How To Make The Best Caesar Salad

We’ll elevate the Caesar Salad from its humble beginnings in Tijuana, Mexico to a full meal bursting with flavor. The trick to this one is in the dressing and the cook on the chicken. We will show you how to make it fantastic! We like enough garlic to make it spicy but you can use according to your own tastes.

The story behind the original Caesar Salad is some late night partiers went to Tijuana for a meal and the proprietor of the establishment threw together whatever ingredients he had left. It has since become a staple salad. We make a large one and eat it as a complete dinner.

This recipe is gluten free if you use gluten free croutons.

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The Ingredients For Caesar Salad

For the Dressing:

• 2-3 garlic cloves (more is better)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp dry mustard
• 3 or 4 shakes Worcestershire Sauce
• 2 TBL lemon juice or juice of a lemon
• 1 egg (you can substitute with yogurt)

The Chicken:

• 1 Chicken Breast
• Salt
• Garlic Seasoning
• Oil

For the Salad:

• 1 Head Romaine Lettuce
• 1 Tomato
• 6 Anchovies
• Gluten Free Croutons

Blend Oil and Garlic

We begin by putting the oil and garlic into a small food processor or blender. if you don’t have a specific device for this. Many blender blades will fit on a pint mason jar and you can use that. We like to use a LOT of garlic for this dressing to make it spicy so we’ll put in at least 6 cloves. You can use whatever amount you are comfortable with. We also like to use a quality olive oil for this dressing. We’ll blend this up before adding our other ingredients.

Parmesan Cheese

Next we’ll add 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese. We have used shredded parmesan for this but we prefer the grated as it blends up a little better and is more dense, meaning more cheese fits in a quarter cup. You can also crush shredded parmesan by putting it into a plastic bag and using a rolling pin to break it up.

Salt and Pepper

Next we’ll add the salt and pepper. You’ll only need about 1/2 teaspoon of each for this dressing.

Dried Mustard

We’ll add the dried mustard next. We like to use dried mustard for this recipe. You can substitute 1 tsp dijon mustard if you prefer.

Worcestershire Sauce

Next we’ll add 3 or 4 shakes of Worcestershire sauce. This is our ‘secret sauce’ that adds umami to a recipe. Worcestershire sauce is made from vinegar, sweeteners, anchovy and tamarind. You need to check the label because some brands use soy sauce, which is not gluten free. We always use Lea and Perrins brand which does not contain soy sauce.

Lemon Juice

We’re going to squeeze the juice of a whole lemon into the food processor now. This will give our dressing a good lemony tang. You can use less lemon if you’d like to make it less tangy. Sometimes a friend will give us fresh Meyer lemons from her tree and those are the best! We like to use the lemon squeezer tool because it makes it easy to remove the seeds.

One Raw Egg

The secret to a good, creamy Caesar salad dressing is the inclusion of one raw egg. We have heard people say that raw eggs are dangerous to eat so we have investigated that claim. We’ve found that the CDC estimates 1 in 20,000 eggs contains salmonella but if you keep eggs refrigerated there is little chance for the bacteria to grow substantially enough to make you sick. We can’t say it is 100 percent safe but we can say we have never had any issues with eating raw eggs in this dressing. You can substitute 1/4 cup of yogurt if you find the risk of raw eggs too great. You can break the egg into a bowl first to avoid the risk of shell getting into your dressing.

Blend It Well

We will blend this all together thoroughly. When done you will have a nice, creamy dressing.

Refrigerate

We like to put this dressing in a small measuring cup to make it easy to pour over the salad. For now, we want to refrigerate this dressing for 30 minutes to let the flavors marry.

Make Perfectly Cooked Chicken Breast

Nothing will ruin our delicious Caesar salad faster than dry, overcooked chicken breast. We’ll show you our method for making a perfectly cooked chicken breast every time. We love how this comes out. This method works for any size chicken breast.

Tenderize the Chicken

We’ll pound the chicken with a meat tenderizer until it is flattened a lot. You can cover the chicken with plastic wrap to avoid splashing.

Sprinkle With Salt and Seasoning

We will sprinkle both sides of the chicken with salt. We’ll also sprinkle on some garlic seasoning, which is a mix of garlic granules and dried herbs. You can use lemon pepper or any seasoning blend that you like and have on hand or you can make something for this. We would use garlic granules and some combination of dried parsley, oregano, thyme, and maybe cumin.

Cook the Chicken

Now we will heat some oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. When the oil is good and hot we will put the chicken in the pan and cook it for one minute exactly. Then we will turn the chicken over, reduce the heat to low, cover the pan and cook it for 10 minutes without opening the lid. After the 10 minutes we will take the chicken off the heat and let sit, covered for at least 10 minutes.

Prepare the Salads

We make this Caesar salad as a main dish for the two of us so we fill two large bowls with romaine lettuce. We’ll cut the tomato and put that on top. The tomato gives us a nice bit of color on our salad. In the summer and fall we have a lot of cherry tomatoes from our greenhouse and we like to cut those in half and use them for our salads.

Cut the Chicken

After the chicken has rested for at least 10 minutes without opening the lid we will cut it into bite size pieces and put them on our salad.

Gluten Free Croutons

We will put the croutons on our salad next. You can have gluten free croutons but you’ll have to make them yourself. We haven’t found any pre-made ones. We have a video that shows how here. You’ll need to start with gluten free bread, which you can find in most stores these days. We have found gluten free bread to be very unsatisfying for anything else but it works great for croutons.

Cut 1/2 a loaf of gluten free bread into cubes and put in a large mixing bowl. Add 1/3 cup melted butter, 1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoons grated Parmesan. Mix well, lay out flat on a cookie sheet, bake 15 minutes, stir and bake at least 15 more minutes. If they are not crunchy enough, bake them longer.

Add the Caesar Salad Dressing

Now we can pour our dressing over the salad. We have made more than enough dressing for two salads so you can dress as heavily as you want.

Top With Parmesan Cheese

We’ll top that with a sprinkle of shredded Parmesan cheese.

Anchovies

We like anchovies and so we will put a couple on our salads. If you object to them you can just leave them off. We like the extra bit of tang they bring to a few bites as we’re going through the salad.

Garnish With Edible Flowers

We are big believers in food presentation. We eat with our eyes first before we taste our food so it should look as pretty as we can make it. Our garden is full of edible flowers and herbs for this purpose. As the seasons change so do the available flowers so we always have new combinations to play with. Just remember that anything you use as a garnish needs to be edible.

Salmon Caesar Salad

This recipe is also great with salmon as the protein. You need to be careful not to overcook the salmon and it comes out great!

Here are some other gluten free salad and dressing recipes you might like to make:

• Kale Caesar Salad
• Bacon Blue Cheese Chopped Wedge Salad
• Green Goddess Salad Dressing
• Wilted Spinach Salad

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