Caesar Salad

 

Ingredients
Salad
1-2 heads romaine lettuce, chopped
1 block parmigiano cheese (shredded)
1/4 purple onion, sliced
Dressing
6 garlic cloves
1 T dijon mustard
1 T rice wine vinegar
3 T Mayo
1/2 cup olive oil
1 egg yoke (save the egg white for breakfast the next day, no wasting here!!!)
1 lemon, juiced
3-4 anchovy fillets (don’t turn your nose up to it until you try it, even my niece Payton loved it and she is 8!)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
Croutons
1 baguette, cubed
1/2 stick butter, melted
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Dressing
1. Pull out your time saving food processor and add all your dressing ingredient into the processor from the ingredient column
2. If you don’t have a food processor a blinder will work too
3. Process all the ingredients until smooth and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving

Croutons
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F
2. Chop your baguette into small oval disks.  Once they are a disk, cut vertically and horizontally cutting your disks into 4 pieces.  These will be your croutons
3. Place a large sauté pan over medium heat, melt the butter
4. Once the butter is melted whisk in paprika, garlic powder, salt, and pepper
5. Once the butter mixture is incorporated add your cubed bread to the sauté pan.   Mix the bread around so the cubes are all coated equally with the butter mixture for about 5 minutes

6. On a sheet pan place parchment paper and add the coated bread cubes to the sheet pan.
7. Bake the croutons in the oven for 15-20 minutes, every 5 minutes you need to flip croutons so they brown equally
8. When the croutons are finished cooking, remove and let cool before placing on your salad
Salad
1. Chop romaine lettuce into chunks, and wash thoroughly
2. I finally purchased a salad spinner and it is a life savor to dry off all your clean lettuce.  Place wet lettuce in the salad spinner to make sure you don’t have soggy salad.  If you don’t have a salad spinner just lay on paper towels and pat dry.

3. Place lettuce and purple onions into a large serving bowl and spoon in dressing until all the lettuce leaves are coated evenly.  (remember you can always add more dressing but you can’t take it away, so start sparingly.)
4. Add croutons to lettuce without dressing.  Don’t mix croutons with dressing because they will become soggy, just top for garnish

5. Shave parmigiano cheese on top of your croutons and lettuce and give one more toss to combine all ingredient.  Serve on a salad plate for a pre meal starter, or add grilled chicken for your main meal on lighter nights.
6. Enjoy!!!