Avocado Sauce w. Grilled Shrimp

Wow – this sauce is good. Like, really good. If you like avocados – then you must make this sauce and then proceed to eat it with everything! My sister got the idea for this from pinterest – our new obsession – and we adapted the recipe to our tastes. Wow. Loved it.

Here’s what you’ll need: avocados, lemon juice, cilantro, jalapeno, onion, salt and pepper, oh, and shrimp.

And here’s what you need to do. Peel and devein the shrimp. I had sous chef Alyse take care of that.

Meanwhile, I was making the sauce. I cut the jalapeno in half and deseeded it and then cut the onion in half as well. Place the broiler on in your oven and put the veggies on a foil lined sheet pan. Place them under the broiler from 2-5 minutes depending on the strength of your broiler – but basically until the skin of all the veggies is slightly charred and the veggies have begun to soften up.

Note: I left the skin on the garlic – makes it super easy and they cook/steam inside their skins rather than burn. Burnt garlic is gross!

After the veggies are done, I roughly chopped them up and added them to the food processer and chopped them until they are all the same consistency. Then add in the cilantro and lemon juice and continue to chop until it’s relatively smooth.

Now it’s time to add the avocados. Yum. Slice the avocados in half and remove the seed and place the meat of the avocado in the food processor with the jalapeno, onion, and cilantro mixture. Process until smooth. Shouldn’t take long at all. Now…at this point it might be too thick – you have the option of adding olive oil , warm water, or chicken stock to thin it out. We made pasta with the shrimp, so I used some of the hot pasta water to thin the sauce out.

Ok – back to the shrimp – skewer the shrimp and grill over medium-high heat for 2 minutes per side. I sprayed the shrimp with cooking spray and sprinkled slightly with salt and pepper prior to grilling.

Now it’s time to dress the shrimp with this amazing sauce. Place the shrimp in a bowl and put in a dollop of the avocado sauce – them mix it until the shrimp is completely covered in the sauce. Then eat!

We also mixed this sauce with pasta…..and ate it with the shrimp. SOOOO amazing. Highly recommend you make this sauce – it’s creamy and satisfying – but healthy and fun! Would be delicious to dip veggies in – to use over chicken – really….anything. It’s like a super smooth, somewhat upscale version of guacamole. Enjoy!

Avocado Sauce w. Grilled Shrimp
Makes about 1.5 cups of sauce

Click here for recipe.

Ingredients:
4 avocados
½  jalapeno
½ medium onion
3 garlic cloves
juice from 1 lemon (or lime)
¼ c. cilantro
1 t. salt
½ t. pepper
warm water/chicken stock/olive oil to thin out the sauce
2 lbs. shrimp – peeled and deveined

Directions:

1. Peel and devein the shrimp – then put 6 shrimps on each bamboo skewer.
2. Preheat grilling pan to medium high heat.
3. Sprinkle shrimp with salt and pepper and spray with cooking spray and place onto grill pan – grill each side for 2 minutes until shrimp is cooked through.
4. Preheat broiler in your oven.
5. Slice the jalapeno in half lengthwise and remove the seeds and ribs from the pepper (keep seeds if you’d like a spicier sauce). Slice onion in half and remove 3 garlic cloves from the head, but keep the skin on the garlic. Lay the veggies on a foil lined baking sheet, spray with cooking spray and put under the broiler from 2 – 5 minutes, depending on the strength of your broiler. Skin should be slightly charred and veggies should begin to soften up.
6. Remove the veggies from the oven and slice into chunks, remove the skin from the garlic, and put all veggies in a food processer and chop until evenly sized.
7. Add ¼ c. of cilantro to the food processor, the juice from the lemon, salt and pepper, and mix again.
8. Now add in the avocado meat to the food processor and mix until a smooth consistency.
9. To thin out the sauce, add warm water, pasta cooking water, olive oil, or warm chicken stock – ¼ c .to a 1/3 of a cup.
10. Remove the shrimp from the skewers and toss the shrimp with the sauce – serve with pasta or rice.

Enjoy!