A cool dish for a hot summer day: Shrimp Cucumber Strawberry Salad

Shrimp, crisp cucumber slices, juicy strawberries, fresh basil, chives and a slightly sweet vinaigrette create a cool, summery light meal. Recipe below.

WHEN SUMMER COMES IN HOT AND HEAVY, you don’t want your food to do the same. This light, flavorful Shrimp Cucumber Strawberry Salad is as easy to make as it is to enjoy when it’s really hot out.

The shrimp, the only thing you cook, cooks in minutes. You can and should cook it ahead so you can chill it in the fridge. And if you buy pre-cooked shrimp, you don’t even have to turn on the stove. Crisp cucumber slices, juicy strawberries, fresh basil, chives and a slightly sweet vinaigrette are the other key ingredients, all adding to the bright, summery lightness of the dish.

We can’t overemphasize lightness here. By itself, Shrimp Cucumber Strawberry Salad is not a filling meal. At the very least, you’ll want a crusty bread and butter to accompany it. An even better idea might be a creamy potato salad like Marion’s Classic American Potato Salad, made with mayonnaise, mustard and crunchy red bell pepper. It’s another dish you can make ahead and serve chilled.

Our Shrimp Cucumber Strawberry Salad is inspired by a recipe in Fruit! by Kathryn Hawkins. It’s subtitled “Fresh and delicious recipes for sweet and main dishes”—the main dishes idea is what first caught our attention. Besides a wide range of recipes, Hawkins provides advice for buying, storing and using many kinds of fruits.

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Shrimp Cucumber Strawberry Salad

Shrimp, crisp cucumber slices, juicy strawberries, fresh basil, chives and a slightly sweet vinaigrette create a cool, summery light meal.

Course Light Meal, seafood

Servings 2

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound peeled shrimp (see Kitchen Notes)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 or so of a cucumber, thinly sliced
• 1 cup or so sliced strawberries
• 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar (or raspberry vinegar—see Kitchen Notes)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon honey
• a handful of fresh basil leaves, small or torn into pieces (see Kitchen Notes)
• chopped chives (or thinly sliced scallions, green parts only)

Instructions

• Prepare the shrimp ahead. If you’re using pre-cooked shrimp, skip this step and just keep your shrimp chilled until ready to prepare the dish. We steamed our shrimp. Here’s how:
• Pat shrimp dry with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. This will help keep it firm.
• Prepare a lidded pot with a steamer basket, adding enough water to almost reach the basket and bring to a boil.
• Working in batches if needed, put a single layer of shrimp in the steamer basket and cover the pot with the lid. Steam for 4 to 5 minutes, until shrimp is cooked through and pink (we did 4 minutes, which was plenty).
• Transfer the shrimp to a bowl of iced water to halt the cooking. Add the second batch of shrimp to the steamer and cook as above.
• Let all the shrimp chill in the water bath for at least 5 minutes, then transfer to a lidded container and refrigerate until you’re ready to assemble the salad.
• Assemble the salad. Whisk the vinegar, olive oil and honey together in a small bowl. In a large bowl, combine the cucumber, strawberries, shrimp and some of the basil and chives. Toss with the vinaigrette to combine.
• Mound the salad on two plates. Top with more basil and chives, and season lightly with salt. Serve immediately.

Kitchen Notes

The shrimp. Again, pre-cooked shrimp is a legit timesaver. If you’re cooking shrimp, you can buy fresh or frozen. If using frozen shrimp, thaw them before cooking. We used frozen, shelled, wild Argentine red shrimp from Costco, tails removed. We recently learned that, these days, all shrimp is flash frozen, on the boat, when it is caught. This changed our thinking about insisting on fresh shrimp. Of course you may use the shrimp you prefer. While leaving the tails on shrimp is having an aesthetic moment, take them off for this dish—much easier to eat if you’re not picking through your salad to remove them at the table.

The vinegar. We like the bright, slightly fruity taste of sherry vinegar—our current fave is O Olive Oil & Vinegar’s aged sherry vinegar. You can also use raspberry vinegar or rice vinegar, but avoid balsamic or other bolder flavored vinegars.

The basil. What we're currently growing in our garden is a little leaf variety, as you can see in the photo. If you're using regular basil, use the smaller leaves (they won't be nearly as small as ours—that's fine) or tear larger leaves into smallish pieces.