Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken and Gluten-Free Croutons

For a light spring supper, here’s a good choice: grilled chicken Caesar salad with gluten-free croutons. I’ve never been a huge crouton fan. Dried-out cubes of tasteless bread never did a lot for me. But these fresh, homemade croutons — made from gluten-free crusty hot dog rolls toasted in a skillet with olive oil and garlic — are tasty and tender.

Making the chicken Caesar salad took more time (and more pots) than I had anticipated. I needed to toast the croutons, blend the dressing, boil the eggs, grill the chicken and assemble the salad. Thankfully, my hero husband stepped in to help with the prep and to wash the multitude of pots. With some advance planning (not my forte), it would be easy to prepare most of the recipe in advance next time.

Caesar salad dressing usually is made with raw egg yolk. But I get skittish about that, so I made a dressing without raw eggs. I also did not use parmesan cheese to make the Caesar salad dairy-free.

My 11-year-old daughter recently had been asking me to make croutons (I’m totally serious). Oddly enough, the theme for the Kosher Connection linkup this month is croutons. Check out the link below for more recipes with croutons, though please note that most of the recipes in the linkup are not gluten-free.

Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken
and Gluten-Free Croutons

(gluten-free, dairy-free)
By Gluten-Free Nosh
Printable recipe

Gluten-Free Croutons:

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 gluten-free hot dog rolls, cut into cubes
• Salt
• Pepper

Method:

1. Heat olive oil and garlic in a large skillet over medium heat for 2 minutes.
2. Toss in the bread cubes, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir to coat with olive oil and saute croutons until golden, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Caesar Salad Dressing:

Ingredients:

• 4 anchovy fillets (or 2 teaspoons anchovy paste)
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Method:

1. Place the anchovies, lemon juice, garlic, Dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, mayonnaise and Worcestershire sauce in a blender, and blend well.
2. While the blender is running, slowly add the olive oil until emulsified.

Caesar Salad:

Ingredients:

• 2 heads romaine lettuce
• 2 chicken breasts, grilled and sliced
• Caesar salad dressing
• 2 hardboiled eggs, each cut into 4 wedges
• Gluten-free croutons

Method:

1. In a large, wide bowl, arrange some whole spears of romaine lettuce, so they fan out of the sides of the bowl. Tear remaining romaine spears into strips and place in the bottom of the bowl.
2. Add grilled chicken strips and drizzle Caesar dressing over lettuce and chicken. Top with wedges of hardboiled eggs and gluten-free croutons. Serve with extra dressing on the side.

Yield: 4 servings