Swedish Shrimp Toast (Toast Skagen)

We love this appetizer because it looks and feels fancy, but is truly easy to master. You just mix up a quick shrimp salad - known as 'skagenröra' in Swedish or 'rekesalat' in Norwegian - using small, pre-cooked shrimp and a few ingredients like creme fraiche, good mayonnaise, fresh dill, shallots, horseradish, and dijon mustard.

While your shrimp salad chills in the fridge for a few minutes, you make the toast by cutting the crust off sandwich bread and toasting it in a pan with butter.

To bring it together, we like to serve it with thinly sliced cucumbers for a little extra crunch and freshness, then top everything off with some optional fish roe (caviar), some capers, a squeeze of lemon, and more fresh dill.

Serve it any time of the year, (it's a showstopper during the holidays!) but we especially love it in the spring and summertime with a refreshing glass of crisp white wine!

In high school, I was an exchange student in Norway. I'm also of Swedish and Finnish ancestry, so revisiting Nordic classic comfort food favorites and learning more about traditional foods (and re-creating them!) has become a favorite pastime in our home. ☺️

If you're looking for more classic Scandinavian recipes, try our Swedish almond cake (toscakaka), this Finnish salmon soup (lohikeitto), or this lingonberry sauce - the stuff served alongside Swedish meatballs at IKEA or these Norwegian meatballs! Stay tuned for lots more Nordic recipes to come.

❤️Why We Love This Recipe

• Made quickly with simple ingredients. You can find everything you need at most grocery stores if you don't already have what you need at home. Plus, you only need about 30 minutes to pull this appetizer together!
• Flavorful with a stunning presentation. We know just how impressive these shrimp toasts look, and they taste just as great! They're rich and creamy, yet bright, zippy, and herbed with the perfect saltiness from the caviar and capers. They're a true crowd-pleaser for gatherings - particularly special occasions!
• Make ahead for easy entertaining. Mix up the shrimp salad in advance, store it in the fridge, then just make your buttery toast slices right before serving. Now, just add toppings and serve.

🍤Ingredients

Here are the ingredients we used for this recipe. You can find more information for substitutions below.

• Small cooked shrimp. In Nordic countries, this recipe is typically made with 'reker' (Norwegian) or 'räkor' (Swedish) which are basically tiny, wild-caught, North-Atlantic shrimp. In the United States, you can find them in the freezer section. They should be totally cooked, with the tails-off, deveined, and ready to go. They only take a few minutes to thaw under cold water. They are sometimes called 'salad shrimp' and they are generally about 100-200 shrimp per pound.
• Fresh dill. The fresh aspect is really important here! It adds such a lovely flavor to this recipe.
• Prepared horseradish. Some traditional Nordic recipes use it and some don't, so it's up to you. We add just a bit and it doesn't taste like horseradish - it just tastes incredible!
• Mayonnaise. Use something really high quality here, because it will impact the flavor a lot since there aren't many ingredients in this recipe.
• Caviar or fish roe. Typically, this dish is topped with caviar. We used salmon roe (caviar) because it was easy to find at our grocery store. You can use whatever is available to you, and if you don't like caviar or can't find it, don't worry, just omit it!
• Capers. Optional, and a great alternative to caviar if you don't like (or can't find) caviar. They add a nice briny, salty bite that really rounds out the creamy and rich bite. We like to use both capers and caviar, personally!

*Not pictured - Cucumber! This is totally optional, but we like to serve our shrimp salad with some thinly sliced English or Persian cucumbers.

Visit the recipe card for the full quantities and nutritional information.

✨Substitutions

Here are a few suggestions on additional flavors to try, or simple variations to this recipe.

• Swap the tiny shrimp. If you're unable to find small shrimp near you, feel free to use whatever shrimp you can get your hands on. The smaller ones you can find, the better. Look for the highest number per pound of shrimp available to you. Bonus points if it's pre-cooked and peeled - this will save you some time. If you can only find raw shrimp, that's fine! Just make sure to cook it completely (then let it chill) before making the shrimp salad. You may also want to cut some pieces up smaller.
• No shallot. You can swap this with red onion if you'd like.
• No creme fraiche. Creme fraiche is like sour cream's cooler, more sophisticated cousin. It's cultured cream, and it has a rich and tangy flavor. If you can't find any, just use sour cream.
• Swap the white bread. While many Nordic recipes call for rye or pumpernickel bread (and you could certainly use those if you want to) a sturdy piece of classic white sandwich bread is hard to beat here. We cut off the crusts and slice each piece into triangles for an elegant look, though it's not necessary. With that said, any piece of bread you like works great, including sourdough, pumpernickel, or rye!
• Serve with cucumber salad. Try serving the toasts with our agurksalat (Norwegian cucumber salad) for even more flavor!

✨Variations

• Lighter version. This dish is naturally quite rich and creamy, so if you want to shave off a few calories, feel free to use low-fat creme fraiche or sour cream. You can also play with the proportions of creme fraiche to mayo, and use less mayo if you'd like.
• Lemony. We don't recommend adding lemon juice to the actual shrimp salad, even though it would taste great because it will make the dressing runny. Instead, add a bit of lemon zest to the actual shrimp salad itself, and save the squeeze of lemon for right before serving.
• Spicier. For more of a kick, add more horseradish to the salad! In our recipe, it's pretty much undetectable but just gives the shrimp an overall great flavor. If you love horseradish, feel free to add as much as you'd like!

🔪Prep work

• Quickly thaw the shrimp by running it under cold water for 1-2 minutes in a metal sieve.
• Dry the shrimp off really well! This is really important. Any excess moisture in the shrimp will just make the dressing runny. So make sure to dry it all off really well with paper towels.
• Finely mince the shallot.
• Gently mince the dill.
• Measure out the remaining ingredients.

Place shrimp in a mixing bowl with mayo, creme fraiche, shallots, dijon mustard, horseradish salt, pepper, and dill. (Image 1)

Mix to combine, and adjust seasonings to taste. (Image 2)

Cover and place in the fridge to chill for a few minutes while you make the toasts.

While the shrimp salad is chilling, prepare the toast. Preheat a skillet over medium-low heat.

Start by cutting the crust off of the bread (optional) then cutting the bread pieces in half diagonally to form two triangles. (Image 3)

Add some butter to the skillet, then toast the bread on both sides, adding more butter as needed until all of the bread is toasted and golden brown. (Image 4)

⭑Pro Tip: Keep a close eye on the bread and keep the heat on the lower end so it doesn't burn!

Layer on cucumbers, then top with a small scoop of the shrimp salad. Add capers, fresh dill, and caviar, then finish with a squeeze of lemon. Enjoy!