Honey Lime Grilled Shrimp Salad

One of my favorite things about spring and summer is cooking on the grill. Not only do things cooked on the grill taste amazing, but it makes for easy cleanup. Anything that has me doing less dishes is a win in my book.

If you've been here before you know my recipes (unless I'm baking) don't really include measurements. I like to consider it part of my cooking philosophy: relax, have fun, and throw in a little of this and a little of that…or maybe I'm just a little lazy. Seriously, I should probably re-name this blog, "Sorry Ya'll I don't Measure When I Cook". Regardless, I hope that you can make my recipes work for you. Cooking shouldn't be about following a bunch of rules, so take my idea, make it your own, and enjoy!

Honey Lime Grilled Shrimp Salad

Marinade
Olive oil
Juice of 1 fresh lime
Honey
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
Fresh cilantro

Salad
Chopped romaine
1-2 ears of corn, husks removed, grilled, and cut off the cob
Avocado, sliced
Grape tomatoes, halved
Sliced red onion
Grilled marinated shrimp

Dressing
Make the same as the marinade only omit the garlic powder.

How to make it
Mix marinade ingredients in a bowl. You want slightly more olive oil than lime juice, about a 2:1 ratio. Use a smaller portion of the honey. It will emulsify your marinade (basically make your oil and acid combine.) Take your raw, cleaned, and deveined shrimp and toss them in the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Brush your ears of corn with some olive oil and grill until corn is tender and slightly charred, once cool cut the corn off of the cob. (TIP: Stand the ear of corn in a bowl to cut the kernels off. The kernels will fall into the bowl rather than flying all over your kitchen). Grill the shrimp until cooked through.

Toss all salad ingredients together and top with dressing. Enjoy!

This salad is light, fresh, and perfect for a hot summer night. I especially love making homemade dressings to go along with my salads. Store bought dressings are full of extra salt and ingredients I can't even pronounce. My basic formula for homemade dressing is an oil (usually olive), an acid (vinegar or fresh citrus juice work well), an emulsifier (mustard or honey are my go-tos), and some seasonings (salt, pepper, garlic, fresh herbs, etc.)

Say What, Grilled Salad?!

When making our grocery list this weekend, hubby and I really tried to think of items we already had at home that we could turn into meals. With it being the end of the month the grocery budget was looking slim (read my post about budgeting here), and we wanted needed to challenge ourselves to keep the grocery bill small.

Side note: This is the kind of fun part of having a budget and sticking to it...we are forced to be creative, and it feels really good to know we are not being wasteful because we are using items that would otherwise get ignored or go bad sitting in the pantry.

Our challenge: A package of frozen chicken breast tenders and week old crusty white bread
BTW--the bread was left over from some rocking Mediterranean paninis. Long story short...slice and butter your bread. Fill with slices of fresh mozzarella cheese, roasted red peppers, and olive tapenade. Grill on a panini press, George Foreman, or in a plain old pan!

The solution: Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad

The result: Total deliciousness! 

The Ingredients:

Stale crusty bread
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Olive oil
Chicken breast tenders
Caesar dressing
Romaine hearts
Shaved parmesan cheese

The recipe:

Croutons
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cut your stale bread into cubes. Put the bread cubes onto a baking sheet and brush (or drizzle) with olive oil. Season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste. The more seasoning the better, in my opinion. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Salad
Rinse and pat dry your chicken tenders. Put them into a bowl with some caesar dressing to marinate. *We used a vinaigrette based caesar. I am not sure how creamy caesar would grill up...probably not well.

Cut your romaine hearts in half, leaving on the bottom core to keep the lettuce together. Brush both sides of the romaine with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Once your grill is preheated (medium-high to high heat) put your chicken tenders on to start grilling. Once they are halfway done put on your lettuce. You will grill the romaine until it has a light char on both sides.

To serve--Cut off bottom core from romaine hearts and put onto your plate. Top with several grilled chicken tenders, homemade croutons, and shaved parmesan cheese. Drizzle with dressing and enjoy!

Here is the dressing that we used:

I know that ideally homemade dressing is the best, but sometimes you just need to go with bottled. Plus, do you know what the "secret" ingredient is in caesar dressing?! I don't like to think about it, and I am certainly not going to try and make it myself! I love buying Newman's Own dressing when I get the bottled stuff because it is all natural and the profits go to charity...win, win!

I served the salads with some fresh watermelon for a light summer meal. I had fun pulling out our summer picnic ware to create a nice dinner on the deck for me and hubby!

Have you ever grilled lettuce? It was a first for us and we loved how it turned out. Yum!