A restaurant style Crab Louie Salad that you can make at home in just 30 minutes. Actually, even better with lump crab meat, succulent sautéed salt-pepper shrimp and drizzle of real delicious Crab Louie dressing. Crab Louie Salad is a salad for dinner which does not disappoint. If you are salad fanatic like myself, this is a Dinner Salad worth looking forward to.
Louie Salad Dressing is the heart of this salad and a party of flavors in the mouth. I specially make extra dressing to use for simple romaine wedge salad or to serve as Dipping Sauce. So so good!
Crab Louie
Crab Louie is a seafood, primarily crab, salad with array of fresh classic salad ingredients such as romaine, cucumber, tomatoes, and eggs. First time I tried Crab Louie in SF Bay Area. I specially enjoyed how flavor of sweet and tangy Louie Dressing pairs with delicate crab meat and fresh vegetables. Delicious!
Crab Louie is often made with Dungeness or King Crab meat. But for convenience, I use jumbo lump crab meat. You can in-fact use any cooked crab meat you can find easily. Also, can add more shellfish seafood. Likewise, I add salt and pepper shrimp with lump crab meat to give Crab Louie more seafood flavor and to make it a more substantial dinner salad.
Tip: You can also serve it as fancy first-course salad. In that case, arrange ingredients in layers so that guests can pick and choose what they like more. A bowl of teared romaine hearts and Crab Louie dressing on the side will be perfect to make-your-own-salad salad bar.
Ingredients for Crab Louie Salad
Like I mentioned,my take on Crab Louie Salad has mix of fresh cooked shrimp and lump crab meat. Best part is, shrimp is delicate just like crab meat since both are shell fishes. Shrimp cooks quickly and makes Crab Louie Salad substantial and loaded with seafood flavor.
Shrimp is an optional but I highly recommend it. If using, cook shrimp simply with salt and pepper until it curls. Let it cool down while you prepare rest of the Crab Louie Salad Ingredients.
Here is what you need to make Crab Louie Salad:
- Crab Meat
- Shrimp
- Romaine Hearts
- Tomatoes
- Cucumber
- Avocado is not classic ingredient but it's creamy texture goes great with dressing. I highly recommend it.
Crab Louie Dressing
Crab Louie dressing tastes very close to Thousand Island Dressing. It is a classic creamy mayonnaise based dressing with ketchup, chili sauce, garlic, lemon juice, horseradish as main ingredients. It gets sweetness from ketchup, heat from chili sauce and horseradish.
This dressing we enjoy with many kinds of salads. Lettuce Wedge Salad, Spicy Caesar Salad or any Shrimp and seafood based salad.. Honestly, any greens and refreshing proteins salad will benefit from drizzle of homemade Louie dressing.
Crab Louie Dressing is a also good dipping sauce. This recipe is a keeper!
Here is what you need to make Crab Louie Salad Dressing:
- Mayonnaise
- Ketchup
- Chili Sauce such as sriracha
- Mustard
- Lemon Juice
- Garlic
- Worcestershire
- Relish
Use good quality mayo and ketchup for this recipe.If you can find Classic Mayo, even better. Or make it at home, try homemade mayonnaise recipe.
Tip: Always adjust chili sauce per taste. If you can find Chili based Ketchup then use that instead of regular ketchup and chili sauce.
To make the dressing, in a medium bowl mix all ingredients and half of chili sauce. Once well mixed, taste and adjust salt, and chili sauce.
Note:Salad Dressing may taste sharp on it’s own but it goes well with crab salad. To test, instead of tasting with spoon, I always taste test dressing with piece of romaine or cucumber. This way I can gauge how it will go with salad.
Honestly, Crab Louie Dressing makes the Crab Louie Salad. Once you have dressing ready and shrimp cooked and cooled. That's it. Only make sure to pick crab meat for shells. Arrange everything on a wide Salad Platter.
Crab Louie is ready to devour!Serve half dressing on salad and half on the side for self serve.
Shelf Life of Crab Louie Salad Dressing:
Dressing will stay good (refrigerated) for 4 days up-to a week. However, it disappears in 1-2 days from my refrigerator.
Substitutes:
As always, here are the perks of cooking at home i.e. adjust and adapt what you eat to your preference and diet needs. I often use these substitutes to make Crab Louie Salad at moment's notice. Sometimes, it starts with what crabmeat I can find with my local grocer.
- Crab Meat - Use what crabmeat you can find. I often find good quality jumbo lump crab meat. That's what I used for this recipe. You can also make Dungeness Crab Louie or King Crab Louie based on what kind of crab meat you love.
- Seafood Louie - For today's recipe, I made shrimp and jumbo lump Crab Louie. You can also add more seafood such as scallops, oyster, and/or lobster. Please make sure seafood used is cooked and picked for shells.
- Chili Sauce Ketchup - I seldom find Chili Sauce based ketchup. So I always make Crab Louie dressing with part tomato ketchup and part Asian chili sauce - sriracha. If you can find Ketchup Chili Sauce, go for it! If can't, use Tabasco or any other good quality chili sauce with classic ketchup. I recommend taste and adjust for chili sauce. Few sauces are spicier than others.
- Horseradish - I used horseradish mustard for this recipe. Dijon mustard and grated or prepared horseradish, half and half will work too.
- Salad ingredients are very flexible. I like combination of crunchy romaine hearts with sweet cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and avocado. Chopped celery or roasted red peppers also go well with Crab Louie.
- Use ripe Roma Tomatoes cut into wedges instead of cherry tomatoes.
Friends, enjoy something different for dinner this week. Crab Louie is a salad loaded with SO much flavor. Succulent Crab Meat and Shrimp with crunchy romaine, sweet tomatoes and creamy avocado. Sweet and spicy creamy dressing drizzled on the top and it is a dinner worth looking forward to.
I don't mind such delicious feast every day of the week. How about yourself?
