CAESAR SALAD RECIPE | light, easy healthy salad

Hello, my friends, it's Dani, and today I'm showing you how to make a clean and delicious Caesar salad. Now, Caesar salad is one of my favorites. It's fresh, it's crunchy, it's delicious, and I'm very excited to share my version of this classic dish with you. Mm, so good, so, so good. Now, for those of you who are interested in adding another layer to the salad, I highly recommend making my baked lemon and garlic chicken that I shared with you last week. The flavors of that chicken and the salad pair so well together. And for those of you looking for a vegetarian option, I would recommend trying my crispy baked tofu. That would be a great way to add some more protein to the dish and to bulk it up a little bit. So if either of those interest you, I'll be sure to link those recipes down in the description box below. Now, traditionally, Caesar salad is served with croutons, but what I love to do is swap the croutons out with some crispy roasted chickpeas. It's a really fun way to add some plant-based protein to the salad and add great crunch and great flavor. So I'm just gonna start by draining out and rinsing one can of chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans, and then lay them out on a dish towel. Then I just kind of cover them up with the towel and just gently roll them around a bit to dry them off. You don't want them to be wet when you pop them in the oven, otherwise they're gonna end up steaming and they're never gonna get nice and crispy. So you wanna just try to get off as much of the water as you can. Then what I do is I transfer them onto my baking dish and I give them a nice light coating of olive oil. I personally love this spray bottle. It's an easy way to get a light coating when you just want a little bit of oil. If you're interested, I will, of course, leave that link for you down in the description box below. And then I'll just season them with some kosher salt and some black pepper. Give them a little bit of a roll around and make sure they all have a nice light coating of the oil and the seasonings, and then into the oven they go. I just popped these into a 400 degree oven, anywhere between 25 and 30 minutes. You want them to have a nice light golden brown color and to crisp up. And you're gonna notice that as they sit and cool, they're gonna get even crispier. So while they are doing that, we're gonna assemble the salad. So for the salad part, what I do is I start with three hearts of romaine. You will often buy these in the grocery store in a bag. It comes with three hearts of romaine in it. Trim off the bottom and then slice them in half lengthwise, and then go across the other way and give them a rough chop. Then I get them into my colander and give them a good wash. I like to rinse them really well. Then I'm gonna pop this into my salad spinner and give them a few spins around. I personally love using a salad spinner when I'm making salad because what it does is it pulls all the excess water off of the lettuce so that it's nice and dry. Because you know, whenever you're making a salad, if the leaves are wet, the salad dressing can't adhere to the leaves and you're gonna end up with a soggy salad. So always make sure that whatever type of lettuce you're using is nice and dry before you dress it. And what I personally really love adding to Caesar salads is some fresh fennel. If you are not familiar with fennel, it's kind of like a celery-like vegetable. It is so light and so bright and so refreshing. And I find that it pairs really well with all the flavors in a Caesar salad. So what I do is I trim off the top, just trim off the bottom, slice it in half lengthwise, and then you just come across and angle out that core in the middle. Then lay it down on the flat side, slice it in half again, and then slice into quarter moons. And once you have it all cut up, I just sprinkle that right on top of the salad. This is, of course, optional, but if you're looking to work more vegetables into your diet and or you're excited to try new flavors, I highly recommend giving it a try. So I'm gonna set that aside and we're gonna make the salad dressing. Now, what I like to use as the base for my Caesar salad dressing is a combination of plain Greek yogurt and mayonnaise. So I start with a third of a cup of 2% plain Greek yogurt along with two tablespoons of mayonnaise. This is going to create a really creamy base for the dressing without having to use any raw eggs, which is what you would see in a traditional Caesar salad. Then I'm adding in two teaspoons of anchovy paste. Now, before you think you're gonna skip this step, I wanna encourage you not to. Anchovy paste is not fishy at all. It adds a nice, savory, umami flavor to the dressing that really creates a depth of flavor that you're not gonna get from a lot of other ingredients. So if you're at the grocery store and you are near the canned tuna and the canned salmon, that's where you're gonna find it. It comes in a box just like this. All it is is anchovies, olive oil, and salt. And then once you take it out of the box, it's this tube. You use what you need, and then you can store the rest right in your fridge. Now, if you are a vegetarian and so you don't want to include the fish, if you had to substitute it, try taking some capers and just chopping them really fine and adding that to the dressing. Then I'm adding in one clove of crushed garlic, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, one teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, three tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese, and then some kosher salt and some black pepper. I'm just gonna gently whisk that all together. And then you'll see, you're gonna have a nice, creamy, flavorful Caesar salad dressing. Once you're ready to serve the dressing, what I do is I take about a half to three quarters of the dressing and drizzle it over the top. You're gonna notice that you probably won't need all of the salad dressing. So anything that's left over, you can just store in an airtight container and pop it right in your fridge. And then gently toss the dressing together with the salad, with the lettuce and the fennel. And just kind of keep on going until you have a nice, light coating over all of the greens. Then to finish this salad off, I like to add just a couple extra tablespoons of grated cheese over the top. Totally optional, but very delicious. And sprinkle about half of those chickpeas into the salad. Again, a gentle toss, and I'm ready to serve. Once I have the salad into my serving bowl, then I like to take a few more of those roasted, crunchy chickpeas and sprinkle them right over the top. I don't like them to get lost in the salad because when you can see them over the top, they're so beautiful. And remember, we eat with our eyes first. I am telling you, this salad is gonna become your newest addiction. It is light, it's crunchy, it's fresh, it's flavorful. And I can say for myself that I keep coming back to this recipe over and over again. So, so good. So of course, I cannot wait to hear what you all think about it. Once you give it a try, please don't forget to snap a picture and tag me on Instagram and on Facebook using the hashtag cleananddelicious. And if you like recipes like this, please let me know by giving this video a big thumbs up and subscribing to the channel. Don't forget to hit that notification bell. This way you can rest assured that you will never miss a new recipe. Thank you all so much for watching. I'm Dani Spees, and I'll see you back here next time with some more clean and deliciousness. Cheers. A teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce. Worcestershire. A teaspoon of Worcestershire. How do you say Worcestershire? No, don't translate it. Just say it in English. I can't translate into English.