The Best Caesar Salad Recipe

The crowd-pleasing salad of crisp romaine leaves, crunchy croutons, and a little or a lot of anchovy, as you like.

Why It Works

  • Using the inner romaine lettuce leaves keeps the salad crisp. 
  • Baking croutons with infused garlic oil prevents burnt garlic.
  • An emulsified dressing evenly coats the lettuce for better flavor in each bite.
  • Adding anchovies and Worcestershire sauce to the dressing preserves the modern flavor identity of the salad.

There's a reason that in the 90 years since its invention, the Caesar salad has become the default second salad option at every single major restaurant chain in the country. We all know what it is: chopped romaine lettuce and garlicky croutons, tossed in a creamy dressing made with eggs, olive oil, lemon, Parmesan, Worcestershire sauce, and anchovies. Even when mass-produced, this combination of savory, creamy, tangy, and crunchy ingredients is tasty stuff. But we can do better than those chains in our own kitchens, I hope.

A composed caesar salad in a ceramic bowl on a white stone background.

Serious Eats / Diana Chistruga

The most quotable source on the history and construction of an authentic Caesar salad comes from From Julia Child's Kitchen, published in 1975. In the book, she recounts a 1925 childhood expedition to Tijuana, the supposed birthplace of the salad, which had been created the year before by Caesar Cardini, a San Diego restaurateur who made the trip south of the border to avoid Prohibition-era laws. Yes, the United States' most famous addition to the salad canon actually comes from Mexico.

Julia recounts how "Caesar himself rolled the big cart up to the table, tossed the romaine in a great wooden bowl.... I can see him break two eggs over that romaine and roll them in, the greens going all creamy as the eggs flowed over them." The original, according to Julia, was made with the inner leaves of romaine lettuce—left whole, to be eaten with your fingers—tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, Parmesan cheese, black pepper, garlic, and eggs that have been boiled for exactly one minute. Bear in mind, this is a quote from a 62-year-old woman with a penchant for storytelling recounting a salad she ate when she was 12—I'd take its veracity with a grain of salt and a sprinkle of Parmesan.

Caesar's daughter Rosa, whom Julia interviewed decades after the fact, claims that the salad was created when an unexpectedly busy Fourth of July weekend in 1924 ended with Caesar being forced to make do with only romaine lettuce, eggs, and the condiments he had on hand, tossing the salad tableside to add a bit of cheffy flair.

I do wonder what the restaurant was doing if it had more romaine than anything else. But if traumatic childhood experiences followed by cathartic turns to crime-fighting are the hallmarks of every superhero origin story, then unexpected late-night restaurant guests, oddly stocked pantries, and wildly innovative chef-restaurateurs are the hallmarks of a good food origin story. Both are probably equally mythical.

These days, most Caesar salads are made with an emulsified, premixed, intensely flavored creamy dressing, rather than with the loosely emulsified mix that forms when you attempt Julia's take on Caesar's original recipe. So, my question: Can we combine lessons from the authentic and the modern versions of the salad to come up with something even greater?

(Spoiler alert: Yes.)

Prepping Your Lettuce

This is one part of Julia/Caesar's method that I really dig—using only the ultra-crisp inner leaves of a head of romaine, and keeping the leaves large so that they take a few bites to finish. I remove the outer leaves until I get to the point where there's no flop to the greens at all, then separate the leaves by cutting off the bottom inch of the base. After removing all the free leaves, I cut off another inch to separate the remaining leaves in the center.

Inner, crisp romaine lettuce leaves lined up on a paper towel–lined sheet tray for Caesar salad.

J. Kenji López-Alt

Like leeks and belly buttons, romaine leaves can hide bits of grit or dirt in their inner depths, so even prewashed romaine heads need a good rinse in cold water before serving. In order to maximize their freshness and prevent any bruising, I dry mine on layers of paper towels rather than attempting to spin them in a salad spinner and tear the very largest leaves in half.

Washed and dried loose inner romaine lettuce leaves on paper towels for Caesar salad.

J. Kenji López-Alt

How to Make the Best Garlic Croutons

Making garlic croutons seems super easy—just toss some bread cubes with minced garlic and oil, then bake them until crisp and light brown, right? Yes. Except: Garlic browns faster than bread, so if you do this, you'll end up with bits of dark garlic on otherwise perfect croutons. Here's where a bit of Julia's genius from the original recipe comes into play. Rather than tossing the bread with straight-up garlic, mix the garlic with olive oil, then press it out through a fine-mesh strainer. The olive oil becomes infused with garlic flavor, which then gets transferred to the croutons.

All the garlic, none of the burning. The pressed garlic can then be reused in the dressing, making it a no-waste endeavor.

Golden baked garlic croutons on a sheet pan for Caesar salad.

J. Kenji López-Alt

For added flavor, I also like to toss the bread with some of the Parmesan cheese before toasting. It's a trick that I often employ with pizza, adding some cheese before baking and a fresh sprinkle after the croutons come out of the oven, giving you the nuttiness of cooked Parm with the sharp bite of freshly grated.

A Modern Caesar Salad Dressing

And now we get to the real crux of the authentic-versus-modern question: emulsified dressing or tableside tossing? And, more importantly, do we use anchovies or not?

Frankly, I prefer the modern, emulsified-dressing approach. Lettuce leaves have a waxy, hydrophobic coating, a natural evolutionary adaptation that helps regulate moisture levels inside and outside the plant, even with varying humidity or rainfall. Oil sticks to leaves, but water doesn't. So, with an un-emulsified dressing, the olive oil and bits of egg yolk will stick to your leaves, but the lemon juice and other water-based, liquid elements will fall to the bottom of the bowl.

Emulsified dressings, on the other hand, cling well to all sorts of surfaces, including hydrophobic lettuce leaves. Emulsion + even coating = better flavor in each bite. And I'm perfectly content to remove cheffy flair in the pursuit of better flavor.

When it comes down to it, an emulsified Caesar salad dressing is essentially a flavored mayonnaise. Fortunately for us, because of the large amounts of solid particles it contains in the form of Parmesan and black pepper, it's far easier to emulsify a Caesar dressing than a standard mayonnaise—you'd have no problem doing it with a bowl, a whisk, and a bit of elbow grease. That said, the absolute easiest way to do it is using my Foolproof Two-Minute Mayonnaise technique.

It goes something like this:

1:35

The Food Lab: Homemade Mayonnaise in Two Minutes or Less

The only difference is in the base ingredients. Just as with a regular mayonnaise, you don't want to use extra-virgin olive oil with an electric blender. It causes the olive oil to break down and turn bitter. Instead, use a neutral oil, like canola, to begin the emulsion. Then, when it's stable, whisk in the extra-virgin by hand.

And, speaking of base ingredients, what about those little fishies? Julia asked Rosa Cardini about this as well and got an emphatic no: "No! No anchovies! Caesar never used anything but the best oil, fresh lemons, salt and pepper, a little Worcestershire—that's where those anchovies crept into so many of the recipes."

In support of this no-anchovies claim is this October 8, 1946, menu from a Los Angeles restaurant, the earliest known printed documentation of the Caesar salad. On that menu, listed two salads below the Caesar, you find a "Romaine with Anchovies" salad. If anchovies and romaine were two main ingredients in a Caesar salad, it's unlikely the restaurant would serve another salad so similar.

"Anchovies are essential to the modern idea and current taste memory of a Caesar salad."

Composed caesar salad on a ceramic plate with a copper-colored fork, placed on a wooden table.

Serious Eats / Diana Chistruga

But in this case, I'm going to come out and say it: Anchovies are essential to the modern idea and current taste memory of a Caesar salad. Caesar dressing without anchovies tastes too flat, too one-dimensional, even if you use great Parmesan. I like to use a full half dozen anchovies in a batch, but even a couple will bring the necessary savory depth to the dish.

To toss the salad, the key is to use a really large bowl and to toss by hand, so that those nice big leaves you picked and washed don't get bruised or broken in the process. As Julia described it, Caesar would scoop the leaves and make them "turn like a large wave breaking toward him." It's a good image to keep in mind while tossing.

Finally, a post-toss sprinkle of freshly grated Parmesan doesn't hurt.

I don't know how Caesar Cardini or Julia Child would react to this bastardized-but-still-slightly-faithful version of their* salad, but I have no doubt that they'd both lick their plates clean before coming down with any judgment.

*Almost all traditional Caesar salad recipes that you'll see around these days are based on Julia Child's interpretation, so this dish owes as much to Child as it does to Cardini.

October 2013

Recipe Details

The Best Caesar Salad Recipe

Prep 5 mins
Cook 20 mins
Active 20 mins
Total 25 mins
Serves 4 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons plus 1/4 cup (105ml) extra-virgin olive oil, divided

  • 2 medium cloves garlic, minced (about 2 teaspoons)

  • 3 cups hearty bread, cut into 3/4-inch cubes

  • 2 ounces finely grated Parmesan cheese (about 1 cup), divided

  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

  • 1 large egg yolk (see note)

  • 1 tablespoon (15ml) juice from 1 lemon

  • 2 to 6 anchovies (see note)

  • 1 teaspoon (5ml) Worcestershire sauce (see note)

  • 1/3 cup (80ml) canola oil

  • 2 heads romaine lettuce, inner leaves only, washed and carefully dried, large leaves torn into smaller pieces, smaller leaves left intact

Directions

  1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). In a small bowl, combine 3 tablespoons (45ml) olive oil with minced garlic and whisk for 30 seconds. Transfer to a fine-mesh strainer set over a large bowl and press with the back of a spoon to extract as much oil as possible, leaving garlic behind. Reserve pressed garlic separately. Add bread cubes to garlic oil and toss to coat.

    A collage showing chopped garlic being steeped in olive oil, trained, and then added to cubes of brad.

    Serious Eats / Diana Chistruga

  2. Add 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, toss again, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until croutons are pale golden brown and crisp, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and toss with 2 more tablespoons Parmesan. Allow to cool.

    A collage showing the garlic bread cubes being tossed with cheese, baked on a sheet pan until golden, and then tossed again with more cheese.

    Serious Eats / Diana Chistruga

  3. While croutons bake, make the dressing. Combine egg yolk, lemon juice, anchovies, Worcestershire sauce, pressed garlic, and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese in the bottom of a cup that just fits the head of an immersion blender or in the bottom of a food processor. With blender or processor running, slowly drizzle in canola oil until a smooth emulsion forms. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl. Whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in remaining 1/4 cup (60ml) extra-virgin olive oil. Season to taste generously with salt and pepper.

    A collage showing ingredients being blended using an immersion blender in order to create the dressing, and then additional olive oil being whisked in, with salt and pepper being added as a final step.

    Serious Eats / Diana Chistruga

  4. To serve, toss lettuce with a few tablespoons of dressing, adding more if desired. Once lettuce is coated, add half of remaining cheese and three-quarters of croutons and toss again. Transfer to a salad bowl and sprinkle with remaining cheese and croutons. Serve.

    A collage showing romaine lettuce leaves with dressing, cheese, and croutons being added, and lastly the composed salat served in a ceramic bowl.

    Serious Eats / Diana Chistruga

Special Equipment

Immersion blender or food processor, fine-mesh strainer, rimmed baking sheet

Notes

If you're concerned about the safety of using raw egg in this recipe (while pregnant, or just in general), you can either purchase already-pasteurized eggs, or pasteurize yours at home using a sous vide circulator set at 135°F (57°C) for two hours.

The amounts of Worcestershire sauce and anchovies used can be varied according to taste. This recipe will make more dressing than you need for four servings. Extra dressing can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
554 Calories
44g Fat
28g Carbs
15g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4
Amount per serving
Calories 554
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 44g 56%
Saturated Fat 9g 43%
Cholesterol 114mg 38%
Sodium 868mg 38%
Total Carbohydrate 28g 10%
Dietary Fiber 7g 24%
Total Sugars 5g
Protein 15g
Vitamin C 12mg 61%
Calcium 346mg 27%
Iron 5mg 25%
Potassium 814mg 17%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)