Lump Crab and Avocado Salad

I wanted to make a salad highlighting a pairing of crab and avocado. I imagined the buttery, earthy flavor of the avocado and the cool sweetness of lump crabmeat. But, I wanted it to be a unique composed salad that was also a balanced meal. What I came up with was this salad, featuring a lot of mild sweet flavors, dressed with a creamy hand-made dressing based on a Cajun remoulade. What you get is a lot of flavor and freshness, and a great salad.

So let’s talk about the dressing. I start by making an avocado oil mayonnaise with cooked egg yolks, Dijon mustard, cider vinegar and avocado oil. Yeah, I know mayonnaise should be made with raw egg yolks, but food safety prudence recommends cooked eggs and my children eat the meals I prepare. The cooked egg yolks do lack the emulsifying effectiveness of raw yolks so you do have to work carefully. Once those ingredients are emulsified together, I gently fold in some traditional remoulade ingredients: horseradish, ketchup, cayenne, hot pepper sauce, and parsley. I finish it up with some very finely diced avocado. If you stopped right there you could use that instead of tartar sauce on fried fish or shrimp. In fact, you will be able to find that recipe, Avocado Remoulade here.

To round out the salad I used butter lettuce because I wanted it’s simple flavor, and crunchy sweet corn and baby green beans. The final result was what I hoped for. Sweetness from the crab and corn, balanced by the acidity of the Dijon, cider vinegar, and lemon. As with my other composed salads, there is always some leeway as far as quantities go, but do not go lightly on the quantity of sweet corn, because it’s sweetness really helps balance out the flavors.

Print Recipe

Lump Crab and Avocado Salad

Difficulty: Intermediate Prep Time 60 mins Total Time 1 hr

Servings: 4

All ingredients

Servings

For the dressing

• 2 Each hardboiled egg yolks
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• ¹⁄₄ cup avocado oil
• 2 tsp ketchup
• 1 tbsp cider vinegar
• ¹⁄₂ Whole avocado, diced
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 1 dash hot pepper sauce
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley

For the salad

• 1 Whole butter lettuce
• 8 oz baby green beans, blanched
• 1 Each ear sweet corn, blanched
• 2 oz red bell pepper, fine dice
• 1 Whole scallion, finely sliced
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 2 oz grape tomato halves
• 8 oz jumbo lump crap

Instructions

1. To prepare dressing

   Force egg yolks through a fine sieve into a mixing bowl.

   Thin with cider vinegar and combine with Dijon mustard.

   While stirring constantly, slowly drizzle a few drops of avocado oil into mixture.  Continue to slowly drizzle oil while stirring until oil is fully emulsified with mixture. 

   Gently fold in avocado, lemon juice, ketchup, hot sauce, cayenne, and chopped parsley.  Chill.  

To prepare salad

1. Drain crabmeat and combine with cut corn and diced red peppers.

   Gently fold in 1/4 cup of avocado dressing.  Set aside.

   Cut butter lettuce into quarters, toss with dressing and arrange on plates.

   Toss green beans and tomato halves in dressing and arrange.

   Divide evenly onto salad greens and garnish with scallion and chopped parsley.

   Serve immediately.

Keywords: crabmeat, avocado, remoulade,