Classic San Fran Shrimp Louie Salad Recipe

While you may love the newer version with shrimp, the original Louie (or Louis) salad is a crab dish that seems to have originated on the West Coast sometime in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. One of the earliest published Louie recipes comes from a 1912 Portland, Oregon, cookbook and called for lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, and crab with a ketchup and mustard dressing. The traditional recipe has spawned several spinoffs over the years, though, including the well-known variant made with shrimp that recipe developer Julianne De Witt demonstrates here. 

Featuring favorite fixings like juicy cherry tomatoes and peppery sliced radish, De Witt's take on shrimp Louie involves a subtle yet effective personal twist: The creamy dressing swaps Thai sweet chili sauce in place of classic ketchup. "This recipe is light, fresh, and healthy and perfect for lunch, brunch, or dinner," De Witt says, adding that it's also easy to make in under half an hour. Better yet, since this entree salad has plenty of vegetables and protein, all you'll need to accompany it is a single starchy side. De Witt prefers bread and butter, but dinner rolls, potato chips, or french fries would also work quite well.

The base ingredients for De Witt's shrimp Louie salad include shrimp, butter lettuce, cherry tomatoes, radishes, hard-boiled eggs, capers, and avocado, while the dressing comes together with mayonnaise, sweet chili sauce, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, salt, and pepper. Additional ingredients you'll need include butter, garlic, and Cajun seasoning for cooking the shrimp.

Prepare the dressing by adding mayonnaise, chili sauce, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, salt, and pepper to a small bowl.

Whisk until combined and store in the fridge until ready to use.

To make the shrimp, add butter to a frying pan over medium-high heat.

Add garlic and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Add shrimp. Season with salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning, and stir.

Cook shrimp for 3-4 minutes, or until fully cooked. Keep warm.

To assemble the salad, arrange the lettuce leaves on a large platter.

Top with shrimp, tomatoes, radishes, eggs, capers, and avocado.

Serve salad with dressing on the side.

There doesn't seem to be any one type of lettuce traditionally used in shrimp (or crab) Louie; some restaurants use butter lettuce, while others go with a nice crunchy iceberg. De Witt favors butter lettuce but says iceberg and romaine are great substitutes. There's no need to stop there, though, since there are plenty of other types of greens that are perfect for salads.

If you'd like a lettuce with a lot more texture, as well as a slightly bitter flavor that can help offset the richness of the mayonnaise-dressed shrimp, then frisée would be a great choice. Escarole, too, has a hint of bitterness, while arugula has a peppery pungency that would make for a nice contrast with the heavy salad toppings. Red leaf lettuce is soft, tender, and mild just like butter lettuce, while baby spinach is an iron-packed powerhouse that tastes great in just about any salad. If you opt for shredded cabbage, this would take on an almost coleslaw-like consistency in combination with the salad's creamy dressing.

De Witt likes to make this dish using medium shrimp (41-50 per pound) that she buys frozen and then allows to thaw in cold water for 10 minutes, although thawing your frozen shrimp overnight in the refrigerator might be an even better bet if you have the foresight to do so in time. If you're using a different size of shrimp, however, or perhaps your shrimp aren't 100% thawed when you start sauteing, these things may affect the amount of time it takes for them to be fully cooked. For this reason, De Witt shares a tip that will help you know when to turn off the heat.

It's all about the color, De Witt tells us. Raw shrimp look gray and are somewhat translucent, while cooked shrimp are opaque and pink. The shrimp will also change shape as they heat up, curling into the shape of a "C." If you want to be absolutely sure that your shrimp is perfectly cooked, though, one foolproof way is to use a food thermometer. Once it reads 165 F, you're good to go.