Hands down the SIMPLEST (um, THERE’S BASICALLY NO CUTTING) and most beautiful way to present a classic Caeser salad. The key here is of course, the homemade dressing, and giving those halved romaine hearts the perfect char.
SHOPPING LIST: romaine hearts (2-3), Caeser dressing, Parm Crisps, olive oil, salt, pepper
The first step is making your homemade Caesar dressing, which is linked HERE and in your shopping list. Obviously skip this step if you have a favorite store-bought Caeser dressing but I promise, it’s super easy to make and you can be creative with how you use your Caeser dressing outside of this simple salad (I used the remainder of this batch as the marinade for a whole roast chicken!!)
Next you want to trim your romaine hearts so they are reading for the grill. Trim the ends of the hearts as little as possible, just to remove the dirty edges but keeping the core in-tact. Then, slice the top inch or so off the leaves end of each heart for a uniform look (and because sometime the edges get wilted and we all know I like pretty food around here). Finally, slice your hearts in half and then drizzle each half with olive oil and season with salt and pepper – trying to get in-between the leaves!!!! I think people often skip this step when trying to do a grilled romaine and SEASONING your greens makes a HUGE difference.
Get your grill super hot and then you are going to grill your halved romaine hearts SLICED SIDE DOWN (that means the flat side goes first) – drizzling the olive oil on the hearts before grilling also keeps the lettuce from sticking to your grill! After 3-4 minutes, use a tong to GENTLY flip your hearts so you can grill the backside as well for another 3-4 minutes or until they are sufficiently charred and wilted. Remove the grilled hearts with tongs and place DIRECTLY onto your serving plate so you don’t have to worry about losing leaves in transit.
To finish, GENEROUSLY drizzle your grilled romaine hearts with your Caesar dressing (and I would also recommend serving extra dressing on the side since once you start slicing the romaine you’ll most likely want more). I like to top mine with broken bits of either Sesame or Jalapeño ParmCrisps. You could always use traditional croutons or even just shredded parmesan is a nice touch. Make sure when serving this dish that you give each dinner a STEAK knife, so that everyone can easily cut into and enjoy their hearts without trouble.
The Kitchen Koach 