Classic Caesar Salad
on Jul 03, 2024, Updated Jun 17, 2025
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This is the perfect Caesar salad recipe: cheesy, crunchy, with a thick creamy dressing, just like the one you would order in a restaurant, but so easy to make.
The perfect Caesar salad is made with crunchy romaine lettuce, a Parmesan-spiked creamy, flavorful dressing, and crisp, chewy croutons. This recipe includes one of the best Caesar salad dressings I have ever had, rivaling the ones you might love at a favorite restaurant, with no raw eggs involved whatsoever!
A classic Caesar Salad goes with almost any dinner menu. Try it with Crispy Baked Eggplant Parmesan, grilled Balsamic Skirt Steak, or Pan-Fried Pork Chops. You might also want to try a Caesar Chicken Wrap or Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad.
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You can top this Caesar salad with some sliced chicken, a piece of grilled salmon or tuna steak, or some poached or grilled shrimp for a restaurant-ey entrée.
What's In This Post?
This is the perfect Caesar salad recipe, wihtout any raw eggs: cheesy, crunchy, with a creamy dressing, just like the one you would order in a restaurant, but so easy to make.
A Genius Raw Egg Substitution for Caesar Salad
Raw eggs are not an issue in this Caesar salad recipe, which takes its lead from an ingenious Caesar dressing created by Brooklyn restaurateur Frank Falcinelli. It relies on mayonnaise, which has cooked eggs built right in, and provides the creaminess and emulsification that egg yolks provide. Brilliant.
Caesar Salad Ingredients
For the Croutons
- Day-old bread – Slightly stale bread is best for making croutons.
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Garlic – Very finely minced.
For the Caesar Dressing
- Mayonnaise – Adds the creaminess and eliminates the need for a raw egg in the dressing.
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Lemon juice – Using fresh makes a huge difference.
- Anchovy – Don’t skip this unless there are allergies or true aversions.
- Garlic – Mince it as finely as possible so it blends right into the dressing.
For the Salad
- Romaine lettuce – Caesar salad almost always has romaine lettuce as its base, and I usually use hearts of romaine for extra crunch.
- Parmesan cheese – If you can grate it freshly yourself, all the better – I also love using a vegetable peeler to shave off little thin shards to toss with the salad.
How to Make Caesar Salad
- Make the croutons: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix together olive oil, garlic, and salt in a small bowl, then drizzle over the bread cubes on a baking sheet and toss to coat the bread. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, until the bread is golden and toasted.
- Make the dressing: In a blender or food processor, combine mayonnaise, olive oil, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, anchovies (if using), salt, pepper, garlic, and water and process until blended (or just shake everything up in a tightly sealed jar).
- Build the salad: Tear or thinly slice the romaine hearts and place them in a large serving bowl. Drizzle over about 2/3 of the dressing and toss to combine. Sprinkle over the cheese and toss again. Add more dressing as needed, but don’t drown it. Top the salad with croutons, if using, before serving.
What to Serve With Caesar Salad
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Classic Caesar Salad
Ingredients
For the Croutons (Optional)
- 2 cups day-old cubes of firm white bread (about 3/4-inch)
- ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 garlic clove (pressed through a garlic press or very, very finely minced into a paste)
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
For the Caesar Dressing
- ¼ cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (depending on how lemony you like it)
- ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 anchovy rinsed and very finely minced (or 1/2 teaspoon anchovy paste; plus optional additional whole anchovies for topping individual portions)
- 1 garlic clove (pressed through a garlic press or very, very finely minced into a paste)
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt (or to taste)
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon water
For the Salad
- 4 hearts of romaine lettuce (or 2 full heads; rinsed and dried)
- ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Make the Croutons, if using: preheat the oven to 350 F. Spread the bread cubes on a baking sheet with sides. Mix together the olive oil, garlic, and salt in a small bowl, then drizzle over the bread cubes, and toss to coat the bread. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, until the bread is golden and toasted.
- Make the Dressing: In a blender or food processor, add the mayonnaise, olive oil, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, anchovies (if using), garlic, salt, pepper, and water and process until blended (or just shake everything up in a tightly sealed jar).
- Make the Caesar Salad: Tear or thinly slice the romaine hearts and place in a large serving bowl (you should have about 8 cups). Drizzle over about 2/3 of the dressing and toss to combine. Sprinkle over the cheese and toss again until everything is evenly mixed. Add more dressing as needed, but don’t drown it. Leftover dressing may be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Top the salad with croutons, if using, before serving.
Notes
Vegetarian Note
Leave out the Worcestershire sauce (it is made with anchovies), and skip the optional anchovies.What Can the Kids Do?
If you’re making the croutons, they can toss the bread with the garlicky olive oil. They can add all of the ingredients for the dressing to the blender or jar, and they can shake if you’re mixing this by hand. They can tear lettuce and even cut it, depending on their knife skills.Storage
Extra dressing may be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. I will also eat leftover salad the next day, but that’s not for everyone.Nutrition
Caesar salad originated in Mexico! The story goes that restaurateur Caesar Cardini invented the recipe in Tijuana in 1924, actually on the 4th of July, so 100 years of Caesar salad as of 2024! Happy 100th anniversary, Caesar salad!
Apparently, during a busy service rush, while they were running low on supplies, Cardini started combining ingredients like Parmesan, egg yolks, and other pantry items to create a dressing for some lettuce. And so one of the most popular salads was born. And, ultimately, destined to become a permanent staple on the menus of a gazillion restaurants in the U.S., from high-end places to fast-food joints.
The salad is still served at Caesar’s in Mexico, prepared to order tableside. And the family has a trademark on their “authentic recipe” bottled dressing, which is actually quite good. But nothing beats homemade, and every time I make Caesar dressing from scratch, I realize just how uniquely great it is.
(And, of course, there are different versions of how the salad came to be, one involving Caesar’s brother Alex, another involving an employee named Livio Santini. Like many famous recipes with not-quite-clear origins, we may never settle on a definitive origin story.)
But the idea that Caesar salad was probably invented by an Italian immigrant in an Italian restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, then became one of the best-loved salads in North America and beyond, is a pretty cool tale.
It’s hard to talk about a Caesar salad without embarking upon a conversation about anchovies. Some people hate them, but what’s more relevant is that many people THINK they hate them.
Sure, sucking down an entire tiny and slightly hairy fish is an acquired taste for most. But when an anchovy is very finely chopped and becomes part of a sauce or a dressing, all it’s doing at that point is adding a slightly salty, slightly briny note, a richness of sorts, a depth. Usually, no one would know it was there until you leaned over and said, “Hey, how about those anchovies? Delicious, right?” (At which point they would decide they no longer liked what they were eating.)
Having said that, if you are at all worried that the mere presence of an anchovy in your kitchen might ruin everything, just leave it out of this recipe. And also leave it out (and the Worcestershire sauce, which also contains anchovies) if you have vegetarians at the table.
