Easy Chicken Caesar Salad
This quick and easy chicken caesar salad recipe is sure to please even the pickiest of eaters. The recipe can be customized to your liking and can even be made vegan.
Equipment
- 1 Air Fryer optional
- 1 Salad Spinner optional
Ingredients
Croutons
- 1 small ciabatta roll
- 1 tbsp olive oil extra virgin
- 1/2 tsp salt, plus more to taste
- 1/2 tsp pepper, plus more to taste
- 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning divided
Dressing
- 1/2 ea lemon juice and zest
- 4 tbsp olive oil divided
- 2 tbsp mustard I like dijon for this recipe
- 4 tbsp mayo
- 3 cloves garlic grated or minced
- 1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
- 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
The Rest
- 2 ea chicken breasts, boneless and skinless if low on time, you can buy and shred a rotisserie chicken
- 1 head romaine lettuce
- 1/2 pint cherry tomatoes
- cooking spray
Instructions
- Wash and dry all your produce and preheat your air fryer or oven to 400 degrees. While you are waiting for your air fryer to heat up, zest your lemon and cut into halves. Halve your tomatoes and cut your ciabatta bread into small 1 inch cubes.
- Toss the ciabatta cubes in olive oil (approximately 1 tbsp.), 1/2 tsp of Italian seasoning, and salt and pepper to taste. Fry the cubes in the air fryer for approximately 4-5 minutes keeping a close eye on them as they can burn rather quickly. You want these to be a nice crunchy crouton. Once cooked, set the croutons aside to cool.
- Pat the chicken breasts dry and if uneven in size, cover with plastic film and pound the chicken to an even thickness. Sprinkle both sides with salt, pepper and your remaining 1/2 tsp of Italian seasoning. Spray the chicken with cooking spray and cook in your air fryer for approximately 20 minutes. The chicken is done when the internal temperature reaches at least 165 degrees. Rest the chicken until you are ready to serve.
- While the chicken finishes cooking, it's time to make the dressing. In a large salad or mixing bowl, whisk together the mayo, olive oil, lemon zest, minced garlic, parmesan cheese and juice from half of the lemon, and salt and pepper to taste. You want the dressing to be a nice consistency, but don't over mix. Sometimes when over-mixing, the olive oil can become bitter..
- Now it's time to assemble! Add your romaine lettuce, halved tomatoes, and croutons to the bowl with the dressing. Mix it up until well combined and place on your service plates or platter. Top with your sliced chicken and enjoy!
Notes
This recipe makes a decent sized salad. Feel free to scale it to meet your needs.
To make vegan, sub out vegan mayo for the regular mayo. Instead of chicken, you can use a chicken substitute or Butler's Soy Curls. To replace the cheese, use any vegan cheese substitute you like I tend to use a cashew/nutritional yeast substitute that I make at home. Let me know if you'd be interested in the recipe in the comments below.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!