Caesar Mayo

Some of you have already realized it, but for those who haven't, I'll let you in on something: This recipe is a little ridiculous because a classic Caesar dressing is a mayonnaise. Think about what's in it and how it's made—egg yolks mixed with seasonings like Dijon, Worcestershire, garlic, and lemon juice, then slowly emulsified with oil. Yup, that's a mayo alright.

So what makes this Caesar mayonnaise more mayonnaisey than the mayonnaise Caesar dressing already is? Well, viscosity, mostly. To work as a salad dressing, the mayo of a traditional Caesar is kept on the thin side by incorporating a relatively small amount of oil per egg yolk. Only if you add more oil does a mayo thicken further to a more recognizably mayonnaise-like texture.

The objective, then, of a Caesar "mayo" is merely to make a slightly thicker version of the dressing, one that can be spread on bread as a condiment while still packing a similar briny-cheesy punch. It's all just a question of ratios.

So really the only reason for this recipe to exist is to help you rejigger the quantities of everything in the dressing so that we can thicken the sauce more by adding more oil, yet not dilute the overall flavor. That basically means adding more of everything. It's...um...not rocket science.

I'm a big believer in not reinventing the wheel, so to make this mayo version of what has always been mayo, I started with Kenji's beloved recipe. I added Dijon to mine, an ingredient Kenji left out of his, because I like it, especially in the context of a thicker mayo where we're trying not to dilute flavor. A little bit of Dijon is not only traditional, but it also adds some needed punch.

Aside from that, I jack up the doses of Worcestershire, garlic, lemon juice, and cheese, and fearlessly throw in enough anchovies to feed a porpoise. With enough extra flavorings, I'm able to more than double the total oil in the recipe and still have it come out tasting like Caesar.

I have only one real technical note, which is that you may want to take care when adding the olive oil to the dressing. While I've rarely experienced it, some people find that high-speed blending of extra-virgin olive oil to form an emulsion can lead to an unpleasantly bitter taste. I've written at length about why this happens, but the short version is that naturally occurring (and notably bitter) polyphenols in extra-virgin olive oil are water-soluble, and the speed and temperature of high-speed blending can draw more of those polyphenols into the water phase of the emulsion, making the bitterness pronounced.

That said, not all extra-virgin olive oils do this to the same degree, since different ones can have naturally varying polyphenol levels. Plus, not all people find the resulting flavor to be off-putting. The below recipe offers instructions for those like me who aren't bothered by (and often can't detect) this bitterness and can't be bothered to switch from blending to hand-whisking midway through, as well as an alternative for whisking the olive oil in by hand, which makes the process more annoying but is less likely to cause any strong bitterness.

You should choose the method based on your own experiences. If you've noticed this bitter mayo flavor before, it's maybe worth whisking in the olive oil. If not, you'll likely be fine just using your blender or food processor the whole time like I do. (To be clear, I love hand-whisked mayo, and have tried to describe its textural differences compared to a blended mayo before, but it's not something I want to do with a Caesar mayo given all the chunky things in it that need to be blended until smooth.)

Do you need ideas with what to do with a Caesar mayo that's thicker than Caesar (mayo) dressing? Swap it with regular mayo in tomatoey sandwiches, then put it on just about any other sandwich; dip cold roast chicken (or pork) in it, or shred those meats up for umami-packed salads; stir some into a hearty soup; try a bit of it in egg salad; use it to season deviled eggs or oeufs mayonnaise; dip French fries in it; dip everything in it. Honestly, it's Parm and anchovy-spiked mayo, it's gonna be great on an awful lot. Just like Caesar dressing, which, just to be ambundantly clear, this basically is.