them warm.

  • 2 lb shrimp, deveined, but with shells attached
  • 4 tbsp butter, divided
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes, or to taste
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 tsp Old Bay Seasoning, or to taste, see Notes.

Instructions

Salad

  1. Place the salad components onto a large platter or wide bowl. Save some of the basil for garnish. If not serving right away, don't add the avocado till just before serving. You can dice the avocado and sprinkle it with citrus juice to help keep it from browning.

  2. Have the dressing made, with the minced chilli pepper added to the dressing. You will be using about 1/4 cup of dressing. Start with 1/4 tsp of chilli pepper to taste. Add more as desired. Of course you can use more dressing.

  3. Dress the salad with some of the dressing.
  4. Place the shrimp on the salad and drizzle with a bit more dressing. Garnish with the remaining basil, and more salt and pepper.

Shrimp

  1. Place 2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet set over medium to medium high heat. Add the garlic and chilli flakes. Warm the garlic through, so that it starts flavouring the butter. But don't brown the garlic. Adjust the heat if necessary.
  2. Lay out the shrimp in the skillet and cook on one side for 1 1/2 minutes. Use tongs to turn the shrimp over. Cook another 1 1/2 minutes.

  3. Add the lemon juice and remaining butter and cook the shrimp 1-1/2 minutes more, depending on the size of the shrimp.

  4. Sprinkle the Old Bay seasoning and salt and pepper over all the shrimp.
  5. You can serve these shrimp right away, or you can chill them till needed.
  6. You can remove the shells before serving, or allow the guests to remove them. The setting and type of meal it is may affect your decision to leave the shells on.

Recipe Notes

The Lemon Poppyseed dressing link
Other salad component options: shredded red cabbage, diced red pepper, sliced cucumbers, bean sprouts, thinly sliced carrot batons, chopped parsley or cilantro.
I like the 16-20 per pound size of shrimp.  They have a meaty presence that makes this truly feel like a meal.  But feel free to use the size you prefer.  And if you don't want to use shrimp with the shells attached, you will need to reduce the cooking time.

I purchase my Old Bay seasoning, it is easy to find at any grocery store.  But I did include a link in the blog post for a homemade recipe if you need it.