Easy Dinner Salad with Shrimp

I love easy weeknight dinners. Although I work a lot from home, I don't particularly like to spend hours prepping dinner - I also don't always have that kind of time. If you have small children in your house, you know exactly why. 

Anyway, the hubs prefers to have home-cooked meals. So, I love it when I find something easy. I've made this salad a few times. It's always a hit. And it takes very little time to throw together. 

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What you will need... 

You'll definitely need shrimp. I buy bags of medium, frozen shrimp already deveined with their tails off and keep them in the freezer. The shrimp needs to be thawed. But fear not, this doesn't take all day. Just fill a large bowl with cool water and plop the bag of shrimp in the water. Every now and then you're going to need to rotate the bag. Check the water too. If the water is too cold, dump it and refill. Do NOT use hot or warm water. 

You're also going to need lettuce. I love this meal because I use up whatever veggies I have on hand. Last night I had a head of iceberg lettuce ready. 

Next, grab whatever goodies you want to include in your salad. 

Get cookin'

Preheat your oven to 350. I line my baking sheet with tin foil. It helps make the clean up less disgusting. ​

Spread the shrimp out on the foil. Then sprinkle them with the seasoning. Last night I used lemon juice, lemon-pepper and red pepper flakes. Honestly, I thought they turned out delicious, but hubs told me I was a little to heavy-handed with the red pepper flakes. 

Let those shrimpies bake until plump and pink (no longer clear). 

In the meantime, prep your salad. I pulled apart the iceberg lettuce and put it in a large, pretty serving bowl. Then I threw some perfectly delicious looking cherry tomatoes into the bowl. I had a some green pepper in the fridge and since it's the hub's fave, I diced up one and a half and into the bowl it went. I believe everything is better with cheese, so a block of medium cheddar made it's way into the salad (well, a little less, since Rea loves cheese and came by to munch on some). I chopped up some carrots for flavor and color.

​I had some tricolored tortilla strips (see below), so I put them out for people to sprinkle them on top if desired. 

Once the shrimp were fully cooked, I put them in a small serving bowl.
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Dinner was self-serve. And it was filling and delicious!

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