Thai Shrimp Crunch Salad made with a delicious and EASY peanut sesame dressing and topped with crispy shrimp and crunchy almonds. The perfect salad you’ll crave every day!
Thai Shrimp Crunch Salad is my answer to ordering salads at my favorite restaurants. This salad is a recreation (but not a copycat so I won’t name it after them) of a salad I love at a casual dining restaurant. The crunch of the nut topping (I swap almonds in place of peanuts) and skipping the crispy wontons and rice sticks saves a lot of added fat you don’t need because the dressing is AMAZING. You’ll love this healthy salad at lunch with an Unsweetened Green Iced Tea from Pure Leaf®, who generously sponsored this post.
The added shrimp on top are the perfect accompaniment to the salad, adding a light soft texture with the rich dressing that tastes amazing with no added oils!
This recipe pairs wonderfully with Pure Leaf® Unsweetened Green Iced Tea with the lime and shrimp notes complementing the green tea flavors. The rice vinegar in the dressing carries a similar floral note through the salad that the green tea highlights well.
Make sure you pack a bottle of this refreshing Pure Leaf® Unsweetened Green Iced Tea to experience a great break in the middle of your day without having to go to a premium restaurant to enjoy a similarly delicious meal. Plus, you can be sure that Pure Leaf® will have that authentic tea taste because they are brewed from real tea leaves and are never made from powder or concentrate.
Want to mix things up (see what I did there? Ha!) with this salad?
- Swap the almonds out for your favorite nut if you aren’t a fan of them.
- You can easily swap the shrimp for chicken or steak, or even crispy tofu.
- If you want to kick up the lime flavors you can add a tablespoon of lime juice to your dressing and additional zest on top of the salad.
- Make the dish gluten free simply by swapping tamari for the soy sauce.
- If you want to add the flavor of sesame to your salad you can add in a teaspoon of sesame oil to the dressing.
- Take the filling of the salad and wrap it in rice paper. Then you can dip it in the dressing.
- Wrap in a tortilla for a handheld lunch option.
The dressing is so good we’ve actually been using it as a dipping sauce too. It also works great on pasta so if you wanted to swap the greens for pasta and just steam the peppers and carrots for a couple of minutes it would make a great Thai Shrimp Pasta.
Experience the difference in flavor by picking up a bottle of Pure Leaf® Unsweetened Green Iced Tea. It’s a premium iced tea brewed from real, fresh-picked tea leaves and expertly blended by their team of Pure Leaf tea experts.
Ingredients
For the Thai Peanut Dressing
- ½ cup smooth peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce
- ¼ cup water
For the Salad
- 1 pound 16-20 shrimp deveined and peeled
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 4 cups chopped Napa cabbage
- 1 carrot sliced very thinly
- 1 red bell pepper sliced very thinly
- 1 cucumber halved and thinly sliced
- 1 cup edamame
- 1/2 cup cilantro chopped
- ½ cup chopped almonds
- 1 lime cut into wedges for serving
Instructions
- Whisk peanut butter, rice vinegar, sugar, and soy sauce in a medium bowl until smooth and set aside
- For the shrimp, toss the shrimp in the canola oil and soy sauce.
- Heat a large skillet on high heat.
- Cook the shrimp for two minutes on high on each side.
- For the salad, add the cabbage, carrot, bell pepper, cucumber, edamame and cilantro in a large bowl and toss.
- Top with shrimp and salad dressing.
- Garnish with chopped almonds and a wedge of lime.
Nutrition
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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Pure Leaf® Tea. Find more Pure Leaf® inspired recipes here.
This salad would be perfect for a healthy lunch.
Definitely Sandy!
This salad seems to be exactly what I need right now! I love the flavors!
1. I love a good salad with a crunch.
2. I probably want to drink that dressing. (And by probably, I mean REALLY.)
3. I cannot wait to serve this to my family!
Haha, love it!
4. All of the above!!
I love the crunch of the shrimp! The dressing also sounds amazing!
Thanks Dorothy!
This salad sounds amazing! I want to dive in right now!
Go ahead, Amy! You won’t regret that decision.
Oh, these flavors sound soooo good!