Caesar Salad

This Caesar Salad recipe uses traditional ingredients to make one of the world’s most well loved salads. It’s surprisingly easy to make and uses simple ingredients, which you may already have in your kitchen cupboard.

With crisp lettuce leaves, crunchy croutons and a tasty dressing this recipe makes the perfect side salad or appetiser. I provide instructions on how to make both the Caesar Salad dressing and gluten free croutons.

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. There is no extra cost to you. Thank you.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Simple ingredients and requires no fancy equipment
• Perfect for lunch on a hot summers day, or any time of the year
• Dressing and croutons can be made ahead of time, good for parties

Ingredients

Dressing

• 4 anchovy fillets crushed into a paste
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 clove garlic (finely chopped)
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• ¼ tsp black pepper (freshly ground)
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• ½ a lime (juiced)
• 2 tbsp parmesan cheese (grated)
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 head of Romaine lettuce leaves

Croutons

• 2 slices of gluten free bread
• 1 clove garlic
• 5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

A Brief History of Caesar Salad

The Caesar Salad was created at Caesar’s Hotel in Tijuana (Northern Mexico) circa 1924. It was made popular by Wallis Simpson after she visited the hotel and then spread the word about how good this salad tasted.

Caesar, the owner of the hotel, came from humble beginnings and his mother had to be creative with the small amount of food that they had access to.  His mother’s ingenuity transformed the simple ingredients of eggs, cheese, lettuce leaves and some dried bread into one of the world’s most popular salads.

Traditionally the lettuce leaves are left whole, just gently coated in the dressing. It is traditionally eaten with your hands and would be accompanied by a cold glass of white wine. 

Ingredient Notes

Cheese

Depending on where you buy your cheese, it may be called Parmigiano Reggiano cheese instead of Parmesan cheese. They are very similar and either can be used for this recipe.

Try to buy your cheese in a block rather than pre-grated if you can. Sometimes potato starch or other preservatives are added to grated cheese.

Oil

Traditionally at Caesar’s Hotel, they use a mixture of rapeseed oil and olive oil to make the salad dressing. However, I try to avoid using rapeseed oil, so I have only used olive oil for this recipe.

Lettuce

Romaine lettuce is traditionally used for Caesar Salads, although you can substitute this with little gem or iceberg lettuce if you find Romaine hard to come by. Any crisp green lettuce will do, just don’t use any lettuce that is limp or past its best.

Croutons

I have used gluten free slices of bread to make the crispy croutons that go on top of this salad. I use the brand Promise gluten free bread. If you do not need to avoid gluten then by all means use regular slices of bread.

Making your own croutons is a good way to use up bread that is starting to go stale. Allow one slice of bread per person in order to have plenty of croutons.

If you don’t fancy making your own croutons then you can buy them readymade.

How to Make Caesar Salad

Step 1

If you are using readymade croutons, then you can skip this step.

Start by slicing your bread into bite size chunks, then place in an oven proof dish.

Cut a clove of garlic in half and rub it over each little piece of bread. 

Drizzle the bread with olive oil. I used about 5 tablespoons to coat 2 slices of bread. You don’t want to the bread to be soggy, just lightly coated in oil.

Place in a preheated oven at 180 °C / 350°F. Turn the croutons after 10 minutes and then cook for a further 5 minutes (15 mins total) until crisp and golden.

Whilst your croutons are in the oven you can prepare your Caesar Salad dressing.

Pin

Pin

Pin

Pin

Step 2

Start by crushing 4 anchovy fillets in a pestle and mortar. If you don’t have a pestle and mortar you can just use the back of a fork.

Pin

Pin

Step 3

Finely chop up 1 clove of garlic.

Separate one egg yolk from the egg white and add the yolk to a bowl, along with the garlic and crushed anchovies.

Step 4

Use a glass citrus juicer to squeeze the juice from half of a lime.

Add this to the bowl along with 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a splash of Worcestershire sauce, some black pepper and 1 tablespoon of grated parmesan cheese.

Mix the ingredients together using a fork.

Pin

Pin

Step 5

Wash your lettuce leaves and dry them on a cloth, or use a salad spinner if you have one.

I like to slice my lettuce to make it easier to eat, but you can also tear up your lettuce leaves or leave them whole.

Step 6

Drizzle the dressing over your lettuce leaves and gently toss together so that it’s nicely coated.

To serve, sprinkle over some more parmesan cheese and crumble up some crispy croutons.

Storage

Caesar Salad tastes best when made fresh and served straight away.

The dressing and croutons can be made ahead of time, but should only be mixed in with the lettuce leaves right before you are ready to serve. Otherwise the lettuce will lose its crispness and you’ll end up with a soggy salad.

The dressing can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.

The croutons can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for 24 hours.

I would not recommend freezing any elements of this recipe.

Similar Recipes