What are the ingredients for a great seafood salad? Fish and imagination! There are no precise rules to follow when preparing one of the freshest and tastiest dishes of the summer.
Seafood salads are ideal for a light lunch or the inevitable course for a fish dinner. That said it can also be served as a single main course, perhaps together with rice or spelt, or even, in small portions as an appetizer, especially during the Christmas holidays.
Seafood salad can be prepared and eaten immediately or stored in the fridge for a couple of days: in the latter case, we recommend you take it out of the fridge and leave it at room temperature for about 30 minutes before serving it.
The basic recipe for a seafood salad includes boiled or steamed shellfish and crustaceans, seasoned with lemon, oil, vinegar and aromatic herbs. Though as you know, in the kitchen there are no limitations to creativity. So, without neglecting fresh fish, crustaceans or molluscs, you can indulge and enrich seafood salads with many different ingredients to vary the flavors and sensations on the palate each time.
Here are 10 easy seafood salad recipes to inspire you, to indulge in, and amaze your guests with a moment of pleasure at the table. The ingredients are recommended for 4 or 6 people.
Classic seafood salad
For a classic seafood salad, clean 4 squids, boil and drain them then cut them into pieces. Clean and pan-fry mussels and clams, then shell them. Combine the ingredients in a bowl, add boiled seasonal vegetables and season with oil, salt, pepper, and parsley.
Seafood salad with grapefruit
If you love citrus, then this recipe is for you. First, clean, wash and remove 2 lb of mussels and 2 lb of clams from their shells. Clean 1 lb of squid and boil them, then add 1 lb of shrimp and cook them for about ten minutes. Cut the squid into slices, shell the shrimps, and cut the Belgian endives into strips. At this point, roughly cut 2 nice grapefruits and add them to the salad. Season with oil, salt, and pepper.
Seafood salad with marinated anchovies and oranges
From Sicily comes the suggestion to reinvent the seafood salad with anchovies and oranges. Let the anchovies marinate covered with lemon juice in the fridge for at least an hour. Then arrange them on a serving plate and on top distribute touches of peeled orange slices, sliced spring onion, thinly sliced fennel and Gaeta olives. Season everything with oil, salt, and pepper.
Seafood salad with tuna
Fillets of tuna, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, boiled eggs, and oil: these are the ingredients you need for a super tasty seafood salad. Wash 4 tomatoes and cut them into pieces, put them in a salad bowl and salt them. Then add 4 potatoes, boiled, peeled, and cut into slices, then 2 boiled eggs shelled and cut into slices. Finally, put 7 oz boiled chopped green beans and tuna fillets in the salad bowl: you can use those in oil after having carefully drained them. Season with extra virgin olive oil and gently mix everything together.
Seafood salad with crab and palm hearts
To serve up a truly beautiful dish, shape into balls 11 oz of boiled and mashed potatoes, an egg, 2 oz grated Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Cover in breadcrumbs then fry and drain them on absorbent paper. Subsequently drain and chop 12 oz crab meat and 7 oz palm hearts to be cut into rings. Peel a papaya and dice the pulp. Finally, place the leaves of a head of lettuce on a serving dish, then the crab meat, papaya cubes and palm hearts on top. Season with an emulsion of oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice and place the potato shaped balls on the side.
Salmon seafood salad
Clean 11 oz fresh salmon and put it in a bowl with lemon juice and let it marinate for two hours. Then dice and place it in a salad bowl. Wash and cut into strips 6 cherry tomatoes and a tuft of spinach: add them to the salmon together with three peeled and sliced onions. Sprinkle with a drizzle of oil. Put in the mixer 4 oz robiola type cheese, 4 oz yoghurt, a tablespoon of chives, a tablespoon of dried dill. Blend, season with salt and pepper and pour the dressing over the salad to be served fresh.
Seafood salad with avocado, scampi and valerianella
Fresh and tasty. To prepare this salad boil 2 lb scampi tails, drain and let them cool before finally removing the shell. Toast 2 oz pine nuts, clean 5 oz valerianella and mix them both with the cold scampi tails. Divide three avocados in half, peel and cut them lengthwise, then cover with lemon juice to prevent them from blackening. Finally, in a bowl add all the ingredients and season with salt, pepper plus oil and lemon juice.
Seafood salad with anchovies and garlic croutons
For an original lunch, wash four small tomatoes and cut them into wedges, wash and properly drain two cauliflower florets, slice them finely and cover them with lemon juice to avoid blackening. Stone a dozen black olives and wash three anchovies to desalt them, carefully removing the central bone. Wash, dry and chop 7 roman lettuce leaves and put them in a salad bowl. In the center distribute tomatoes, cauliflower florets, olives and anchovy fillets mixed together. In a bowl mix oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper and pour the dressing over the salad. Serve with toasted slices of homemade bread rubbed with garlic.
Seafood salad with rice and shellfish
Also excellent as a single main course, for this salad you’ll need 1 lb pureed tomatoes, 7 oz of rice, 20 shrimp tails. Separately boil the rice and shrimp tails in salted water, flavored with bay leaves and parsley. Mix the cold rice with the tomato puree and shrimp tails. Season with a teaspoon of chopped aromatic herbs (basil and marjoram), salt and oil.
Seafood salad with pesto
Have you ever tried pesto in a seafood salad? Maybe now is the time! Wash and cut into thin slices two carrots, two fennel hearts and two San Marzano tomatoes: season with oil, salt and pepper. Cut 11 oz squid into rings and boil them in slightly salted water. Let them cook two minutes after boiling then drain them with the perforated ladle. Then cook the prawns in a saucepan for two minutes and drain. Mix vegetables, squid and prawns and season with the pesto, prepared by blending ¾ oz toasted pine nuts, ¾ oz basil leaves, four tablespoons of oil, coarse salt and a clove of garlic (as preferred).