Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad

Through the spring and into the early fall, I look for any excuse to grill outside. In these cherished warm months, pretty much everything my family eats comes off of the grill, even salads. One of my favorite grilled salad recipes that is always a crowd-pleaser is my deeply flavorful twist on a classic grilled chicken Caesar salad. It’s savory and hearty enough to be served as the main meal, and it is ready to serve fresh off of the grill in under 45 minutes.

My recipe starts with the classic building blocks of the Caesar salad—chopped romaine lettuce, garlicky croutons, and a creamy dressing made with eggs, olive oil, lemon, Parmesan, Worcestershire sauce, and anchovies—plus grilled chicken. This basic dish has become a US restaurant staple, and in most cases it's a pretty uninspired affair. While even the laziest combination of savory, creamy, tangy, and crunchy ingredients is still delicious, there is plenty of opportunity to make this so much better .

In my recipe, I infuse the salad with a rustic, smoky char by grilling every element (except the dressing—good luck grilling that). There are a few key techniques and modifications, though, to ensure the chicken is juicy, the lettuce isn't limp, and the grilled croutons flavorful. Here are my tips.

Keep the Dressing Classic

I use Kenji’s classic caesar salad dressing in this recipe. It’s rich with egg and Parmesan, and gets its signature savory depth from anchovy and garlic. Yes, the Caesar salad dressing used here contains anchovies. While it’s debatable if the original caesar salad had anchovies or not, I think they're essential for their briny, umami-rich flavor. Feel free to adjust the number of anchovies (or even omit them), and/or adjust the amount of Worcestershire sauce (which itself contains a small amount of anchovy) to your taste. 

If you're concerned about the safety of using raw egg in the dressing, you can either purchase already-pasteurized eggs, or as Kenji suggests, even pasteurize your eggs at home using a sous vide circulator set at 135°F (57°C) for two hours.

The dressing comes together in just a few minutes, and can be made while the chicken is brining and before you go out to grill, or it can be made and refrigerated up to two days ahead, to minimize indoor cooking prep when you’re ready to grill. If you’re strapped for time, or just don’t feel like making a homemade dressing (although I strongly recommend you do, as homemade is always best), you can use a store-bought Caesar salad dressing.

Cook Everything Over a Hot Fire

In any recipe that involves grilling multiple elements that cook at different rates, it can be a challenge to choose the right heat level for the grill. This is even more true for a charcoal grill, where you can’t quickly adjust a knob to change the heat level as needed.

Luckily, in this recipe the solution was easy since all the components benefit from high heat. For a gas grill, simply keep the knobs on high; for a charcoal grill, use a full chimney (6 quarts) of charcoal briquettes and pour them over just half of the coal grate. By concentrating the coals into a smaller area, you have an even more intense hot fire than if the coals were spread over the entire coal grate. 

By cooking everything over the coals on the hotter side of the grill you ensure deep browning while minimizing dehydration, the the case of the chicken and bread, and wilting in the case of the romaine. Everything cooks very fast, within a few minutes, so make sure to monitor closely while grilling, and move or flip the ingredients as needed to build a deep and even sear without burning or overcooking the food.

How to Ensure Juicy, Flavorful Chicken

Despite their popularity, chicken breasts are arguably one of the most difficult meats to grill. Due to their irregular shape and how lean the meat is, it's all too common to for the breasts to dry out on the grill, leaving you with slabs of deeply seared chewy cardboard. With the right prep, though, this can easily be avoided, and you can get fantastic, juicy, and well charred chicken on the grill; it just takes a little know-how.

The first step is to pound the breasts to a 1/2-inch thickness so that they cook through evenly. This eliminates the thin tapered end of the chicken breast turning leathery by the time the thick end is cooked. Second, soaking the chicken for 30 minutes in a potent “brinerade” seasons it to help the chicken retain its moisture while cooking.

Here at Serious Eats, we usually prefer dry-brining protein over wet brining, since the salt of a dry brine helps the chicken retain moisture during cooking without pumping it up with excess water. Not only that, but we've demonstrated before that most of the flavors in a marinade do not penetrate far into meat. I still had good reason to reach for a well seasoned, deeply concentrated marinade here though, for the flavor it adds to the surface of the meat along with the enhanced browning it ensures. For this marinade, I mixed salt with water, honey, and just enough umami-rich fish sauce and soy sauce to add savory depth while echoing the flavor of the Caesar dressing. 

I recommend marinating the chicken for at least 30 minutes, but it will be even more well seasoned if left to marinate overnight. (Since there are no acids in the marinade, there’s no risk of denaturing the protein with a lengthy time in the marinade.) 

Right before grilling, it's best to coat the chicken in a little oil to prevent the meat from sticking to the grill grate, and to cook it over a hot fire to further deliver deep browning quickly, before the interior has a chance to dry out.

Swap the Croutons for Grilled Baguette Slices

This switch was a no-brainer—as long as I'm grilling, I might as well make grilled "croutons" instead of making or buying more traditional toasted croutons. Thin slices of a baguette toast up quickly on the grill.

The char of the grill isn't the only way to add flavor here. I also rub the bread with garlic when it's just hot off the grill. The garlic melts into the bread when you do this, adding incredible flavor. I’m a firm believer that every element of a salad should be seasoned, so don’t forget to lightly sprinkle salt and freshly ground black pepper over the grilled “croutons” as well.

You can use the grilled bread for scooping up the lettuce while eating, or crumble the pieces over your salad before tucking into it.

Quickly Char the Romaine

In my experience, lettuces, especially sturdy ones like romaine, are wonderful when grilled. Romaine lettuce leaves soften slightly at their centers and char beautifully at their tips when grilled properly while still retaining some structure. Their mildly bitter char is a fine counterpart to the savory rich Caesar dressing.

The key is to avoid limp, soggy lettuce. To ensure the romaine retains some crisp texture and doesn’t whither, use just the firm, compact romaine hearts for grilling, halve them through their core, and grill cut side down over a hot fire so they pick up char fast before wilting.

I've also found that brushing the romaine heart halves with a small portion of the Caesar dressing blended with additional oil prevents the leaves from sticking to the grill while also seasoning the lettuce. Make sure to paint the dressing into the crevices between the leaves, so that while the lettuce caramelizes slightly on the exterior, there is still a small amount of warm creamy dressing within.

I love to serve this grilled Caesar salad in a rustic, deconstructed presentation, similar to a wedge salad: I leave the halved romaine hearts intact, to highlight the char on the leaves, and shingle thin chicken slices over top, with a few of the grilled baguette slices on the side. Drizzle it all with more dressing, and don't forget to serve it with the charred lemon halves— the charred lemon is not only gorgeous but adds a nice final pop of acidity to the salad. It’s a hearty knife and fork salad that has savory Caesar flavor and char in every bite.