Caesar Salad with Homemade Croutons and Caesar Dressing

Caesar Salad with Homemade Croutons and Caesar Dressing

For the Croutons:

Ingredients:

Day old or stale bread

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tbsp Parm

1 minced garlic clove

S&P to taste

1 tsp dried parsley

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp dried thyme

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Prepare 2 baking pans lined with parchment paper.

2. In a measuring cup, mix olive oil, Parm, garlic, S&P and herbs, set aside.

3. Cut up your bread to make about 4 cups cubed. I take the crusts off because I find they get too hard to bite into. Place into a large bowl.

4. Pour the oil mix over the bread cubes and, using your hands, gently distribute the oil mix evenly through all the cubes of bread.

5. Do not crowd them on the pans. Bake for about 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and shake them up, break apart any croutons that are stuck together.

6. Return them to the oven for another 5 minutes. Depending on how fresh/stale your bread is, the overall cooking time may be higher or lower. My batch took a total of 14 minutes to toast.

For the Dressing:

Whisk the following in a small bowl:

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp red wine vinegar
1 minced clove of garlic (or 1/2 tsp powdered garlic)
A few dashes of salt and lots of pepper

Then, while whisking constantly, drizzle in 1/3 cup olive oil.

For the Salad:

1. Add chopped (or ripped) Romaine lettuce leaves to a large bowl. Add a bunch of croutons.

2. Add the dressing and mix gently but very well to coat everything.

3. Crack an egg open and add to the salad (this is optional if you don't like the idea of a raw egg). Mix gently but well.

4. Top with more croutons and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

**I got most of the recipe for the salad from a Williams Sonoma cookbook called "Salad". It called for anchovies but we thought they were way too fishy. If you want to add anchovies to the dressing, crush up 2-4 anchovies with a fork to make a bit of a paste, and whisk in with the dressing. You can also add anchovies to the salad if you like.