I’ve been so busy planning Easter last week that I didn’t have time to make my usual meal plan / grocery list for the week. This has left me totally unstabilized… hey, I’m used to planning my meals up to 2 weeks in advance, you know!!!

I decided to make the best of the situation and initiate a fridge clean-up operation. There weren’t that many meals left this week anyway, seeing that I won’t be at home on Friday and Sunday and that I will be going for groceries on Sunday. That only left me with 4 days to plan. Surely I could find enough food in the house to whip up a few meals.

Monday, I had leftovers from Easter ( I only had the healthy stuff, of course!). Easy! Done.

Enter Tuesday. I still had about half a pound of cooked shrimp that I hadn’t used in my cold shrimp salad. That would be my base ingredient to work with. But what was I to do with them? It had to be something quick and easy, for there was a game on at 7.

I was in the mood for bulgur. Cold bulgur, shrimp and whatever veggies I could find… That sounds like a salad in the making to me! Before I left for work, I quickly put a cup and a half of bulgur in a bowl, covered with cold water and left that in the fridge to soak all day, that way, it would be ready to go when I got back home! Genius!

Salads always work wonders to clean-out your fridge, and this one was no exception. Plus, it was so quick and easy to make, it was ready before the game even started. Win!

Ingredients
(serves 3-4)

  • 1½ cups bulgur wheat, soaked for at least 2 hours and drained
  • 450g cooked shrimp
  • 1 cup frozen corn, cooked and cooled (rinse under cold water to speed up cooling process)
  • ½ cup black olives, sliced
  • ¼ cup red onion, finely chopped
  • 1 green onion, chopped
  • 1 orange tomato, diced
  • 1 celery rib, finely chopped
  • 1 small cucumber, diced
  • ¾ cup parsley, finely chopped

Dressing

  • 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
  • The juice of ½ lime
  • ½ tsp hot pepper flakes
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp fresh basil, finely chopped
  • 1 garlic clove, minced

Instructions

Mix all the ingredients for the salad in a mixing bowl. Set aside.

Combine all the ingredients for the dressing in a separate bowl, or better yet, throw everything in the bowl of a food processor and process until well incorporated.

Pour dressing over salad and toss to combine.

You can serve this salad immediately or refrigerate overnight to let the flavors develop.