Shrimp Salad with Tartar Dressing

As the weather gets warmer, we always look for ways to celebrate fresh, crisp ingredients and long, sunny days. This Shrimp Salad with Tartar Dressing is perfect for backyard parties, spring or summer potlucks, or even just family dinners on the patio. 

The combination of flavors in this salad is reminiscent of the popcorn shrimp with tartar sauce that you might get at a seaside restaurant. The shrimp are juicy and lemony, the dressing is creamy, herby, and has just the right amount of sweetness and tang, and the pan fried panko topping gives this salad popcorn shrimp vibes.

Why You’ll Love This Shrimp Salad

• Varying textures and flavors. This salad has easily become one of our favorites. It’s bright and flavorful and full of different textures. The shrimp have just the right amount of bite, the panko is crispy and crunchy, and the dressing is creamy and cooling. The other salad ingredients provide additional crunch, juiciness, and creaminess. 
• Fresh and healthy. This salad has a lot of fresh ingredients, like lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocados, plus low-fat, high-protein shrimp. The dressing contains some mayo, but we’ve even scaled that down by replacing some of it with Greek yogurt for additional nutrients, probiotics, and tang. 
• Satisfies your craving for popcorn shrimp without the hassle of deep frying. There’s no need to deep fry anything for this salad! The shrimp and pan fried panko breadcrumbs are cooked separately without any need for having hot oil on your stove. The combination of juicy shrimp, crispy fried panko, and a tartar sauce dressing give you all the elements of popcorn shrimp without the hassle.

Ingredients for the Shrimp Salad

There are a few different elements that make up this incredibly delicious main dish salad.

Shrimp

This salad features shrimp that are baked with fresh dill and squeezed with lemon. We recommend cooking the shrimp and letting them cool as you prepare the other salad ingredients. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Shrimp – we recommend using raw, deveined shrimp.
• Fresh dill – the dill adds freshness and brings out the flavors in the tartar dressing.
• Lemon – a squeeze of lemon will brighten up the shrimp.
• Olive oil – you just need enough to coat all of the shrimp so that they don’t dry out in the oven.
• Salt and pepper – use a pinch to of salt while they bake, then taste for seasoning when they’re fully cooked and add more, if needed. The pepper adds a nice smokiness. 

Tartar Dressing

This dressing is modeled after traditional tartar sauce that you might get on the side of the popcorn shrimp you’d order at your favorite seafood spot.

Here’s what you’ll need to make it:

• Mayonnaise – make sure to use good quality mayo here and not a sweeter variety.
• Plain Greek yogurt – we love cutting back on some of the mayo by using thick Greek yogurt. You can use nonfat Greek yogurt, reduced fat, or full-fat.
• Dill relish – the dill relish brings a briny flavor to the dressing that pairs well with the shrimp.
• Capers – capers are so good with shrimp and absolutely vital to this dressing. You can leave them whole or chop them if you want smaller bits.
• Herbs  – fresh dill and parsley are necessary parts of this flavor profile, but if you don’t have fresh herbs, you can use dried. The general rule of thumb is to use one-third the amount of dried herbs for the fresh herbs listed in a recipe. In other words, if a recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of fresh dill, you can substitute that for 1 teaspoon (1 tsp = ⅓ Tbsp) of dried dill.
• Sugar – because you’re using so many briny, sour things in this dressing, a little sugar will help mellow out the other flavors and provide balance.
• White vinegar – we like the simplicity of white vinegar. If you don’t have this, you can use lemon juice instead. 
• Water or milk – we like to thin this dressing out a bit with water or milk.
• Salt and pepper – adding salt to this dressing is optional and will depend on your personal preferences. Be sure to taste the dressing before adding more salt. We do recommend adding cracked black pepper.

Crispy Panko Topping

Instead of using croutons, we sometimes like to add crispy, pan fried panko to our salads for just enough crunch without overpowering the other ingredients.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Panko breadcrumbs – we love the crunchy texture of panko. Regular breadcrumbs won’t work the same way. 
• Olive oil – you need just a little fat to help toast up the panko and help them get crispy and golden brown.
• Salt and pepper – just a pinch of salt and a little pepper should be enough to flavor the panko.

Salad

You don’t need a ton of extra things in this salad because the shrimp, dressing, and panko are so flavorful. But a few extra fresh ingredients will turn this salad into a fantastic main dish option:

• Lettuce – green leaf is our preferred type of lettuce in this salad, but feel free to use Romaine, red leaf lettuce, or another leafy green. 
• Tomatoes – we love the sweetness of baby tomatoes and usually use grape or cherry varieties.
• Cucumbers – we often use Persian cucumbers in salads because they have fewer seeds and a thinner skin. Because of this, we don’t usually peel them or remove their seeds, which cuts down on prep time. If you’re using a different cucumber, however, you may need to skin it and scoop out the seeds.
• Onion – red onions bring a nice pungent element to the salad, but if you don’t like onions, you can leave them out. 
• Avocados – we love avocados, but they don’t always survive tossing in a salad, so these are better added at the end.

How to Make It

STEP 1: Make the shrimp. Heat your oven to 400°F. Toss the shrimp with olive oil, salt, and pepper and arrange the shrimp in 1 layer on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, or until the shrimp are opaque and pinkish-white in color. Squeeze lemon juice over the shrimp and shower them with fresh dill. Set aside to cool.

STEP 2: Make the dressing. Place the ingredients in a medium sized bowl and whisk to combine. Season to taste and add more water or milk if you want it thinner. If it’s too thin, thicken the mixture up with more yogurt or mayo. 

STEP 3: Make the crispy panko. Heat oil in a small frying pan set over medium or medium-low heat, then add the panko, salt, and pepper. Cook for 5 to 8 minutes, tossing every 15 to 30 seconds to keep them from burning. Remove from the heat. Optional: place the panko in a paper towel lined bowl or plate to remove any excess oil and set them aside. 

STEP 4: Make the salad, Add the lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and red onion to a large salad bowl and toss to combine. Top the salad with the avocado, shrimp, and crispy panko. Spoon over your desired amount of tartar dressing and gently toss the salad so that it’s lightly coated.