veni vidi vici - how i conquered the caesar salad
we came, we saw, we ate!
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a gorgeous time ringing it in! With a new year comes new resolutions, and I am sure lots of you have healthier eating on the list! With the cold of January, I’m sure nothing sounds more appetizing than a hearty bowl of soup or a comforting casserole. Well, sorry sweetie, this post is not here to satisfy that craving!
We’re working on how we’re EATING HEALTHY and LOOKING HOT by speaking about the Miss Congeniality of salads – the Caesar! She’s gorgeous, she’s tangy, she’s filling and she’s better than other salads – I don’t make the rules! As more and more restaurants take liberal interpretations with the Caesars they put on the menu, it’s been a topic of debate on what exactly constitutes as Caesar salad but in my opinion, this is the perfect formula:
GREEN/VEGGIE + CAESAR(-esque) DRESSING + CRUNCH + PARM = CAESAR SALAD
The Caesar salad has been and will always be my favorite salads – it’s a delicious appetizer, it’s a whole ass meal, it was invented by Julius Caesar himself (i think, but this is not a facts based blog, you didn’t come here for that)! Get your tunics ready, cause in this post, I am gonna share some of my favorite versions of this perfect creation– my corporate lunch Caesar, my restaurant Caesar, and finally the homemade version I keep coming back to.
The Corporate Caesar aka Your New HappyDeskSalad™
We know her, we loathe her, we’ve all had lunch with her: I’m talking about the SadDeskSalad™. You are eating the SadDeskSalad™ while working. This salad is disgusting and soggy and you don’t know why you spent 17 dollars on it.
Enter my Just Salad Caesar Salad. I can hear you little Sweetgreen bitches rolling your eyes and saying “ew” at the mere mention of another casual lunch salad chain. To which I say fuck off! Just Salad has emerged as a white horse in the fast casual salad chain game. They have amazing accommodations for tons of dietary restrictions, do so much more as a company for sustainability, and frankly their salads are cheaper and keep me more full and are more consistent.
At Just Salad, they have Beyond Chicken + Tofu for the vegetarian/vegan set, Violife Feta for the vegan/lactose intolerant set, Keto & Paleo salads on the menu, and above all they use Hero Wraps for all of their salad wraps, which are amazing for those watching carbs or diabetics as these seemingly normal tortillas come in at a mere 2g of net carbs! As someone who loves a salad wrap, this changed the game for me at lunch while keeping my blood sugar fairly stable.
My HappyDeskSalad™ order consists of their standard Chicken Caesar (with a few substitutions). I get it with Beyond Chicken, and I swap out croutons for crispy onions – trust me on this – and I get the Caesar dressing and a FAT squeeze of lemon on it. The onion bits are lower carb and add nice crunch and flavor while the lemon adds such a NICE brightness to the tang of the Caesar. It’s a 10/10 for me and I get this once a week, sometimes in a wrap, sometimes not. A fortune cookie once told me “life is full of little choices” and I truly believe getting your salad in a bowl or a wrap is what they were talking about.
The Restaurant Caesar
As with most foods – things taste better at a restaurant than they do at your desk at work. Enter the Restaurant Caesar! Unlike your lunch salad (which is always a meal), the Restaurant Caesar can be either starter or entree (and is equally good as both). One of my all time favorite Caesar salads is at The Fly in Brooklyn. This spot from the Cervo’s + Hart’s team is more casual and affordable. It is know for its roast chicken and sides.
This Caesar is only 16 bucks and can feed you, your family, the couple sitting next to you, and still have leftovers. It is a massive heap of crispy, fresh, watery Romaine topped with delicious dressing, toasted breadcrumbs (superior to croutons in my opinion*) and a Mt. Everest sized pile of shredded parm. It is classic in the very best sense and mind-blowingly good. Pair this with a side of french fries, a lactaid or two washed down with a cold martini and you have a perfect meal consisting of all the FDA recommended food groups (what are you, a doctor?).
*I’m entitled to my opinion, it’s MY blog!
The Homemade Caesar
While it is perfectly easy enough to chop up some romaine, buy/make a dressing and shave some parm at home, when I am craving a Caesar salad at home lately, this Brussels Sprout Salad from Justine Doiron is the one I keep coming back to, especially as the weather chills. It’s not the most traditional, but this still follows my formula of green + dressing + crunch + parmesan to get a perfect Caesar.
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This baked salad uses shaved Brussels sprouts as the greens base and rather than croutons, shredded up chickpeas substitute as the croutons (also a great lower carb, higher protein sub). The dressing is a really ingenious anchovy + tahini blend that I think is a delicious combo that mimics a traditional Caesar while bringing something new to the table! I feel like I have been making this at least once every week or two. It is so simple, so good, and comes together quickly – low effort, high reward, which is the how I want the majority of my home cooking to be.
Thanks for coming along on this Caesar journey with me as we conquer the salad of all salads! As we move into these colder months, I hope you all keep to your resolutions, get some salads (with fries, balance is key), and stay cozy and well fed. I hope I run into one of you at The Fly shoveling down romaine and a mountain of parm! <3
As usual, if you liked this, please spread the word below and thank you for always for reading this fun little experiment of mine.
I also would love to hear if there are specific things you want to read about or have recommended, so let me know here:
BIG KISS MWAH!
xoxo Aaron
otw to the fly rn ty and DL’ing brussels sprouts recipe and yes we are getting that HappyDeskSalad together next week xo
Wow going to just salad tomorrow