Caesar salad holds a special place in my heart. That might sound weird, but eating “real” is all about connecting with your food, isn’t it?
There is something satisfying about eating a giant, goopy Caesar salad. In my first and second years at university, Caesar was my go-to vegetable side dish that doubled as an after-bar snack. I introduced my boyfriend to it; he previously detested any kind of salad. While I know slathering romaine leaves with creamy dressing, adding croutons, and grating parmesan over top isn’t a really healthy meal, I felt it was a good compromise between steamed broccoli and no veggies.
A good compromise, that is, until I got stricter with my vegetarian diet. I never put real bacon bits on my salad, but that didn’t mean my Caesar was animal-friendly: every bottle of Caesar dressing I could find had anchovies in it. In fact, many brands of croutons did, too. Et tu, Bruté?
For several years I went Caesar-less, until I located a small company that made anchovy-free dressing (if you’re in the Toronto area, I do recommend Best Dressed with the blue label). That elating discovery was followed by homemade croutons (cheaper and anchovy-free) and tempeh bacon to replace those slightly disturbing but incredibly realistic “bacon-flavoured” bits I used to put on top.
Over time, we created an entirely homemade, vegetarian, all-natural Caesar salad.
And now I share this recipe for my favourite guilty pleasure with you.
It may look like a lot of work, but you can always make croutons a day ahead. Or, accept the workload, add some all-natural whole wheat bread and a few hard-boiled eggs and call it a meal.
This recipe feeds four regular people, or one Jill and one Mike.
Homemade Caesar salad recipe
Salad parts:
- One head (or heart) Romaine lettuce, leaves torn
- 1 recipe Caesar dressing (below)
- 1 recipe homemade Caesar croutons (below)
- ½ package tempeh bacon* (I’m assuming you could also use cooked natural bacon) cooked until crisp; cooled and chopped
- ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
- Mason jar, to mix dressing
*despite what the website says, my tempeh bacon package doesn’t list maltodextrin as an ingredient. I have: organic soybeans, water, shoyu soy sauce (water, soybeans, wheat, salt, bacterial culture), molasses, maple syrup, natural smoke flavour, autolyzed yeast extract [questionable?], salt, organic apple cider vinegar, bacterial culture.
Dressing recipe
Ingredients:
- About 1/2 cup cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil
- Juice from about 1/2 a lemon
- 1Tbsp. grainy mustard (such as Dijon)
- 3 cloves raw garlic, minced or pressed
- A few capers, minced or pressed through a garlic press (optional but a good vegetarian substitute for anchovies)
- 2 Tbsp. finely shredded parmesan cheese (optional)
- Salt (start with ¼ tsp. and work your way up, to taste. We just shake a shaker a few times.)
- Generous rounds of freshly cracked pepper
Directions
- Add all ingredients to your Mason jar and shake like crazy.
- Sample and adjust ingredients to taste.
- Pour over lettuce and toss well.
Homemade croutons recipe
Ingredients
- 2 thick slices stale whole-wheat bread (this is a great way to use up the heels of preservative-free bread; if you only have a fresh loaf, leave out in the air for a few hours)
- 2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
- About 1 Tbsp. garlic powder
- Generous amounts of freshly ground salt and black pepper
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Cut the bread into crouton-sized pieces (cubes or rectangles, your choice)
- Place the cubes into a large bowl or baking tray.
- Drizzle evenly with the olive oil and sprinkle with garlic powder.
- Toss to coat and repeat step #4.
- Sprinkle generously with salt and freshly cracked black pepper.
- Toss gently with your hands to make sure all surfaces of the bread cubes are covered.
- Spread the cubes out on a baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the cubes are crusty and dried but not burnt.
- Cool before adding to Caesar salad.
[…] The slices in the plastic bag are noticeably drier than the others; it might have been edible up to about day six. The slices in the paper bag dried out fast – after only a few days. This is certainly consistent with my experience forgetting to seal up bread from the market and being forced to turn it into homemade croutons. […]