An easy, nutritious and delicious shrimp salad recipe for your warm weather menus

During the warm days of summer, rare is the cook who wants to spend much time in front of a hot stove. Here's one recipe that's easy and quick, providing you with a tempting one-dish meal that is satisfying and nutritious and gives you an opportunity to serve lots of those fruits and veggies we all need more of in our diets. This shrimp salad recipe can also be prepared ahead of time, thus giving you the best of all characteristics in the culinary world. Let's see if you don't agree!

This recipe serves four, but is easily scaled up or down as suits your need.

Heavenly shrimp salad recipe

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1 head of Hearts of Romaine lettuce

1 pound of salad shrimp, cooked

4 hard-boiled eggs

2 avocados

4 medium vine-ripened tomatoes, cut into wedges

4 tablespoons fresh chopped cilantro (leaves only)

alfalfa sprouts to taste

garlic flavored croutons to taste

1 medium fresh lemon, quartered

1.Chill dinner plates, if desired

2.Divide cleaned lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces on individual serving plates.

3.Mound ¼ pound of shrimp in the center of the salad.

4.Peel the eggs and slice, arranging the slices around the edge of each plate.

5.Quarter the avocados, remove the skin and portion out half an avocado per serving, forming a border around the shrimp mound.

6.Core the tomatoes, cut into wedges and place between the egg slices, using one tomato per serving.

7.Sprinkle cilantro, alfalfa sprouts and croutons over each salad.

8.Dress with Thousand Island dressing and garnish with a wedge of fresh lemon.

If you wish to prepare this shrimp salad recipe ahead of serving time, place each of the ingredients in separate plastic bags until you're ready to assemble the salad, slicing the eggs and avocados at the last minute, to prevent discoloration. You can also add a teaspoon of lemon juice to your Thousand Island dressing mix for a little extra zip, if you like. When using frozen salad shrimp, thaw overnight in the frig.

Our shrimp salad recipe is versatile. Don't hesitate to add or substitute other favorite fruits or veggies your family enjoys. You can even substitute crab or Krab(R) for the shrimp, keeping the rest of the ingredients as listed above.

Any way you cut it, this shrimp salad recipe makes an elegant, filling meal and is easy on the cook. Serve with a basket of garlic-buttered French bread and you've got a winning meal everyone will love!