How to Make Caesar Salad

A classic Caesar Salad recipe contains five ingredients: romaine lettuce, garlic croutons, Caesar Salad Dressing, anchovies, and Parmesan cheese.

Chef Nancy Silverton takes that classic Caesar salad recipe up a notch by fusing it with Bagna Càuda, a delicious Italian dipping sauce. She also adds complexity to the traditional Caesar salad with ingredients like shaved cauliflower, Fried Parsley, and escarole, a type of endive used instead of romaine lettuce, which adds texture and bitterness that balances the creaminess of the dressing. Before we begin with this exciting Caesar salad recipe, here’s a bit of history.

Believe it or not, the Caesar salad is said to have been invented in 1924, not in the United States or in Italy but inside a restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico. It was not named, as you might assume, after the Roman emperor, but allegedly after Caesar Cardini, owner of Caesar’s, a hotel restaurant in the border town.

As the story goes, Cardini, an Italian immigrant who had opened the eatery south of the U.S. border during Prohibition (Tijuana had become a Las Vegas-like destination for rich and famous Americans), conjured up his legendary salad by accident. It was July 4th, and with his restaurant busy with hungry, celebratory Americans, Cardini started running out of food. He improvised a salad with whatever he could find in the kitchen: romaine lettuce, raw egg yolks, Parmesan cheese, and Worcestershire sauce, among other ingredients. And the rest, as they say, was legend.

There are all sorts of creative ways to serve Caesar salad. Your homemade Caesar salad dressing can be used with leafy green vegetables besides romaine lettuce: Brussels sprouts, kale, cucumbers, cabbage, and broccoli, to name a few. Popular main dishes that pair well with Caesar salad include Pizza, eggplant parmesan, and Pastas of all varieties.

Caesar salads can also be eaten as main courses if you incorporate proteins like meatballs, Shrimp, or Grilled Chicken Breast.

One favorite version consists of a Soft-Boiled Egg, grilled chicken slices, cherry tomatoes, avocado, and bits of bacon alongside the classic dressing. Other spinoffs include grated Parmesan instead of shaved, and barbecued romaine hearts grilled with oil. There’s also nothing stopping you from making a chicken Caesar sandwich, a Caesar salad starring asparagus, or even one featuring pasta noodles like macaroni.

A Caesar salad without the crunch of croutons, without the taste and texture of those baked bread cubes, is missing something essential. Croutons can be made from fresh bread or bread that’s a day or two old. Croutons are the perfect excuse, Nancy says, to use bread that isn’t perfectly fresh. Save your fresh bread for the dinner table, she says. The best breads to use are handmade and rustic, as opposed to thin, overly soft sandwich breads.

To maximize crispiness, sourdough breads and baguettes work well. Pita bread, ciabatta, and paesano bread also make great Caesar salad croutons. When you imagine croutons, you might picture cubes, but in her Spacca Caesar, Nancy uses pieces of bread that are irregularly and craggily shaped, giving the Croutons a more interesting texture and a more homemade look. She pulls out the middle of her bread loaf and tears off small pieces. Perfectly square baked bread cubes, Nancy says, give her the suspicion that the croutons were bought at a store.

Caesar salad recipes can vary wildly, but none are complete without a creamy Caesar salad dressing. The traditional recipe is made of Parmesan cheese, fresh lemon juice, raw egg yolk, anchovy paste, and Worcestershire sauce. Additional ingredients can be terrific too: salt and freshly ground black pepper, olive oil, garlic, Dijon mustard, mayonnaise, and honey. You can even make a vegan dressing by leaving out the anchovies, Parmesan, and egg yolks.

For replacements, try Tahini for creaminess and capers for the savory depth you’d otherwise lose. Fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper, garlic, and Dijon mustard are still great additions.