From shake-able salad jars (thanks, McDonald’s) to dry low-carb wraps, Caesar salad has seen its fair share of unnecessary recipe development.
Why mess with a good thing, you may ask? The salad itself is rich in umami, but ultimately very simple. It is, admittedly, an easy place to innovate. Add a protein, jazz up the dressing with a few secret ingredients, and you’ve got a whole new dish.
The problem with many of the aforementioned developments, then, is not the idea of playing with Caesar, it is in the execution. One must think more about the best part of the salad — the rich, tangy, anchovy-filled dressing — and not the less interesting elements — romaine, croutons — when fiddling with the dish.
In other words, ignore the salad part.
The base of a good Caesar dressing is eggs, olive oil, Parmesan, and anchovies (or Worcestershire sauce, if you’re talking about the original recipe). These ingredients are, as it turns out, not dissimilar from the base for a good carbonara sauce. Following that logic, Caesar dressing should make for an excellent pasta sauce, as long as you choose your dressing wisely. Stick to the refrigerated dressing section of the grocery store and make sure to choose a dressing, like Marzetti Simply Dressed, that includes ingredients like extra-virgin olive oil and Parmesan cheese.
From there, your dish is simple. Pasta, plus dressing, plus the lettuce — add some flavor and textural interest by charring it first — and toasted breadcrumbs instead of croutons. Large shavings of Parmesan bring aesthetics to the plated dish, as well as bursts of savoriness. If you’re an anchovy fan, add as many fillets as you’d like. I recommend at least eight of them, if not an entire tin. Toss the whole dish together tableside.
Whatever you do, don’t wrap it in a tortilla.
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