Healthy Caesar Salad with Greek Yogurt Dressing
Make a delicious restaurant-style caesar salad at home – with more nutritious ingredients! This homemade healthy caesar salad recipe features crisp romaine lettuce, a creamy greek yogurt caesar dressing, the crunchiest baked homemade croutons, and freshly grated parmesan cheese. Serve it as a satisfying side salad or top it with your favourite protein like chicken or shrimp!
Everyone loves a good caesar salad, but it’s generally not the most nutritious salad of all the salads. That’s where this dietitian comes in! I made it my personal mission to create a caesar salad recipe that was just as satisfying as a restaurant version, but made with better-for-you ingredients. And I’m pretty dang happy with the result (you will be too!).
It all starts with a good caesar dressing:
Now if we know anything about my healthy salad recipes, it’s that they always start with a killer salad dressing. Take my southwest chicken salad with my creamy southwest dressing for example, or my grilled maple salmon salad with maple balsamic dressing. The dressing is a key piece of a good salad, so I knew I had to create the perfect healthy caesar dressing for this salad.
The dressing recipe uses plain greek yogurt (no mayo required!) to get that classic creamy caesar dressing texture. I’m such a fan of using greek yogurt in dressings because it adds an extra protein boost to your salads, along with a host of micronutrients like calcium, vitamin D, riboflavin and more.
The yogurt gets blended up with olive oil, dijon, lemon juice, parmesan cheese, and a few other flavour-enhancers like Worcestershire sauce and anchovies (or anchovy paste). It’ll blitz up in 5 minutes, but it will also turn out just fine if you prefer to whisk everything together by hand.
The croutons are next:
You can’t have a caesar salad without a good crouton. And if you didn’t know, they’re like, really simple to make on your own at home. You just need some bread, some oil, and some flavourings to jazz them up! For an extra nutrition boost, I like to make my croutons out of sprouted grain bread. It’s higher in fibre and protein than regular bread – even whole wheat!
Now we can assemble the salad!
Add your washed and chopped romaine lettuce (for the crispest lettuce, use a salad spinner!) to a large salad bowl. Top with the baked croutons and parmesan cheese. Then, on goes dressing! Give it all a good toss to make sure the lettuce and croutons are coated! I also like to add a squeeze of lemon juice on top and some lemon wedges for garnish when serving.
Note: The recipe makes about 1 cup of dressing, so you will likely have some leftover (see recipe notes for storage).
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Healthy Caesar Salad with Greek Yogurt Dressing
Ingredients
For the Salad:
- 1 large head romaine lettuce
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- lemon wedges, for serving, optional
For the Homemade Croutons:
- 3 cups bread cubes, I use sprouted whole grain bread
- 1/2 tsp italian seasoning
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/4 tsp salt and pepper, each
For the Healthy Caesar Dressing:
- 1 cup plain greek yogurt, I recommend 2% or higher M.F.%
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 3 tsp Worchestershire sauce
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tsp dijon mustard
- 2 anchovy filets (or 2 tsp anchovy paste), diced
- 1/2 tsp salt and pepper, each
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
For the Homemade Croutons:
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a medium mixing bowl, sprinkle bread cubes with Italian seasoning and garlic powder.
- In a separate small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, minced garlic, and salt and pepper.
- Pour the oil mixture over the seasoned bread and toss to coat. Spread onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350F, flipping halfway.
For the Healthy Caesar Dressing:
- While the croutons bake, add all dressing ingredients except for parmesan cheese to a blender/food processor or mixing bowl.
- Blend on high speed or whisk until smooth and creamy.
- Fold in 1/2 cup parmesan cheese and stir to combine. Adjust salt and pepper and seasonings as necessary to taste.
For the Salad:
- Chop romaine lettuce and add to a large salad bowl. Top with homemade croutons and 1/4 cup parmesan cheese. Add your desired amount of dressing (you will likely have some leftover) and toss well to combine and coat the lettuce/croutons.
