This seafood salad is a blend of imitation crab and shrimp in a creamy dill dressing with fresh vegetables. An easy high protein lunch option that takes just minutes to make!
I love a good salad for lunch, I often whip up a quick orzo salad, ramen noodle salad, or this irresistible seafood salad. This salad can be served in so many different ways and it always gets rave reviews.
I love a good seafood salad, and it’s actually so easy to make at home! I used to stop by my grocery store deli to pick some up, but now I just whip up a batch in minutes whenever the craving strikes.
How do you make seafood salad?
The base of this salad is shrimp and imitation crab meat. The seafood is combined with celery, red onion, fresh dill, Old Bay seasoning, lemon juice and mayonnaise. Everything gets tossed together to make an ultra creamy and flavorful salad.
What is imitation crab?
Seafood salad is often made with imitation crab, because it’s inexpensive, available year round, and can be found in almost every grocery store. Imitation crab is made of mild white fish, typically Alaskan Pollock, which is blended with other ingredients to form a product that looks and tastes similar to real crab. You can use real crab in your seafood salad if you prefer, but it’s definitely easier to go with imitation crab.
Tips for seafood salad
- I use imitation crab flakes because they’re already cut into bite sized pieces. You can also buy the stick-style imitation crab and slice it yourself.
- I highly recommend using fresh dill, the flavor is superior to dried dill. If you need to use dried dill, you can substitute 1/2 teaspoon of dried for fresh.
- You can use low fat mayonnaise if desired.
- I like to use small salad sized shrimp so that they’re bite sized, look for shrimp that are 51-60 count per pound.
- It’s best to use raw shrimp which are then briefly boiled and cooled in an ice bath. This will give your shrimp the best flavor and texture. You can use pre-cooked shrimp in a pinch.
- I recommend making sure your red onion is finely chopped so that you don’t get large pieces in each bite. You can also use sliced green onions instead of red onion for a milder flavor.
- This seafood salad can be kept in the fridge for up to 2 days.
- You can use any combination of seafood that you like in this salad, just be sure that the total weight is one pound of seafood. Other great options include bay scallops or diced lobster meat.
WAYS TO SERVE SEAFOOD SALAD
You can eat this seafood salad as-is, or serve it in a variety of different presentations.
- Lettuce: Spoon your salad into a butter lettuce cup.
- Crackers: Serve your salad with a side of buttery crackers.
- Sandwich: Add your seafood to a toasted and buttered roll along with some green leaf lettuce.
- Avocado: Spoon your seafood into an avocado half.
- Pasta: Add 8 ounces of cooked short pasta to make a pasta salad.
- Cucumber: Spoon onto cucumber slices for an easy party snack.
- Puff Pastry: Fill up cooked puff pastry shells with the salad.
- Tomato: Hollow out a tomato and fill it with seafood salad.
No matter how you serve your crab and shrimp salad, it’s sure to be a hit! I always get requests for the recipe when I serve this salad at events, people go crazy over it!
More great salad recipes
Seafood Salad Video
Seafood Salad
Ingredients
- 8 ounces imitation crab meat flaked style or sticks cut into slices
- 8 ounces raw shrimp I use 51-60 count for this recipe
- 1 lemon quartered
- 1/2 cup celery finely diced
- 3 tablespoons red onion minced
- 1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh dill chopped, plus more for garnish
Instructions
- Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the quartered lemon.
- Add the shrimp to the pot and cook for 1-2 minutes or until pink and opaque. Transfer the shrimp to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process.
- Drain the shrimp then pat dry.
- Place the shrimp, imitation crab, celery, red onion, Old Bay seasoning, lemon juice, salt, pepper, mayonnaise and dill in a bowl. Toss gently to coat.
- Garnish with additional fresh dill and serve, or cover and refrigerate for up to 2 days.
If you are Seafood Salad fan this recipe will not disappoint. I made this tonight for a special occasion and was very well received. I wanted to avoid having to cook the shrimp so I used cooked (and frozen) salad shrimp, it worked out great. Otherwise followed the recipe to the letter. Highly recommend!!
Can I use real crabmeat and pasta in this seafood salaf
Yes that works!
Just made this, never made seafood salad before, this was amazing, make sure you use Old Bay seasoning, I added 3 1/2 tablespoons of jalapenos, put this salad on top of avocado and cream cheese and chips.
You don’t need lemon, also made with already cooked shrimp amazing
I want this.
Making today.
Yes, I made this and it’s excellent. Only change I made was I used 1/2 mayo & 1/2 ranch dressing. Yummy! Didn’t need any salt or pepper. I was thinking of adding a roasted red pepper but it didn’t really need that either. Will make again.
Yummo
Can this be made the night before?
Yes, infact better the next day!! What a great recipe.
Love seafood fixed any kind of way
The Best!
Can’t wait to try it 😋 Please subscribe me
Love this
Seafood salad is a staple for our no-cook summer suppers. I buy pre-cooked shrimp and make sure the celery is on the fresh side, not the stuff ready for soup. I like the suggestion of half mayo/half sour cream and will try that next time. Also the chopped red pepper. Needed that crunch and zing. This is a good basic recipe to build on.
This salad looks so good. I’d like to make it to use as a filling for small croissant sandwiches. I’m thinking of chopping everything small and adding a bit of red bell pepper for color. I have to make about 50 sandwiches along with a variety of other sandwiches for a total of 200. You mentioned that this salad would keep in the fridge for 2 days and this is very helpful for me as I need to make ahead whatever I can. Ingredients chopped smaller should make it better as a sandwich filling rather than a salad. I think it should work out just fine. Agree? Thanks so much!
Yes that sounds like it would work fine!
Hi Sara,
I’m planning on using this recipe as a sandwich too. This Wednesday June 7th lunch for 8, was looking for a side dish that you have that would be a nice complement?
I apologize for the late response, I was away! I’d probably serve some nice potato chips like kettle chips on the side, along with fruit salad or something like my three bean salad or cucumber tomato salad.
Would love to have the recipe. This looks delicious.