The Original Caesar Salad (Tijuana) vs My Caesar | Best Caesar?

The Original Caesar Salad (Tijuana) vs my Caesar… two dressings, two builds, one final verdict on the best Caesar salad and which one makes the death-row cut. ↓

*CHAPTERS*
00:00 OG Caesar Salad History
00:57 OG Recipe: Caesar Cardini, Tijuana tableside origin
01:13 OG mise: garlic, anchovies
01:42 Crouton prep
02:42 OG dressing build: yolk, garlic, lemon, Worcestershire, olive oil
06:30 JZ’s Recipe – “Panko Crunch”
11:36 JZ’s dressing build: mayo, cotija, mustard, serrano tatemado, lime juice
13:40 Toss & Plate the Original
14:30 JZ’s salad build + ingredients
17:31 Side-by-side plate
17:46 Taste test w/ Jennifer: texture, salt, acid, umami, spice
19:02 Final verdict + which makes the death-row cut
19:26 Thoughts and recipe CTA

*📝 RECIPES:*
(When the blog posts go live, I’ll add recipe link)
YIELD: 2 SALADS

*OG CEASAR*
30g lime juice
25g Parmesan cheese, finely ground
12g dijon mustard
10g anchovies, minced and kept in oil
8g garlic, minced and kept in oil
6g Worcestershire sauce
20g egg yolk
45g oil (half neutral/half olive oil)
9 turns from a pepper mill
5 (100g) romaine lettuce leaves, whole

In an appropriately sized bowl, combine the dijon, Worcestershire, Parmesan, garlic, anchovies, lime juice, pepper, egg yolk, and whisk well to incorporate. Slowly drizzle oil into the bowl while whisking until emulsified. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Toss the romaine leaves into the bowl and gently toss to coat in the dressing. Plate and top with two croutons, drizzle leftover dressing on top and sprinkle some extra Parmesan on the salad.

Croutons
4 half inch rounds of good french bread
Olive oil
Kosher salt
Fresh cracked black pepper

Preheat an oven to 400F (204.4C). Place on a sheet tray fitted with a rack. Place in the oven. Bake bread for around 15 mins or until golden brown but still tender in the middle. Remove and brush with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and reserve.

*JZ CAESAR*
Boquerones en vinagreta
Parmesan cheese
Romaine lettuce leaves whole
Diamond Crystal kosher salt

PANKO CRUNCH
YIELD: 1 PT

30g unsalted butter
8g garlic, smashed
1g fresh thyme, tied with butcher’s twine
63g panko breadcrumbs
2g Diamond Crystal kosher salt

In an appropriately sized pan, heat the butter until just starting to melt. Add the thyme and garlic and continue heating while stirring until the butter starts to foam but not brown. Add the panko into the pan and cook while stirring until they are golden brown. Transfer to a bowl lined with paper towels, remove garlic and season with the salt.

70g pumpkin seeds, toasted and chopped into very small pieces
20g fried shallots
10g Korean chile flakes
3g Diamond Crystal kosher salt

Combine everything into a bowl (including the toasted panko) and whisk to combine well. Store in an airtight container for 5 days max.

JZ’s CESAR DRESSING
YIELD:1.25 QTS

315g mayonnaise
135g lime juice
90g cotija cheese, grated
75g garlic, peeled
45g worcestershire sauce
45g water
20g Serrano chile, tatemado
15g dijon mustard
6g Diamond Crystal kosher salt
230g neutral oil

Combine everything in a blender except the oil and puree on high, slowly stream in the oil until thickened. Taste and adjust seasoning with additional salt if needed.

FINISHING THE SALAD
In an appropriately sized mixing bowl, add some dressing to the bottom of the bowl and add the romaine leaves, season with salt and toss to dress the lettuce to your liking. Place each leaf and top with the panko crunch liberally. Continue until you are done. Place some boquerones onto the salad and grate with parmesan. Crack some pepper over it to finish. Serve.

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#CaesarSalad #OriginalCaesar #SaladDressing

Before we get into this, I wanted to clear a couple things up. The salad we’re making today was not born in Italy. It was not named after Julius. It was actually created by an Italian immigrant in 1920 Tijuana named Caesar Cardini. Now, Caesar was running a restaurant named after himself on the now famous Aanita Revolution, catering to Hollywood types who just wanted a booze and a bite during Prohibition. That story is known, but like most dishes, it gets a little confusing sometimes. What a lot of people don’t know about this recipe is that Caesar’s brother, Alex, was the one that refined the salad, and it’s more close to the one that we know today. Today, we’re making two versions of it. We’re making the OG to honor that border town brilliance that we know and love, but we’re also making my version, which is going to take the classic and kind of twist it a little bit. So, enough of me talking. Let’s get into that recipe. Thanks for being here. All right, the classic Caesar is one of my favorites. I first had it when I was like 25. I went down to Tijuana and yeah, I had it at Caesar’s. They come by tableside and they prep it in front of you. And like a very observant cook, I noticed a couple of things that they did that I see a lot of versions out there that claim to be the original, but this is pretty close to like what they do at Caesars. It comes down to two ingredients, which are the garlic and the anchovies. At Caesars, at least currently, they do minced garlic covered in a little bit of oil and it kind of mutes the flavor a little bit, kind of softens it. And also the anchovies are also done in oil. So again, these are two little moves that I see and I saw that I think we seesaw. We seesaw. We seed and we saw it. We seed it and then we saw it. I don’t know how else to explain it. Got the labra. You know what I’m saying? Okay, here we go. The thing that takes the longest is the crouton. So I have like uh just like a French bag French baguette. Okay. All right. All right. So, we’re just going to get little little guys like that. End piece. You want this end? Is this for you? Take a bite. Take a bite. Take a bite. Ma. Mja. Manga. Is it good? It’s the best. It’s the best. All right. We’re just cutting bread. Okay. We’re making croutons. And it’s nothing fancy. We’re just going to throw these in a 400°ree oven until they’re done. Look at these. They’re still tender. Sorry, I messed that one up. 10 minutes at 400°. But real quick, we’re going to brush these with a little bit of olive oil. So, we’re just going to take a little bit of olive oil and brush them for some fat. I’m using extra virgin olive oil. If you want to split base it with like a canola or any other kind of neutral oil, more than welcome to little salt and some pepper. Now, they don’t do this at Caesars, but this is not Caesars. This is my house. Okay, so we are going to make the OG, the original gangster of dressings. Okay, so I see a lot of people using lemons out there. It’s not a lemon. It’s a lime. Okay? It’s Mexican. So, no lemon in your Caesar salad. Also, no chicken in your Caesar salad. I’m going to say that right now. Chicken Caesar wrap. Fine. But chicken Caesar salad. Absolutely not. I’m sorry. But guys, no chicken in your Caesar salad. If it’s in a wrap, also that’s a cold burrito. Let’s call it what it is. And if you’re making a wrap, make sure you’re heating up your tortilla, right? I’m sorry for getting political out here. Okay, let’s make the OG. Okay, so we’re going to go in with some mustard. That looks good. A little bit of learins. That looks good. The recipe is going to be down below for all the exact measurements. I did that for you guys. Right now, I’m vibing by the heart. Okay. And they do like a little parm in there like that. And they do the garlic that is cured in oil. This is just neutral oil. I’m using safflower oil in there. Okay. Garlic goes in. Not too much. You don’t want it too garlicky. All right. and the anchovies. All right. Some people don’t like them. I get it. But they’re delicious. Okay. To this, we’re going to squeeze in some lime juice. Going with some lime juice. And I’m going to go with some pepper. Nine turns cuz nine is my lucky number. All right. I’m going to be a hero. I’m going to try to do their little French service move with the egg. I’m going to I know I’m going to mess this up. I can already feel it. But they dude, the guy makes it look so cool. So he does this little move where he’s like kind of takes this and he gets out the end. Oh my god. This might not work. Oh, is it going to work? Dude, it’s happening. It’s actually happening. What is going on? If you don’t want to do this move. There it is. You don’t want to put your egg first cuz if you put the all the salty stuff in there, like the lime, your egg will cure and it’ll scramble kind of thing. Get a little towel under there. All right. And we have some neutral oil mixed with some uh olive oil, split base here. Okay. I’ll have a recipe in the recipe down below. That makes sense. No. Right. So, if you don’t want to be a hero like I’m doing, this is what they do with two spoons. You can kind of mix it up and little drizzles. Little drizzles. Little drizzles from high. Okay. So, your stream’s a little bit lower. You can use a whisk. All right. If you want to switch out for a whisk and do one of these numbers like this, you’re more than welcome to. So, look, you can do this. [Music] But they do it because they serve with the little they serve with the the two spoons and I love that. So, we’re going to keep being heroes. And I’m telling you, I’ve had multiple different versions. Some more anchovi, some more garlic. There it changes whoever’s making it. Um, and it’s in the under the same roof, which is crazy. Tree, you’ve had it, right? Do you like it? It’s delicious, right? And what do they ask you? How many leaves do you want? Do you want three or five? Five. Right. It’s always a five. Okay. Look at this. What do you think? Looking good. Good. Needs a touch more lime. Just a touch. Taste as you go. All right. That much more lime. Done. And I’m going to add a little bit more palm. Like there. Okay. It just needs a little bit more sharpness. It’s a little flat for me. Here we go. A little bit more. We’re almost there. That looks great right there. I’m going to call it. Okay. No more. It’s done. Perfect. Delicious. Okay. So, for my version of the Caesar salad, we’re going to make something called a panko crunch. So, what we’re doing here is basically combining all these ingredients, which are butter, some panko, some fried shallots, some garlic, some Korean chili flake, salt, herbs from my garden. Any hearter will do. This has um thyme and oregano in this little bundle. And then we have some pepas that I’ve toasted and chopped. So, that’s going to be our crouton in this salad. A little bit different, but trust me, it’s going to coat that lettuce and make it so delicious, so amazing. So, we’re going to turn on a pan here that’ll be over, I don’t know, medium heat, something like that. We’re going to add some butter to this pan. And for the garlic, I like to take it and smash mine like that. There it is. And we’re going to get this into the butter along with our herb bundle. And that’s just going to kind of flavor and cook and get delicious. And this is what our panko is going to go into. All right. Once that butter starts kind of foaming and slightly browning, you’re going to add your panko in. All right, you’re adding your panko in. And the reason I do this is like I think like I thought of the salad a couple years back. I was consulting for a restaurant here in Chicago. It’s not open anymore, but they wanted a salad. They wanted a Caesar. And everyone has a Caesar, you know what I mean? For good reason, cuz it’s a good ass salad. But I just wanted to do something different. So I kind of like played around with the idea of a crouton. I was trying to figure it out. And I really like like Korean and Asian flavors in there. And I think they lend themselves to Mexican food cuz there’s a lot of parallels in there. I mean, if you guys saw my cocktail cabon video, there’s fish sauce in there. My cooking leans a little bit more um kind of Southeast Asian. I love it. It’s very inspirational to me. But anyway, yeah, this dressing was very much inspired by, you know, the panko, the Korean chili flake, and the fried shallot. It’s so delicious, man. All right, look. This is looking great. It’s getting nice and toasty. It’s smelling like garlic bread. For real. For real. For real. Look at this. Smells so good. So, the name of the game here is just to get these nice and toasted. All right. I can see there’s a little bit of browning happening. Okay. It’s looking looking good. Smelling good. Feeling great. All right. Now, look. We’re going to season as we go. Okay. This is again, this is our crouton. We want to make sure it’s nice and seasoned. All right. There you go. Look at this. Golden brown. All right. Now, this is going to carry over cook. I’m shutting it off right here at this point. Done. So, I have a sheet tray lined with a paper towel to kind of soak up that extra moisture and and fat. All right. And I like doing it on a sheet tray so it doesn’t steam. Okay. We want crispy panko. Look at this. Can we see this? You can let this cool. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to fish out all the garlic and the herbs. Um, you can kind of give it the, you know, if you’re into that stuff, add a taste. Oh, yes. Now is we’re going to fish out all the garlic. I smashed too hard on the garlic. I’m not going to lie to you, okay? I just like Hulk smashed that and now I’m dealing with the consequences. There’s a lesson here, okay? I smashed too hard. I have to pick out more garlic. All right? So, be better than me. So, look, our panko is looking good. It’s smelling good. It looks incredible. Okay. Now, you can transfer this to a bowl and mix it all, but I’m going to risk it to biscuit. And I’m going to go like this. Just going to give it a little Oh, again. Get it all. Get it all. All right. There we go. Okay. So, here, just shuffle it out. And then, so we have here some fried shallot. Okay. This is amazing. Wonderful fried shallot. I picked this up at a local store here in Chicago called Jungu. One of my favorites. If you know, you know. So, we’re dumping that right in. And then I have some pepas that I toasted uh until golden brown and they are unseasoned. They don’t have salt. Okay, we’re going to add more salt to this. So, salt police, let your boy live a little bit. Obviously, not long cuz I like salt. But we’re dumping that in. That goes in. All right, cool. Let’s talk about the chili flake we’re using. I’m using Korean chili flake or kukaru in here because I like the flavor. I like that it’s a little smoky. It’s got like fruit notes in there. I can add a lot of it without getting too spicy because again this is I don’t want this to be a spicy salad. I want it to be flavorful because the dressing has a roasted serrano in it. So we got to be careful with spice levels. Okay. So the cheetah of choice is Korean chili flake that’s going in. And then we’re going to do some salt by the way. We’re going to season this. Okay. Beautifully seasoned. All right. Look at these colors. This is the panko crunch. This is the crouton. And it’s literally going to give your salad the effect of like every single leaf has like an extra crunch to it. It’s awesome. Honestly, guys, we’re just vibing, you know. Look at this. There are no rules, okay? Every time it’s different, you know? I give you guys recipes. You guys do your own thing with them. And yeah, that’s the sweet spot. Look at this. Man, this smells so good. All right, I’m going to try a little bit. M. Holy cow. That is good. All right, on to the dressing. Let’s go. So, for my dressing, I’m pulling a lot of the elements from the OG, but just kind of putting a little spin on them. First up, it’s a mayo base. All right, we’re making our lives easier. It allows us to play with flavors more. All right, we have some raw garlic going in. And then we have some queso kota for that aged funk, right? Palm is great, too. Worisher sauce. Such a hard word to say. And we got a little bit of don mustard. Little bit of water to get things moving. And then some salt as our seasoning. There we go. Salt goes in. All right. And here it is. The srano tatamado. You guys have known this technique from my salsa video. We just dry roasted this on a cast iron until it was blackened and tender. That’s going in. It’s going to be a little bit spicy. Okay. I’m going to get this blending. Start. There you go. There we go. So, I’m going to add the lime juice in now while it’s moving. There we go. Go. That’s going. And we’re going to drizzle in our oil. All right, that looks good. Taste this guy. Caesar spicy Caesar dressing in so little time. Caesar dressing done. It’s time to build salads. Okay, now lettuce. It has to be romaine. And honestly, these are a little too dark green for the recipe, but this is all I can find in my store. You really want this color, this pale green here, kind of all the way up. All right. I don’t know what it is, but they’re more spears, right? They’re more sharp. That’s what I like. They pick them out and it’s a bigger It’s a bigger head of Roma. They get the these were just small. We’re in Chicago. I don’t know what to tell you. We’re going to make the OG and then we’re going to make mine. So, for this one, you’re going to drop some leaves into here. All right. There you go. You said five, right? Mhm. I did six on accident. No. Well, one of them’s going to be mine. I got to taste it. This is looking great. And then you want to flip your leaves. Make sure you’re getting the inside of it, too. being gentle as possible. There you go. And then give them a nice little rotation. Rotation. Rotation. There we go. [Music] So, there. And then on with the crouton. I think they only do two there, right? Look. And I had one of the guys do this. You know, you worked hard for this, guys. You worked hard for it. Look at that. Get all of that. Okay, you’re going to go in with some extra like this. Done. All right. Caesar done. Done. Done. Done. All right, guys. It’s time to make my version of a Caesar salad. Not saying it is better. It’s just different. Little take on it. Okay. Same lettuce. We’re using the dressing, the spicy srano dressing that we did here. It’s amazing. Honestly, if you put this on elotees and made elotees with this, it would be incredible. And then we have our panko crunch, right? We have that beautiful panko toasted in butter with some shallot, some beepas here. It’s a numami bomb. It’s amazing. Uh parm. All right, we’re not going too far off the beaten path here. And last but not least, if you’re asking yourself where the anchovies come from, we’re using bokeeron and ginagreta. So these are from the Contabrian Sea. They’re in a vinegar. They’re really bright and they’re going to top our salad and just give us a nice, beautiful texture. So good. All right, let’s get mixing. So, to the bowl, I’m going to add like this much dressing. And this dressing is honestly more like an American Caesar, like the one that you see in the grocery aisle, but it’s amazing. Don’t let the looks fool you. It is like spicy. It’s rich. It’s amazing. Now, we’re going to go in with some of our leaves. I’m going to add a little bit of just a touch of salt. Not a lot. And we’re going to mix them and move them. There we go. And at the restaurant I used to have, we used to do sliced radish and pickled fennel. It doesn’t need it, but it it is nice. It’s a nice textural contrast. If you want to do that at home, definitely do it. But this dressing and the panko came together so quickly. And this one is amazing. You can keep it for a while and just like dress salads. You can bread in it, too. All right. This looks like a nice amount of dressing for these leaves here. What do you think, Tree? Maybe a touch. I see some I see some bald spots up there. But that’s it. That’s it. I’m done. All right. Now, I’m going to plate. Same thing here. We’re going to go there. But with everyone, check this out. With everyone, we’re going a little bit of panko crunch. All right. In. Panko crunch goes down. You’re just building this like textural landscape here, guys. Look at that. We’re going to pop open our pokeonus. Look at these guys. Beautiful. Oh, look at these things. They’re incredible. So, I go a little bit of these. And you can tuck them in between like so in between the leaves. Okay. For some surprises down below like this. Okay, I think that’s enough. And I’m going to get a chef’s treat in here cuz these are honestly [Music] they are bright umami packed. Give me these on some pande tomate. You know, you know what I’m saying? So, I’m going to go a little bit more panko just around that. And then I like like big pieces of parm like this. Kind of giving one of these numbers. What do you think? You ready to eat? I’m ready. Oh, yeah. Do we eat with our hands? You like fork a knife? I go with hands. What do you want to start with? Um, this one. The OG. Yeah. We should do a little parm on top on this on the lettuce. A little a little Cheers. Mhm. That’s perfect. It’s a perfect Caesar. Mhm. It tastes just like it. It’s so good. It’s like acidic and bright, you know, and fresh. Mhm. I could eat two of these. Aren’t you glad I threw an extra leaf in there? Mhm. The crouton’s cool. The top part is like crispy and Yeah. And the middle’s soft. I love it. You like it? I love it. Incredible. You know, this is made in 1920. Made by an Italian in Mexico. Ready? That sounds like the best. It’s the best combo for me. That’s our favorite. We have an olive beneath us. Olive, you want salad? Hi, Ollie. Ollie Jean, I love you. Good girl. Okay. Okay. Okay. Should I do the same thing here? Pick up with my fingers. Oh, yeah. For sure. Are you going to get a bokeet? I’m going to try without it first. Oh, no. No, no, no. You have to get the bites. Okay. Do you put it in there like a little sandwich? You made a taco. I know. Old habits. Oh, dang. Dude, that is the move. It’s giving, you know, it’s got that nutty flavor. It’s spicy. It’s also still bright. Like you got like a high sharp spice. Yeah. It’s not too spicy, though. They’re both great. Mhm. Which one are you picking? Death row meal. Which one is Oh, death row meal. Yeah. I guess this one. No, but hang on. We can give you the guys making this for you at Caesars’s. Okay. Then this one, right? Mhm. The OG is. Yeah. You’re going to give me a whole experience. Yeah. I love the OG. This is an ode to it. My expression, creative expression. But that’s what food is, guys. Good, right? Mhm. This is addictive. Yeah, it’s really good. All right, that was Caesar versus Caesar. I hope you guys like this video. If you liked it, give it a thumbs up. Subscribe if you can. Helps us out a lot. Go see me on Instagram over there. Tik Tok if you want. But drop down in the comments. Let me know how you like this and let us know what you want to see next. We will see you on the next one. Bye. Peace. [Music]