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Chicken Caesar Salad

This Chicken Caesar Salad will not only make for a robust, filling, and nutritious meal but will also probably be the best Caesar salad you have ever eaten as well.

Chicken Caesar Salad with croutons on a white plate
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The humble chicken Caesar salad is a mainstay of restaurants and lunchrooms everywhere. However, it is way better when you make it at home, using from-scratch Caesar salad dressing!

Make sure that you learn How to Make Buttery Garlicky Homemade Croutons for this recipe. Or why not learn what Worcestershire Sauce is for this recipe?

Chicken Caesar Salad with croutons on a white plate

Chicken Caesar Salad

Chicken Caesar salad is often considered nothing more than a mainstay, reliable lunch option to order at a restaurant you aren’t sure about.

It’s always going to have plenty of tangy, acidic flavors, and while it isn’t the most filling thing on most menus, it will at least give you all of the calories you need for a good lunch, thanks to the rich dressing and chicken.

However, Chicken Caesar salads are actually pretty amazing, especially if done right. One of the main reasons that so many Caesar salads you get away from home are a bit lackluster is because they skimp on some of the flavoring ingredients, or they don’t include real anchovy paste.

This recipe will not only make for a robust, filling, and nutritious meal but will also probably be the best Chicken Caesar salad you have ever eaten as well.                                                                  

Chicken Caesar Salad ingredients

Chicken Caesar Salad Ingredients

Make sure you look at the recipe card at the very bottom for the exact amounts so that you know exactly what to buy for this recipe.

Homemade Caesar Salad Dressing

 • Garlic

 • Mayonnaise, preferably full-fat

 • Anchovy paste

 • Parmesan cheese

 • Worcestershire sauce

 • Dijon mustard

 • Lemon juice

• Salt & pepper

Chicken Caesar Salad Ingredients

• Romaine hearts

• Garlic croutons

• Chicken breasts, cooked and diced

• Parmesan flakes

• Fresh lemon juice

Chicken Caesar Salad dressing in bowl

How To Make Chicken Caesar Salad

Caesar Salad Dressing

• Combine all of the ingredients together into a container that you can use an immersion or hand blender to mix

• Process and blend all of the ingredients together, adding in as much garlic and lemon as you want

Assembling The Chicken Caesar Salad

• Place the lettuce in a large bowl

• Toss the dressing until the lettuce is totally coated

• Top with the chicken, croutons, and the Parmesan

• Right before serving, mix the toppings in the very top layer of lettuce, just enough so that there is a layer of toppings in every serving and it is spread easily.   

Chicken Caesar Salad in two bowls

Why It Needs Anchovy Paste, Despite What Food Historians Will Tell You

One of the great controversies in the culinary world is about the inclusion of anchovies in Caesar salads.

Most recipes, including this one, will contain anchovies in some form or another, either as whole anchovy fillets diced or just anchovy paste.

The very first, original Caesar salad, however, did not contain anchovies, and the creator, Caesar Cardini, was adamantly against the inclusion of anchovies.

In the original recipe, the salty intensity of anchovy flavor came from the addition of Worcestershire sauce.

However, pretty much all Caesar salad recipes include anchovies, and the reason is that it makes it taste really, really good.

While you could simply use extra Worcestershire sauce instead of using anchovies, especially if you are trying to make this vegetarian, but there is a lot of extra flavors you can add if you use anchovies as well.

Ignore the purists and include some anchovy paste – you won’t regret it.

Chicken Caesar Salad close up on plate

How Should You Cook Your Chicken Breasts For This Recipe?

This recipe calls for some chicken breasts that have been cooked, cooled, and then diced into small pieces to make for an even distribution throughout the salad.

If you want to start from raw chicken breasts, you can cook your chicken however you like it. Just make sure to not overcook it and let it get dry.

You could bake it in the oven at around 350 Fahrenheit with a bit of salt and pepper, pulling it from the oven when an instant-read thermometer put into the thickest part reads 165 Fahrenheit.

Or, to get even more precise, you could cook it sous vide. So long as you have a sous vide machine, you could cook it to a perfect 165 Fahrenheit to get the juiciest flavor possible.

Instead of cooking your chicken breasts from scratch for this recipe, you could also simply use leftover chicken breasts from another recipe.

If you cook a roast chicken dinner, why not save the chicken breasts and just eat the dark meat for dinner instead?

That way, you have some perfectly cooked and seasoned chicken breasts that you can refrigerate and then eat the next day as part of this delicious Chicken Caesar salad!

Looking for more delicious Salad recipes? Try these out:

Shrimp Salad

Cucumber Tomato Salad

Turkey Salad

Happy Cooking

Love,

Karlynn

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This Chicken Caesar Salad will not only make for a robust, filling, and nutritious meal but will also probably be the best Caesar salad you have ever eaten as well.    
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Chicken Caesar Salad with croutons on a white plate

Chicken Caesar Salad

This Chicken Caesar Salad will not only make for a robust, filling, and nutritious meal but will also probably be the best Caesar salad you have ever eaten as well.
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Course: Appetizer, Salad
Cuisine: American
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Servings: 4
Calories: 421kcal

Ingredients 

Homemade Caesar Salad Dressing

  • 1 tablespoon garlic (minced, peeled, divided)
  • 3/4 cup mayonnaise (full fat)
  • 3 teaspoons anchovy paste
  • 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese (grated)
  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice (or more to taste)
  • salt to taste
  • ground black pepper to taste

Chicken Caesar Salad Ingredients

  • 3-4 romaine hearts washed (washed and torn into bite-size pieces)
  • 1-2 cups homemade garlic croutons (see post above for the recipe)
  • 3-4 chicken breasts (Cooked and diced / chopped)
  • 1/3 cup Parmesan flakes
  • fresh lemon juice to top if desired

Instructions

How to Make the Caesar Salad Dressing

  • Combine all of the ingredients into a container that you can use an immersion or hand blender in to mix the ingredients. Alternatively, you can place this all in your blender.
  • Process and blend all of the ingredients together, adding in more garlic and lemon to taste if you want. (I am Ukrainian so there is always room for more garlic!) Set aside.

Assembling the Chicken Caesar Salad

  • Place the lettuce in a large bowl.
  • Toss with the dressing until the lettuce is coated completely.
  • Top with the chicken, croutons and the Parmesan. I do NOT mix it in because as you know, they all go to the very bottom!
  • Right before serving, mix the toppings into the top layer of lettuce, not the bottom, just slightly so that you have a layer of toppings for everyone to dig into.

Notes

This is NOT the traditional Caesar salad as that one uses egg yolks and oil as the base, not mayo. This however is my VERY favorite Caesar salad!

Nutrition

Calories: 421kcal | Carbohydrates: 15g | Protein: 45g | Fat: 19g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 7g | Monounsaturated Fat: 5g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 132mg | Sodium: 1081mg | Potassium: 932mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 7603IU | Vitamin C: 8mg | Calcium: 234mg | Iron: 2mg
Tried this recipe?Mention @TheKitchenMagpie or tag #thekitchenmagpie!

Karlynn Johnston

I’m a busy mom of two, wife & cookbook author who loves creating fast, fresh meals for my little family on the Canadian prairies. Karlynn Facts: I'm allergic to broccoli. I've never met a cocktail that I didn't like. I would rather burn down my house than clean it. Most of all, I love helping YOU get dinner ready because there's nothing more important than connecting with our loved ones around the dinner table!

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  1. Debbie says

    Lower rating cause don’t add mmayo, Us olive olive oil, much better

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