Chicken Caesar Salad Recipe

This grilled chicken Caesar salad recipe is loaded with crisp romaine, crunchy homemade croutons, creamy Caesar dressing, and Italian grilled chicken. It’s the best chicken Caesar salad you’ll ever eat and easy to make right at home! And you can make it totally from scratch or shortcut it for an easy midweek dinner.

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Chicken Caesar salad gives you a full meal without having to fuss with a lot of sides and extras.

And yes, you can make this chicken Caesar salad recipe with homemade croutons, homemade Caesar dressing (ours is raw egg and anchovie free!) and grilled Italian chicken or you can short cut it with your favorite storebought dressing and croutons.

You can even skip grilling the chicken and just go for a fresh or leftover rotisserie chicken.

How you make it is up to you, but we will walk you through the process either way so you get a satisfying chicken Caesar salad.

Ingredients and Kitchen Supplies

To make this grilled chicken Caesar salad recipe, you’ll need:

• Croutons – You can use your favorite brand, or you can follow our easy homemade croutons recipe. If you do that, you’ll need bread, olive oil, parm cheese, and salt. See that post for complete instructions.
• Caesar Dressing – You have the same option with Caesar dressing. You can use store bought or make your own following our classic Caesar dressing recipe. Don’t worry. It does not have any anchovies. You will need mayo, parm cheese, pepper, garlic cloves, lemon juice, dijion mustard, and worcestershire sauce.
• Romaine Lettuce – Romaine lettuce is the traditional way to make a Caesar salad from scratch. However, you can use other leafy greens like spinach, kale, and other lettuce varieties. Just keep in mind, you might find some texture and flavor differences between the different options.
• Parmesan Cheese -You can use the grated stuff, shavings, or shredded parm cheese.
• Chicken – We grilled nugget to strip sized pieces of chicken breast for the salad. You can use a full breast or stripes if you prefer when making the chicken. If you really want to make this chicken Caesar salad recipe fast, you can use leftovers or rotisserie chicken.
• Marinade for the chicken– Fresh lemon Juice, Italian seasoning blend, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and olive oil

To make chicken Caesar salad, you will want to have handy:

• Grill Pan
• Meat Thermometer
• Tongs
• Cookie Sheet
• Mixing Bowl
• Handheld Juicer
• Garlic Press
• Rubber Spatula
• Large Mixing Bowl
• Measuring Cups

If you only plan to mix store bought croutons, dressing, and leftover chicken together, all you may need are tongs and mixing or serving bowl.

How to Make Our Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad Recipe

1. Prepare your chicken.

Skip ahead to step 3 if you plan to use leftover chicken or rotisserie.

You can use a full chicken breast or make like Papa Roach and cut your chicken into pieces.

Either way, eventually you will need to cut the chicken when serving it.

Toss the chicken with the lemon juice, Italian seasonings, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and olive oil until well combined.

For better flavor, you can cover and marinate the chicken for a few minutes to hours if you like, but you do not need to.

2. Grill the chicken.

Of course, you can use your outdoor grill if you have one, but for ease and year-round cooking, heat a grill pan over medium high heat.

Place the chicken on the grill pan, leaving a bit of space between each piece.

Grill for about 3 to 4 minutes and then flip to the other side and grill an additional 3 to 4 minutes.

You should see nice grill marks on each side, but you to make sure it is done, you can use a meat thermometer to check it has reached a temperature of 165 in the thickest parts of the chicken.

Remove the chicken from the heat and allow to cool slightly before assembling the salad.

For a more detailed instructions follow our grilling Italian chicken recipe.

3. Avengers, assemble the chicken Casesar salad.

Once your chicken is ready, it is time to assemble the Caesar salad.

To start, rinse, dry, and break your romaine lettuce into smaller pieces.

Place the lettuce in the bowl and then add about 1 cup of Caesar dressing, 1 to 2 cups of croutons, and the shredded parmesan cheese to the lettuce.

Use tongs to mix fully mix the dressing, lettuce, and croutons together.

Top the salad with the grilled chicken and more parmesan cheese (if desired) and serve.

Serving

Our grilled chicken Caesar salad recipe makes a full meal by itself.

You can serve it with your favorite bread, garlic bread, or portion out some into a wrap if you like.

It is best served fresh after making it, but you can make it ahead if you like, see below for our recommendations for storing.

Storing

You can make chicken Caesar salad ahead of time if you like, but we recommend assembling it when ready to serve, keeping the ingredients seperate if possible.

When you store Caesar salad with the dressing on, the croutons will tend to get soggy and the lettuce will lose some of its crispness as well.

If we plan to bring it for lunch or serve at a different time, we will make the croutons, dressing, and chicken and store them seperately to keep them all fresh.

Leftover, fully assembled salad will stay fresh for about 2 days, but you will likely notice the lettuce and croutons become less crisp after storing it even over night in the fridge.

Please, do not freeze chicken caesar salad, you monster.

Tips and Tricks

• If you plan to make both the dressing and croutons from scratch, start with the Caesar dressing. This needs 30 minutes or more of rest time to let the flavors come together. You can make the croutons while the chicken cooks, preparing the bread when you get the chicken ready.
• When making ahead, store each part seperately and bring it together when you plan to serve the chicken Caesar salad.
• You can make some variations to the salad, adding more cheese, using buffalo chicken, or using different lettuces. These can change the flavor and make for zesty variations if you want to jazz it up a bit.
• If you plan to switch out your greens, I recommend a crisp green like iceberg or even kale over a less crisp green like spinach or arugula. However, if you want to add a less crisp green, go half romaine and half spinach, etc.

Other Salad Recipes

Looking for other salad recipes? Here are some of our favorites:

• Tomato and Onion Salad with Vinegar
• Summer Strawberry Caprese Salad
• Easy Pesto Caprese Salad (Italian Mozzarella, Tomato, Basil Salad)
• Italian Burrata Panzanella Salad Recipe
• Apple and Pear Kale Salad with Maple Dijon Vinaigrette

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