Caesar Salad

A classic - where you can add chicken and or anchovies if you want, or keep it really simple, and even vegan if you prefer! With a gorgeous dressing to go on top. Let’s make Caesar salad!

A lucky dressing experiment

Caesar salad is of course a safe go-to from a restaurant menu, and one a lot of us are very familiar with. I was after a recipe that broke down how to make that beloved Caesar salad dressing, but I came across so many different variations, that I got a bit overwhelmed and just felt it out in the kitchen (I’m getting more intuitive all the time, it’s very exciting!) - and if I do say so myself, it really hit the spot!

Caesar Salad

For 2 people

Total time: Roughly 20 mins

• 2 small or 1 large romaine lettuce hearts

• 1 large handful of croutons

• 1 large handful of cherry tomatoes (I don’t know if this is “authentic”, but I love tomatoes in my Caesar!)

• 2 chicken breasts (you can of course omit this!)

• A small tin of anchovies in olive oil (again, you can omit this)

• Parmesan to garnish

For the dressing (you can of course experiment too!):

• 1/3 cup of mayonnaise (can use vegan!)

• Juice from 1/2 lemon

• 1 tbsp white vinegar

• 1/2 cup grated parmesan (vegan works too)

• 1 clove of garlic

• A bit of the oil from the anchovies (can omit)

• A pinch of black pepper

• A tiny dash of honey

Instructions

Rinse the lettuce leaves well in cold water (this helps keep them crispy as well as clean! If they need to be revived a bit, leave them in a bowl of ice cold water for a bit and they will crunch right up). Pat them dry and place on two plates. You can cut them up if you want, but I like using the large leaves. Rinse and halve the tomatoes and sprinkle them over the lettuce on the plates, and then top with croutons.

Cook the chicken breasts until they are cooked well all the way through, in a pan probably gives the best flavour but in the oven totally works too. Let the breasts cool down a bit and slice them up.

For the dressing, crush the garlic clove and mix in with mayo, lemon juice, vinegar, parmesan, black pepper and honey, and tip a bit of the oil that the anchovies come in into the dressing (trust me!) and mix everything well.

Place the chicken breast on top of the salad, chop up the anchovies and sprinkle them over the chicken and the salad, and top it off with lots of lovely dressing (you can toss the whole salad together with the dressing if you really want to spread it out) and some shaved parmesan. I recommend not adding a lot of salt to this dish, because parmesan is salty and flavourful enough in my opinion!

Enjoy!

Did you make the Caesar salad? Did you like it? Share on Instagram and tag @TheFromScratchBody and hashtag #TheFromScratchBody so I don’t miss it!