Caesar salad
Here is our working caesar salad for Scoops & Dishes: no doorway fluff, just a cookable page with Australian metric detail and notes that prevent the usual failures. Serves 4 as a side with about 20 min prep and 10 min cook time (around 30 min total). That is a home estimate — ovens and pans vary, so use colour and texture as well as the clock. Shop first for Dressing: 250 ml whole-egg mayonnaise, ½ tsp garlic and anchovy fillets; those ingredients do the heavy lifting for flavour and texture, while the rest of the list seasons, binds, or finishes the plate. One practical flag before you start: Anchovy is the key restaurant flavour — don’t skip it. The Notes section expands shopping, heat, texture, and leftovers so the page stays useful beyond a bare ingredient dump. We write salad recipes so you can cook from your phone on the bench: large checkable ingredients, numbered steps, and notes you can skim while the pan heats.
Ingredients
Method
- Whisk or blitz dressing ingredients until smooth.
- Tear lettuce into a bowl; toss with half the dressing. Taste; add more if needed.
- Transfer to a serving bowl. Scatter bacon, croutons and parmesan. Add chicken/egg if using. Serve.
Tip: Anchovy is the key restaurant flavour — don’t skip it.
Notes
- Before the heat goes on, line up Dressing: 250 ml whole-egg mayonnaise, ½ tsp garlic and anchovy fillets and anything perishable from the list. Soften butter, bring eggs off the fridge if the method needs them room-temp, and preheat so you are not waiting mid-recipe. For a salad cook of this size (4 as a side), a clear bench saves more time than any gadget.
- Stove discipline: medium heat is the default for most home pans; cranking it high only helps when you are browning hard in batches. For Caesar salad, follow the cues in the method — especially “until golden”, “simmer”, or “bubbling” — rather than watching the clock alone. A heavy pan holds heat better and sticks less once food is moving.
- Why this page is written this way: we keep the story short and put the value in practical detail — ingredient order, heat cues, and storage — because that is what helps a home cook succeed on a Tuesday night. If a step feels unclear, email [email protected] and we will tidy the wording on the next pass.
- Putting it together for Caesar salad: work clean, taste as you go, and do not rush browning or reduction steps if they appear in the method. If you are cooking for mixed diets, plate sauces and toppings separately where practical. Keep this page bookmarked if it becomes a household regular — we update wording when cooks report a confusing step. Metric consistency across Scoops & Dishes means once you trust the cups and scales here, breakfast through dessert behaves the same way.