Chicken Caesar Salad

Homemade caesar dressing is what lifts your salad from so-so to sublime, and it’s really not difficult to make. In fact, you just throw everything into a blender or food processor and it’s done in a flash. 

Make my caesar salad dressing and you’ll see why I’m so set on it. 

Find my homemade caesar dressing recipe here.

Turning a salad into a substantial meal

Adding a few extras to your caesar salad will make it hearty enough for even the biggest eater.

I almost always put chicken, bacon and eggs into my caesar salad along with the ubiquitous croutons and dressing. And though you may not have thought to, all these things can be prepared ahead of time, ready for a quick dinner or lunch assembly on a busy evening or a rushed morning.

Want to make your caesar the same as mine? You’ll want to prep chicken, bacon, eggs and dressing using these recipes:

Sous Vide Chicken without a bag

How to Cook Bacon in a Steam Oven

Perfect Steam Oven Boiled Eggs

Homemade Caesar Dressing

Is Caesar salad healthy?

Look, I think any meal where you prepare fresh, whole ingredients from scratch can be classed as nourishing, but whether you think this is a healthy dish kind of depends on your definition of healthy!

Made the way I prepare it, this chicken caesar salad is packed with protein and contains some fiber. It also contains a hefty amount of fat and salt, although you can (and I often do) greatly reduce this by using Greek yoghurt in the dressing instead of mayonnaise. 

Caesar salad with a yoghurt dressing is what I’d call healthy. It’s also absolutely delicious and I don’t think it loses much at all in translation. Purists may argue but I love the yoghurt-dressed version and it’s certainly a lot less heavy when you eat it! 

Sous vide chicken for caesar salad

You could grill chicken for your Caesar salad, but I love to batch cook sous vide chicken breasts in my steam oven and pop them in the fridge or freezer. They become the basis of so many great salads and fast-prep meals, and this salad is no exception. 

Grab my sous vide chicken breast recipe and make the juiciest chicken breasts for your Caesar salad. 

As with chicken breasts, I prepare cooked bacon ahead of time. Did you know you can freeze pre-cooked bacon in a sandwich bag, ready to quickly reheat in a frypan or your steam oven?! Knowing this has changed my life (and probably upped my sodium intake, haha).

I cook a tray or two of combi steam oven bacon and store the slices whole. For this salad, you can give the slices a quick refresh to warm through, then use scissors to snip your bacon straight into the salad.

Get my directions on how to cook bacon in a steam oven.

Cooking eggs for Caesar salad

I love a poached egg in a Caesar salad, and you can definitely go that route if you like. 

For ease of preparation though, especially when I’m serving my whole family and don’t want to poach multiple eggs on the spot, I make perfect steam oven boiled eggs. I keep them in the fridge for up to a week, and they just need to be brought to room temperature and peeled ready for the salad.

Make your own perfect steam oven boiled eggs.

Preparing a chicken caesar salad

As I’ve said, this dish is far quicker to make when you’ve prepared most of the ingredients ahead of time. The actual salad should go together only when you’re ready to serve, so the lettuce stays crisp and the croutons crunchy. 

I do like to toast my croutons just before making the salad; it doesn’t take long and warm, freshly toasted bread is a thing of beauty, right?

Lightly toast your bread slices just to dry the outsides a little, then rub the cut side of a garlic clove over each slice. 

Cut the crusts off your bread and chop into roughly ½ inch (1½ cm) cubes. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, then cook them until they’re golden and just dried out.