The One Salad You’ll Actually Crave

This Caesar salad recipe hits every note that a great one should; it’s super seasoned, lemony, punchy, and way more delicious than any other salad. If you’re looking for the best version of a caesar, I’ve got 2 recipes that are perfect for you.

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Chicken Marinade
Juice from half a lemon
1 tbsp of mayo
Salt, Pepper garlic powder, dried italian herbs

Classic Dressing
1 clove garlic
1 tsp dijon
1 Egg yolk
1 anchovy
lemon juice from half lemon
Dash of worcestershire
Salt
1/4 cup neutral oil (up to 1/2 cup)
Grated parmesan
Tons of cracked pepper

Easy Dressing
1 clove garlic
1 anchovy
1 tbsp mayo
1 tsp dijon
Lemon juice from half lemon juice
Dash of worcestershire
1/4 cup neutral oil (up to 1/2 cup)
Grated parmesan
Tons of cracked pepper

Croutons
2 slices of artisan crusty bread
2 tbsp olive oil
Bake at 425 then toss in more olive oil, salt, garlic powder, and parm

00:00 – Why caesar salad
00:36 – Equipment needed
00:57 – Marinate chicken for max tenderness
01:49 – How to make a classic caesar
04:13 – Lazy caesar dressing and why it works
05:03 – How to make croutons
05:33 – Romaine is king
06:00 – Pan seared chicken
08:26 – How to assemble and dress a salad

Caesar is easily one of the top tier salads and I think that’s partially because it rides a line of what actually constitutes a salad does it have lettuce yeah is it basically half Crouton also yeah I’m going to show you the classic way to make your own Caesar salad

Dressing and I’ll show you a really easy kind of cheater way that may be better than the original welcome back to my ongoing Series where I teach you recipes starting from the easiest all the way up to multi-step intensive showstoppers if you’re not confident in the kitchen

Stick around because I’m going to be teaching you a ton of techniques and tips over the course of the next few videos consider this your invitation to step into the kitchen and join me on this journey equipment wise we’ll need a large bowl for our dressing a salad

Spinner is really really nice here a whisk a micr plane a container to marinade the chicken in if you want to opt for chicken a cutting board a knife to cut the bread with a stainless steel pan a pair of tongs a sheet tray a squeeze bottle is also going to make

Your life a lot easier here but you could also just use a measuring container now to give the Caesar a little bit more of a full meal Vibe I’m going to top it with pan seared chicken breast I want this to be juicy and well seasoned to stand up to the powerful

Flavors in our dressing now if you sub to me because I trash talked Mayo in my grilled cheese video you’re about to be super let down I’ve been really into using Mayo as a marinade lately as it really sticks to the meat way better than just oil and lemon juice in a

Container that can go into the fridge add a package of thinly sliced chicken breast I like to Salt each piece as they go in just to make sure that they all get the correct amount of salt squeeze in about a tablespoon of Cy Mayo just enough to barely coat the chicken you

Don’t need a ton here C is nice because it’s richer and more seasoned than your standard Mayo it’s kind of my go-to for everything in the kitchen add in garlic powder Italian herbs the juice of half a lemon and cracked black pepper give this a good mix to make sure that the

Seasoning is coating each piece of chicken and then cover it and place it in the fridge while we work on the dressing our traditional Caesar dressing is an Emulsion made with raw egg yolk and oil essentially creating a Mayo of sorts the laser version starts with mayo

As a base because that’s already a set Emulsion that can carry us to the end result much faster let me show you the traditional one first to a large bowl grate one clove of garlic and add in one whole anchovy I like to take a fork and

Smash the anchovy and garlic together to form a pungent paste add in one teaspoon of Dijon mustard for both flavor and as an aid to creating our Emulsion add in one egg yolk and mix that in as well at this point you can switch to your whisk

And squeeze in the juice from half a lemon some people don’t like werer sauce in their dressing but I like a few dashes of it here I’ll add a pinch of salt just to bring out everything but not too much because most of the ingredients in here have their own salt

Now this is about a four of a cup of vegetable oil that you’re going to slowly drizzle in while whisking vigorously when I say slowly I really really mean it at the start I like to literally do one drop at a time the more oil that gets Incorporated the faster we

Can begin to drizzle you’re looking for there to be no visible streaks of oil or no droplets of oil when you add more continue working slowly until you’ve added about as much oil as there was other ingredients at that point you can start to pick up the pace create

Creating an Emulsion which is a suspension of oil in water takes a lot of effort essentially we’re creating a stable base from the water that’s in the yolks and the oil that’s slowly incorporated into it we’re going to need to break up that oil physically by whisking vigorously to ensure a stable

Emulsion by going really really slowly at the start we allow the oil droplets to be broken down into super super tiny microscopic droplets the good news though is that the hard work we put in at the beginning is going to pay off later as we continue whisking to add oil

The scales begin to tip in the oil droplets themselves help stabilize oil entering the Emulsion this happens around that time that the volume of water is the same to the volume of oil added as long as the initial Emulsion is set you should be good to continue

Working as you get towards the final amount of oil this is where you can begin to decide on the texture you like if you want it super thick and creamy something almost like a Mayo continue adding up to a total of half a cup of

Oil if you want it a little runnier stop when you reach the desired texture for me I like it’s super creamy but not as thick as a Mayo I still want this to be able to drip R off a spoon season this with a ton of Cracked Pepper and a ton

Of grated parm the final taste should be Punchy acidic salty and peppery super super super delicious I’m just going to set this whole thing in the fridge while I prep everything else so the lazy and my new favorite way to make the dressing is like this in a large bowl grate one

Clove of garlic and add in one anchovie smash the anchovie into the garlic with a fork to form a paste and mix in one tablespoon of Cy Mayo along with one teaspoon of Dijon the Mayo basically acts as a pre-emulsified dressing to build off of think of this as the first

Phase already done add in the juice of half a lemon a few dashes of werer sauce and a pinch of salt from there you can aggressively add in about A4 cup of vegetable oil upwards to a half a cup if you want a thicker dressing because the

Emulsion is already formed in the Mayo itself you don’t really have to worry about going slow simply make sure that the oil gets Incorporated season this with tons of pepper and tons of parm and you’re good to go The Taste is almost no different than the version that takes

About three times as long to make so it’s definitely worth going this route do the traditional version if you if you want the workout and you want to be able to say that you can do it but both work really well croutons are easy simply dice a couple of slices of country Loaf

And toss them in olive oil for my Caesars I like the pieces to be smaller than most as I want these to be able to fit on a fork I want to actually be able to eat this without having massive shards of Crouton roast these at 425

Fenit for roughly 8 to 10 minutes or until they’re beautifully browned and crunchy once browned I like to set them in a bowl and toss them with salt garlic powder pepper more olive oil in a grating of fresh parm these are stun ly crunchy and much better than anything

You would get in a bag the dressing that we made is enough to coat two large hearts of Roma so chop those into bite-sized pieces I’ve never been a big fan of the wedge style salads that I have to cut at the table so I’ll let you

Choose your own destiny for lettuce size be sure to wash it with cold water and then spin it dry if you’ve got a salad spinner the drier the lettuce the better the dressing is going to cling to it so be sure to dry it even if you don’t have

A solad spinner just use a clean kitchen towel to sort of dab off any of the excess water keep this cold while we C cook the chicken I made the choice to use thin chicken breast for this because it’s a lot harder to properly cook thick chicken breasts on the stove there’s a

Lot more flipping involved in this way we can trust that there’s not going to be any pink in our pieces especially important if you’re new to cooking and not so confident about cooking on the stove people tend to shy away from using stainless steel pans because they worry

About stickage but here’s how you can prevent that let your pan truly preheat you need it to be quite hot so let it sit over medium high for a few minutes you can then turn the heat down to medium once it’s sat there and gotten hot you don’t have to cook the chicken

Over medium high but you want to make sure that the pan is nice and hot when you add in the oil a cautionary word of warning though don’t let your pan get scary hot don’t just like ignore it on the stove that’s how you accidentally end up smoking up your kitchen or Worse

Starting a grease fire the oil should be barely smoking when you put it in the pan and once you do get your chicken in right after it you can see that when I place in my chicken it’s immediately not sticking to the bottom that’s because

The pan was nice and hot when it went in as long as you’re being Mindful and not letting your pan sit over High you should totally be safe here steer this on the first side until it’s well browned and you can see a bit of the pink chicken turning opaque then give it

A flip usually 2 to 2 and 1/2 minutes is good on that first side add in a little more oil if you need it and then cook the side for another 2 to 3 minutes usually for pieces this thin at a medium heat 5 to 6 minutes of cooking is enough

To be sure that they’re no longer pink but also not overcooked continue working through your chicken in batches until it’s beautifully seared and that’s how I like to pan sear a chicken it’s it’s easy it’s delicious and it’s super useful to master let these pieces rest

For a few minutes and I do really think this is important if you’re not used to cooking chicken often or just any protein in general there’s a time after it’s been in the pan that the heat sort of carries over and the juices are really really flowy so we’ve applied all

This heat to the chicken in the pan and all of the juices that are inside the meat are sort of like ready to just sort of flow out what that means is when you cut your chicken it is going to just leave all of the juice on the The

Cutting Board if we wait just like a couple minutes the juices have time to resettle into the chicken fibers and into those protein strands and you’re not going to end up with a ton of juice on the board the juice is going to stay inside the chicken which means when you

Eat it you’re getting a much better flavor a much better texture and a much better mouth feel if you don’t rest your Meats after cooking them I highly recommend implementing it it is going to immediately make your cooking so much better once the chicken rested for a few

Minutes dice them into bite-sized pieces so now it’s time to learn how to properly dress a salad make sure the dressing is in the bowl first and then top it with a lettuce use a clean hand or a pair of tongs to coat every single piece in that beautiful dressing you

Don’t want to see a ton of dressing left in the bowl so sort of underdress it first and you can always add more top it with the croutons the chicken and then I like to shave on some nice pieces of parm here I like to serve it with a

Slice of lemon and a little more Cracked Pepper this is sort of that ideal Caesar salad it’s super super seasoned it’s really Punchy it’s garlicky it’s lemony it’s it’s really salty if you’re not an anchovie person I guarantee I guarantee like I promise you you are not going to

Be overwhelmed by a single anchovy in two hearts of Roma like there’s so much other volume going on here that all you notice is how deliciously seasoned and salty it is sometimes a fork just doesn’t cut it with a salad like this you need a ladle to really shovel it in

It’s been a goal of mind for years now to get substantially better at cooking and if you share a similar resolution join me on this journey I challenge you to make this Caesar salad and tag me on Instagram @ Cameron cooked this so I can share your progress as well as mine if

You found this recipe and the idea of making an Emulsion a little bit too difficult check out last week’s video on French toast where you can learn about custards and really Master the most delicious in luxurious breakfast if you’re looking for something a little bit harder Stick Around And subscribe

Because next week there’s going to be a new recipe at the same time that’s going to be a little bit more challenging for you thank you so so much for watching and a quick shout out to the amazing people supporting me directly on patreon through