Recipe: Healthy, Homemade Caesar Dressing

If you were to ask me what my favorite food was 10 years ago, I’d without a doubt say spaghetti with caeser salad.

My mom made the best caeser salad. I’m not quite sure if it was the overload of cheese and croutons (check out my recipe for homemade gluten-free italian seasoned croutons) or how amazing the crisp romaine lettuce tasted with dressing slathered all over but it was “da bomb.” Taking it back to the 90’s for you, of course. 😉 Whoa, I actually kinda feel old that now I can say “taking it back to the 90’s” and it mean something. Yikes.

No, but really.

I really, really loved whenever my mom made caeser salad and I’ll forever have sweet memories of how happy I was when I saw a huge bowl of it on the table. Of course, I never once thought of the ingredients that were hiding in the croutons and the Kraft caeser dressing itself because well, life was so much more carefree back then. 10 years ago it would seem ridiculous to say that the dressing I loved was laced with preservatives, chemicals, GMOs.

But, that was all back then of course.

Now? Well, it’s a different story. In our modern day and age, we do have to worry about preservatives, chemicals, industrialized oils, GMOs (etc) found in simple ingredients like salad dressing, croutons and even cheese. What a shame, right? Such an innocent, simple food like caeser salad now has to be carefully monitored to make sure there are no other “extras” — if you know what I mean — in the ingredients.

So, the only way to be able to continue to enjoy one of my favorite meals is to make it from scratch. Thankfully for you and I, caeser dressing made from scratch is super simple to make and the recipe I have for you is going to knock your socks off.

You’ll be thanking me but then you’ll also be upset with me because you’ll never be able to go back to store-bought caeser dressing ever again. It’s okay, I’ll take the love and the hate because I know it’s mostly love.

There are a lot of differences between this homemade caeser dressing and the store-bought kind but the biggest difference is my homemade version has the added health punch of nutrient-dense anchovies! Now, if you get kinda squeemish at the idea of anchovies I seriously promise that you don’t even taste any kind of fishiness. The spicy brown mustard, garlic and apple cider vinegar totally drown out the taste of the anchovies and just adds depth and delicious-ness to the over-all taste.

Goodbye 90’s Kraft caeser dressing, hello real food, nutrient-dense caeser dressing.

Recipe: Healthy, Homemade Caesar Dressing

 

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Ingredients

Necessary Equipment

• Food processor (where to buy)

Ingredients

• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1 TBL raw apple cider vinegar (where to buy)
• 1 TBL spicy brown mustard
• 2 TBL mayo (I use my homemade mayo- it's difficult to find a good mayo on the market. But if you can't find a good mayo, use regular as last resort)
• unrefined sea salt (where to buy)
• anchovies, to taste
• lemon
• ½ cup unfiltered, unrefined olive oil (where to buy)

Instructions

1. Add garlic, 1 TBL cider vinegar and 1 TBL spicy brown mustard to food processor/blender -- Pulse a few times
2. Add 2 TBL mayo. Pulse a few times.
3. Slowly add olive oil to processor to make sure it emulsifies- this works well when you have the type of food processor that allows you to add in liquids while it's still running. If you don't have that type of food processor, add a little olive oil then blend, add a little olive oil then blend and so on until all the olive oil is used
4. Add in lemon juice, salt and anchovies.
5. Blend until smooth consistency.
6. Taste test and see if you need to add any more lemon, salt or anchovy (By the way, I use pretty much all the anchovies that come in the tin, it makes it taste delicious!).
7. Serve onto salad and enjoy 🙂

Notes

I put the remaining dressing in a recycled jar and it usually lasts about 3-4 days (it will become thicker in time).

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