I don’t eat a lot of salad but when I do, I make sure there’s bacon on it. And one of the ways I love adding a simple protein to meals is adding shrimp. I have a few recipes on the blog that incorporate shrimp, such as this Shrimp, Spinach, and Tomato Fettuccine with Garlic Butter Sauce for when I’m in the mood for a quick and easy pasta. That shrimp fettuccine shares another common ingredient- the spinach! I also love cooking with lemon, so go ahead and check out this Spinach and Lemon Parmesan Shrimp Pasta. It’s another quick one!
I don’t know how many of you know this, but I used to waitress. I worked in quite a few restaurants and to be honest I do sometimes miss the industry. It’s the industry that many people have had a chance to do, and if not- it’s not for everyone! I love the fast paced work and the fact that there was always something to do.
Well I was thinking the other day about a shrimp and spinach salad I used to eat when I worked at Applebee’s many many moons ago. I will say there’s not many locations in the city but every now and then I definitely have a taste for it and want to go back! They used to feature a spinach salad with a warm bacon vinaigrette and mmm hot crispy bacon. There were a few other ingredients in their version that I didn’t have on hand, but I gave it a go with the way I wanted this salad to taste. I also was doing Whole30 at the time I made this salad and no I did not make it the whole month (I will talk about that another post).
This shrimp and spinach salad comes together pretty quickly, once you’ve cooked your bacon and shrimp, it’s time to put together the salad! I bought store bought Balsamic Vinaigrette because I was a wee bit lazy to make my own dressing, but I loved the way it turned out with a few modifications from that salad I used to eat. I was pretty proud of myself for eating a salad that was so healthy and wasn’t covered in cheese and salad dressing :-p
Ingredients
- 4 slices bacon (sugar free if doing Whole30)
- 1 pound raw shrimp, peeled, deveined, tails off
- 6 cups baby spinach
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1/2 cup red onion
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- 6 tablespoons balsamic vinaigrette (I used Tessamae's for Whole 30)
Instructions
- Heat skillet to medium heat. Cook bacon for about 3 minutes on each side, or until crispy. Remove from pan place on a plate lined with a paper towel and reserve the grease in the skillet.
- Add the shrimp to the skillet and cook for about 2 minutes on each side, or until shrimp becomes pink and cooked. Season with salt and pepper.
- To a large bowl, add spinach, bacon, red onion, cherry tomatoes, balsamic vinaigrette and toss to combine. Top with shrimp.
- Serve immediately.
This looks soooo yummy!!
Thank you!! It was!! 😍