I just had the yummiest dinner – and had to come and immediately tell you about it. I don’t know what specific vitamins were in this Garlic Shrimp Caesar Salad but I’ve been C-R-A-V-I-N-G this meal. It was a fairly easy meal to produce since all I had to do was wash and chop some vegetables and saute up some shrimp and make a quick caesar salad dressing. I’d made the croutons a few days prior – so those were ready and waiting for us. This Salad / Main Dish was delicious. Fresh, full of vitamins, easy to prepare and overall really healthy. And if you love garlic – it’s a double win. Lots of garlic here. You can obviously dial it back if you aren’t a huge fan, but I think shrimp and caesar dressing call for a healthy dose of garlic ! And, if you make the whole 2lb bag of shrimp, and chop a ton of veggies – you will have a super easy lunch already prepared for later in the week as well!
To saute the shrimp – I just defrosted a 2 lb bag of Costco Argentinian (wild) frozen shrimp, chopped up a BUNCH of garlic (like 6 fairly big cloves) and melt some butter in some olive oil. Saute about 2.5 minutes a side – and toss in the butter / EVOO / Garlic. Wha-la. That whole process will take about 10 minutes total.
Note – these shrimps have surely shrunk since last time I purchased them! They used to be a much bigger shrimp but I’m guessing that inflation has hit the Argentinians as well … the shrimps are smaller – but that’s OK – it’s still 2 lbs. (Smaller shrimp are cheaper than bigger shrimp). Smaller bites of shrimp means no need to cut them up once in your salad !
Washing the veg and chopping it up will take you another – say 10 minutes ? Maybe 15 ? I cleaned and chopped some romaine, half a cucumber, a couple luscious red ripe summer tomatoes, and half of a left over green pepper I had in the drawer. Obviously you can use whatever veggies make you happy – but we definitely enjoyed this salad as written.
The caesar salad dressing took me 17 minutes to make (I timed myself b/c I knew it would be quick) – and that included putting away all the ingredients. So call it 20 minutes. I made a double batch which will last a long time – since the recipe made about 2 Cups of dressing. This is one of my favorite recipes – I would strongly encourage you to make it AS WRITTEN if you are a caesar salad fan. That recipe is posted on my site and a link is here. (Sometimes people get funny about using Anchovies. But you can’t have caesar salad dressing without anchovies – so play along, go to TJ’s and get yourself some anchovies first !)
The croutons had been made a few days prior. Yes, I scored some home made bread at the grocery in the day old sale rack. I just can’t bring myself to make homemade bread and then chop it into croutons. It’s so much easier to buy bargain day old bread and chop it into croutons. We all have our quirks, this is one of mine… The crouton recipe is posted on my site and the recipe is here. (And they are also delicious. I went heavy on the garlic since I knew they’d be added to Caesar Salad…)
One last thing. If you want to be uber fancy – get a block of Parmesan and get out your potato peeler and make ribbons / curls of parm to go on top of your salad. I didn’t want to mess with that tonight – but maybe you would ?
Garlic Shrimp Caesar Salad
Ingredients
Sauted Shrimp
- 2 Lbs Argentinian Shrimp – Costco in the Frozen Section, Thawed
- 6-8 cloves Garlic – Peeled and minced
- 2 Tbl Butter
- 2 Tbl EVOO
Salad Fixin's
- 1 Head Romaine – Cleaned and Chopped
- ½ Cucumber – Cleaned and Chopped
- 2 Roma Tomatoes – Cleaned and Chopped
- ½ Green Pepper – Cleaned and Chopped
Homemade Caesar Salad Dressing
- 4 Servings Caesar Salad Dressing
Homemade Croutons
- 4 Servings Homemade Croutons
Instructions
Make the Caesar Salad Dressing if you haven't already
Make the Croutons if you haven't already
Chop the Vegetables
- Clean and chop the lettuce, cucumber, pepper and tomatoes – place into a big bowl.
Cook the Shrimp
- Prep the garlic. Choose how many cloves you want to use. I went fairly heavy. Shrimp go great with garlic ! Smash the cloves under your knife and then remove the peel / skin of the garlic. Mince the garlic finely.
- Get out a BIG pan – and melt some butter in some EVOO. Add the shrimp and the garlic and stir. Add S&P. Saute about 2 – 2.5 minutes per side on medium. The shrimp should turn from white to light pink. Toss / turn over the shrimp and cook on the second side for 2 – 2.5 minutes. Taste one. Are they done enough? Dave had me cook the shrimp one more minute…
- Remove the shrimp from the pan and keep the juices with the shrimp for flavor – especially if you aren't going to eat them all immediately.