The story behind Caesar salad
35 comments
·July 4, 2025armadsen
It’s worth having the original at Caesar’s in Tijuana. Absolutely delicious.
ThrowOregonAway
Hint - it existed long before they claim it did. I have found similar recipes for dressing going back hundreds of years.
Also what's with the lazy restauranteurs allowing their employees to serve lettuce without even chopping it? That's a deal breaker for me, if I am expected to chop the lettuce myself I'm ordering tap water only and no food and never ever EVER going back lol.
tptacek
A classic Caesar uses whole leaves; the dish was originally meant to be eaten with hands. You can have whatever preferences you like, but I don't think the attitude you're expressing it with is helpful.
testfrequency
Same energy as complaining their pizza and steak isn’t cut for them.
itronitron
Some people are hungry so they want it cut into more slices.
aezart
The first chicken Caesar salad I ever had was, I believe, at Metro Grill during the summer of 2006. I was not (and still am not) much of a salad fan, but that was the salad that made me say "maybe I can learn to like salad."
throwawee
Good salad is delicious. I think more people would realize that if they weren't exposed to nothing but iceberg, cheddar, and ranch monstrosities during childhood.
noduerme
Standing up here for iceberg, I think a proper wedge with blue cheese and bacon is delicious. The crispness is refreshing. Not as nutritional as other salads, but sure goes well with a steak and a martini.
tptacek
I took that comment to refer to "iceberg, cheeese, and ranch" as a unit. Iceberg is great, the official lettuce of the greatest sandwich in the world.
Angostura
The one I make - no idea if it is authentic, but the family gobble it up https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chicken-caesar-salad
dofubej
I think it’s worth it making your own dressing.
burstoflight
Oddly related :)
jiggawatts
This reminds me of a surprisingly good buffet lunch at a tourist spot in New Zealand's south island where the chef would prepare the Caesar salad right in front of you. You could pick and choose your ingredients, which was nice, but the really unique approach was that the chef mixed the salad in a "bowl" cut into a wheel of Parmesan cheese. This thoroughly coated every leaf with cheesy goodness. Best salad I've ever had in my life!
werdnapk
Once I started making my own Caesar salad dressing at home, Caesar salads for me at home went from meh to unbelievable... basically what you'd get at a nice restaurant. So make your own dressing and never buy the bottled stuff... it's so worth it.
I also add fresh cooked bacon (NEVER bacon bits) and capers.
randycupertino
I'll pop my all-time best Caesar dressing recipe here, from cajun Chef Jack Chaplin (RIP): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT7qYaMgMtA
Yours sounds great with bacon and capers btw!
tptacek
That is a wild amount of raw garlic to add to a salad.
randycupertino
I also can't believe how he chops it up with the fork. That was giving me so much anxiety. Use a garlic press, chef!!
Bluestein
Anchovies also a fav :)
brookst
True for dressings in general.
A simple vinaigrette with great olive oil, great vinegar, some crushed garlic and a bit of salt is better than the best possible bottled dressing.
tptacek
I was last-week weeks old when I learned the cool America's Test Kitchen trick for vinaigrettes, which is to make them with a combination of extra virgin and neutral oil so they don't set up (and thus break) in the the fridge. Also: a good reason to get a 3-pack of cheap Oxo squeeze bottles; shake to re-emulsify. Vinaigrette is one of the most useful condiments there is.
yahoozoo
Got a recipe you can provide?
tptacek
In a 16oz deli (or a measuring cup):
A yolk, a tsp of dijon, pepper, little salt, juice half a lemon, couple dashes of Worcestershire, couple anchovy filets, half a garlic clove.
Blend homogenous with a stick blender. Then slowly blend in a stream of neutral oil; get it to mayonnaise consistency. Taste and adjust (probably wants pepper). Then: back it out to dressing consistency with water (or lemon juice) a tsp at a time. [†]
Knobs (do any/all/none): grate pecorino or parm, just a bit, into the dressing in the first stage. Double, triple, or quadruple the anchovies. Add some white wine vinegar along with the lemon juice. Microplane the garlic (careful, will really amp the garlic). Before thinning back to dressing consistency with water, add some extra virgin. Pinch of MSG.
If you're being hardcore (ie date night), before you start the dressing, fill a ziploc with ice and put it in your salad bowl, and put your serving bowls in the freezer. Also hardcore: use half as much garlic, and make up the difference with 2x as much garlic confit.
Don't do the thing where you build the dressing on the salad (like, cracking an egg into the bowl or whatever). It's a parlor trick, not a way to dial in the ideal Caesar. Also don't bother with the "rub the garlic into the salad bowl" thing; just makes it harder to dose the garlic.
Extra tip: freshly roasted brussels sprouts love Caesar dressing. (Roasted brussels sprouts love any bright high-fat sauce; Caesar is just the platonic ideal.)
Keeps about a week in the fridge, but each time you use it, refresh the acid (just a splash or lemon juice or vinegar).
(I make a lot of Caesars).
Take a step back and see a Caesar as an anchovy vinaigrette, and then you can immediately vary it to different settings --- lime instead of lemon, add some chile (or aji amarillo), tortilla instead of croutons, fresca instead of parm.
[†] You can also just blend neutral oil in until you get the dressing consistency you want; theoretically you'll get a better texture and a little more flavor concentration this way, but I think the win is marginal vs. being able to knock this dressing out mechanically without thinking hard about it, and you can just dial up the flavors a bit beforehand if you're worried.
itronitron
I'll have to try that out. My current version substitutes mayonnaise in place of the yolk and oil, and just mixes it with lemon juice, dijon, garlic powder, and pepper.
noduerme
Do you shock the lettuce in icewater?
Bluestein
This is not a recipe. It's a masterclass!
yahoozoo
Cheers!
yahoozoo
I love Caesar salads. Surprisingly, one of the best ones I have found is at Carrabba’s.
randycupertino
Are you in the Bay Area? Nicks in Pacifica makes an incredible caesar with anchovies and garlic croutons.
Obscurity4340
Anchovy-less "caesar" vinaigrettes and marinades are far better than any fish-ful caesar dressing
tptacek
You can dial back (or away) anchovies and dial up Worcestershire, but Worcestershire is just British fish sauce. There's a long-running message board thing about whether anchovies are "authentic" to the original Caesar; for me, anchovies are basically the point of a Caesar (not whole filets on top of the leaves, just blitzed into the dressing).
Obscurity4340
What tradition is that though, like when you omit the fish content?
Ive had good salad dressings like this where they actually list worschestchire sauce and then in the parenthetical ingredients to that it doesnt have any anchovy or fish given and also not in the usualy summation of various allergenic food categories. I just worry its hidden in the Natural Flavor bullcrap
It casts the same spell as pizza. You'd have a hard time finding someone who doesn't really enjoy it. It even works on people who don't generally like salads.