Caesar Salad

This recipe requires no cooking and is served cold, so it makes a perfect low-carb on-the-go lunch, or a picnic for the park as well! Pack the dressing with an ice pack to keep it chilled out. If you think you don’t like anchovies, try them in this dressing. They just taste salty and yummy!

The crisp-tender texture and robust flavor of thinly sliced Tuscan kale stands up to the tart, Caesar-like dressing of this hearty slaw. Serve as a first course or as a side with grilled chicken, beef, or lamb.

To make the sourdough croutons, toss 3 1/2 cups 1-inch cubes crustless sourdough bread with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Spread the bread cubes on a heavy-duty rimmed baking sheet and bake at 400°F for 20 to 25 minutes.

Many riffs on Caesar salad are too heavily dressed, but here a hefty handful of basil keeps things fresh and herbal.

Grilled avocado is one of those things that sound faintly ridiculous until you try it—then you wonder why you never had it before.

This recipe makes enough salad for a picnic in the park, or to pack in your lunch all week.

Editor's note: This recipe is from chef Wolfgang Puck. If you don't have a Caesar salad on your menu in California, the customers will rebel. For a zesty Provençal touch, the Caesar at Spago is served with croutons slathered with our homemade tapenade. When you can find baby romaine, use it. If you can't, trim the outer leaves of the larger variety and, if necessary, break them into bite-size strips.

To be safe, we boil the egg for 1 minutes rather than use it raw.

In this new take on the Caesar, fried eggs top the salad, and fish sauce replaces the usual anchovy fillets.

This twist on the Caesar salad is part of a healthy and delicious spa menu developed exclusively for Epicurious by Ananda spa in India. Iceberg lettuce is topped with a crispy buttermilk, cornmeal, and chickpea flour pancake, low-fat cheese made from yogurt and spices, and an anchovy-free dressing. Note that the raw garlic is rubbed on the croutons after rather than before toasting to preserve its volatile oils. Garlic—particularly when it's uncooked—has been attributed with numerous health benefits, including fighting cancer and killing harmful bacteria. If you are following an Ayurvedic diet, the experts at Ananda recommend this for vata and kapha doshas. Be sure to start this recipe at least one day ahead.

Just when the crowd thinks you're done with the grill, surprise them with this; the romaine's leaves char slightly but stay fresh and crisp. With grilled croutons and garlicky Caesar anchovy dressing, this is a salad that even chest-beating carnivores can get behind.

IMPROV: Substitute red oak leaf lettuce (available at farmers' markets and natural foods stores) or red romaine for the red leaf lettuce. Make the croutons with Asiago or Pecorino Romano cheese instead of Parmesan.

This version of the classic salad shows why it is a favorite across America.

We've run recipes for this classic salad in various incarnations every few years as far back as the 1940s — with and without raw egg, with and without anchovies, changing up the cheese and even mixing in pasta or shellfish. This version is simply the best.

Great with: Grilled rib-eye steak.

Alexis Watson of Irvine, California, writes: "You could say I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to cooking. Often I'll take a particular recipe and spend months perfecting it, as I've done with the Caesar salad here. My wife wanted an easy do-ahead dressing that was creamy but didn't use egg yolks. Now we make this salad several times a week, so it was certainly well worth the effort."

Food Editor: Shelley Wiseman
Father: John Wiseman, Somerset, England
When my father and stepmother moved from Mexico to England, my father started to help with the cooking. The first thing he learned to make was this Caesar salad.