Black Bean Salad with Shrimp and Pickled Onions

This salad has such interesting colors, temperatures, and textures. A lime vinaigrette binds things together. Add a piece of crusty bread for mopping up the juices and you have a wonderful summery meal. To boot, the pickled onions can be doubled and used to top sandwiches or grilled meats or fish. They're that tasty and incredibly simple to make.

Start the salad early in the day by making the pickle brine and then briefly cooking the onions in the brine before placing them in a jar and refrigerating them to chill and crisp up. Peel and devein the shrimp and marinate in olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes in the fridge also.

When it's time for dinner, warm the bread. Drain a couple cans (or one large one) of black beans, rinse and set in a warm salad bowl, toss them with the lime vinaigrette, sear the shrimp, crumble the feta, and chop the scallions and cilantro. Simple, fast and perfect for a hot day when you don't want to be in the kitchen for any length of time !

Here's the recipe.

Black Bean Salad with Shrimp and Pickled Onions

This is an extremely fast and easy salad that is put together in the half hour it takes for the pickling brine to do its magic on the purple onions. While the pickled onions absorb the spices and tang, the black beans are drained and rinsed. Limes are juiced. The cheese and cilantro are prepped, some garlic is thinly sliced, and the shrimp are peeled and de-veined. Two minutes before you want to sit down to dine, do a fast pan sear of the shrimp in olive oil and slivered garlic, toss everything together and serve the pickled onions on the side. Delish!

I apologize for the picture quality ... eating at nine o'clock at night makes for poor available light when photographing. I had to quickly capture the salad plate before Kate, my oldest sprout and I fell on the salad like wolves! We'd spent the day at an art museum and came home late to sip wine and throw together a quick, healthy supper. I'd been telling her about a new cook book that was all about different salads, so we stopped to pick up the ingredients for this one.

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