22 Bright, Simple Salads with Seafood

By Food & Wine
Updated January 28, 2019
© Tina Rupp
Whether you’re craving something refreshing like crab, apple, and watercress salad or something hearty like warm shrimp tossed with kamut and tarragon, these easy seafood salad recipes make lovely, simple dinners.
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Shrimp Salad with Green Curry Dressing

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Green curry paste is the secret ingredient in this supersimple, bright and crunchy shrimp salad recipe from F&W's Justin Chapple.

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Spinach and Smoked Salmon Salad with Lemon-Dill Dressing

Credit: CHRISTINA HOLMES
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F&W's Melissa Rubel's refreshingly crunchy, tangy salad makes for an excellent spring lunch or super quick dinner.

3 of 22

Warm Shrimp Salad with Kamut, Red Chile and Tarragon

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Kamut is an heirloom variety of wheat with a sweet, almost buttery flavor. F&W editor Kristin Donnelly loves using it in her warm shrimp salad.

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Shrimp-and-Boston-Lettuce Salad with Garlic, Anchovy, and Mint Dressing

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The name of this salad sums it up—boiled shrimp, a gutsy dressing, and tender greens. Mild Boston lettuce wouldn't usually support such a bold dressing, but here it works.

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Grilled Squid Salad with Arugula and Melon

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"I try to use seafood that's from the bottom of the food chain, like squid, prawns and clams. It's cheaper and tastier," says Gjelina chef Travis Lett. "That's why we'll always have grilled squid on the menu."

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Escarole Salad with Clams and Grilled Corn

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Clams add a delightful briny flavor to this escarole and grilled corn salad, which smacks of summer.

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Crab Salad with Caesar Vinaigrette

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At Custom House in Chicago, the salty and piquant anchovy- and-Parmesan dressing for this salad gets pounded by hand in a mortar with a pestle, then tossed with lettuce and home-roasted pimiento peppers. An easier way is to let a blender do the work of the mortar and pestle. Combine the crunchy greens with store-bought roasted peppers, instead of home-roasted ones.

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Smoked-Trout Salad with Mustard Dressing

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"I've never met a wine I didn't like," says Lou Amdur of Lou in L.A. One of the wackiest he's ever tasted is the amphorae-aged Vinoterra Kisi, made from the indigenous Georgian white grape Kisi. It's unexpectedly delicious with smoked fish.

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Crab, Apple and Watercress Salad with Walnut Vinaigrette

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Sweet-tasting lump crab is sold precooked, so it's perfect for a fast meal. Melissa Rubel Jacobson uses it here in a crunchy salad that gets a double dose of nutty flavor from walnuts and walnut oil.

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Poached Shrimp, Melon and Frisée Salad

Credit: James Merrell
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To make the dressing for this pretty salad, Daniel Humm takes the zesty poaching liquid for shrimp—flavored with coriander seeds, garlic, peppercorns and orange zest—and reduces it. The salad is wonderful as both a first course or a light main course.

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Smoked Mackerel Salad with Crunchy Vegetables

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"The fish we eat in Denmark—mackerel, herring, salmon—have beneficial omega-3 oils," says Trina Hahnemann. Any smoked fish will work well in the sweet-salty salad here.

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Lemony Bulgur Salad with Shrimp and Spinach

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Bulgur (a quick-cooking form of whole wheat) is usually boiled before it's eaten, but for this terrific main-course salad, Melissa Rubel Jacobson simply softens it in warm tap water before tossing it with baby spinach and precooked shrimp.

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Squid and Black-Eyed Pea Salad

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"Whenever you go to Spain, you always have beans," says Gerald Hirigoyen. "And squid is everywhere in Basque country, where I grew up, and in California too." Hirigoyen combines earthy black-eyed peas (which are a kind of bean) and quickly boiled squid with red wine vinegar and fresh herbs to create a bright-flavored, satisfying first-course salad.

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Cucumber-Grapefruit Crab Salad

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Sandro Gamba uses nonfat yogurt in many of his sauces and salad dressings. Here he mixes it with succulent Dungeness crab, a high-protein seafood that's also high in iron and zinc.

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Octopus Salad with Potatoes and Green Beans

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When octopus is slowly simmered, it becomes delicate and tender. Tossed in a salad with potatoes and green beans, then dressed with garlic and parsley, it makes for a very lovely and satisfying dish.

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16 of 22

Warm Spinach Salad with Cannellini Beans and Shrimp

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The combination of sweet shrimp and meaty little cannellini beans here transforms a simple warm spinach salad.

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Crab Louie

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"Crab Louie is not a salad course," says Evening Land winery president Larry Stone. "It's an entire meal."

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White Anchovy and Crisp Pita Bread Salad

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Large chunks of toasted pita stay delightfully crunchy in this bread salad, laced with white anchovies and topped with a garlicky sour cream dressing.

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Spinach-and-Shrimp Salad with Chile Dressing

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This healthy dish gets it kick from the cumin seeds and turmeric.

20 of 22

Warm Seafood Salad with Pistachio and Capers

Credit: © Lucy Schaeffer
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A version of this recipe was served to Oceania passengers by chef Francesco Cutrì of Ristorante Le Bocche, in the Ligurian village of Portovenere on the Italian Riviera.

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King Crab Salad with Grapefruit and Avocado

Credit: FREDRIKA STJÄRNE
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This lovely seafood salad was an improvisation. "I made it with what I had in the house," Piero Incisa della Rocchetta recalls. "Scarcity breeds creativity." He uses grapefruit juice both to glaze the crab and to make the sweet-tangy salad dressing.

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Lemony Shrimp Salad

Credit: © Tina Rupp
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Richard Reddington tosses butter lettuce and shrimp in a lemony vinaigrette, then tops the dish with a second salad of romaine, tomato, avocado and bacon in a Caesar dressing.

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