Watch how it’s made
Every step in 1:13 — from the ingredients to the finished dish.
A restaurant Caesar salad is one of the more misleading things on a menu. The lettuce, chicken and parmesan are all fine. It is the croutons and the dressing that turn a plate of vegetables and protein into something carrying 40 grams of carbohydrate and most of a day’s saturated fat.
Take those two out and rebuild them and you land at 9 grams of carbohydrate per serving with 34 grams of protein. This is the lowest-carbohydrate lunch on the site.
What the croutons were costing you
A restaurant portion of croutons is usually half a cup or more, which is around 20 to 25 grams of carbohydrate from white bread with essentially no fiber. They are also the fastest-digesting thing on the plate.
Romaine leaves used as cups replace their function, which was crunch, without replacing their carbohydrate. If you miss the texture specifically, a tablespoon of toasted pumpkin seeds does the job for about 2 grams.
Rebuilding the dressing
Classic Caesar is egg yolk, oil, anchovy, garlic, lemon and parmesan. There is no sugar in it and there never was. Bottled versions are where the sugar arrives, along with a long list of stabilisers.
The version here uses Greek yogurt as the base with a spoonful of olive oil, which keeps the tang and cuts the fat considerably while adding protein instead.
Do not skip the anchovy. It is what makes Caesar taste like Caesar, it dissolves completely into the dressing, and nobody who dislikes anchovies will identify it. A teaspoon of anchovy paste is the easiest form.
Romaine is the right lettuce
The inner leaves of a romaine heart are naturally cup-shaped, stiff enough to hold filling, and sturdy enough to pick up without collapsing. Butter lettuce is softer and tears; iceberg has the structure but almost no flavour.
Wash and dry them properly. Wet leaves dilute the dressing into a puddle at the bottom of the cup.
The chicken
Any cooked chicken works, and this is a good use for leftovers from a roast. If you are cooking it fresh, grill or pan-sear rather than boil; the browned surface carries most of the flavour that makes the dish worth eating.
Six ounces per person sounds like a lot on paper and is roughly one large breast. With almost no carbohydrate to fill the plate, the protein has to.
Assembling at the last minute
Dress the chicken, not the lettuce. Chicken tossed in the dressing sits happily for hours; dressed leaves go limp in about fifteen minutes.
This makes it a workable packed lunch: leaves in one container, dressed chicken in another, assembled in thirty seconds when you eat.