Everybody loves a good Caesar salad. I'm going to show you how to make it 2 different ways: the classic way and an equally delicious lighter version. So the first step of course, is the romaine lettuce. These are hearts of romaine. They're more tender and still crunchy delicious. I've cut them into pieces and fill the bowl. Next up, the cheese. We're gonna use this at the very end, but it's really important that because there are only four ingredients in this salad you need to have really good ingredients. Parmigiano-reggiano cheese does not come in a can. Let's use the real deal. We'll grate that all at the end. The next component of course are the croutons; possibly my favorite part of a Caesar salad, but only if they're homemade. It's so easy to do. Take your bread, cut it up, drizzle some olive oil on top. Season it with salt and some pepper. So toss these around. If you have an air fryer, you can do this really quickly. 370 degrees for about 5 minutes. And you'll have delicious croutons that are brown and crispy on the outside tender on the inside. Delicious! Classic dressing of course is a suspension dressing and an emulsification between egg yolk and oil, keeping them together. So we're going to start with our egg yolk in the bowl and we're gonna add juice of half a lemon. We're going to add some salt to the egg yolk. And we are going to start by whisking this together first. Now let's add that classic Caesar salad flavor. We're gonna start by adding some anchovy paste. You could add fresh anchovies if you want to chop them up. Anchovy paste is just really convenient. It keeps really well in the refrigerator and you don't have any leftovers that you can really worry about. Now we want to get some garlic. We're gonna make a garlic paste. Now when I say that, I'm going to actually chop this up really, really fine. And then I'm gonna mash it into a paste. The way to do that is just press it against the cutting board, adding a little salt to it will also make it really easy to do. So, mashing it against the board like this gives you a beautiful case that's going to let that garlic flavor transfer really, really easily so if you are not a huge fan of garlic, go lightly here. Garlic's a pretty critical flavor ingredient in a Caesar salad, however. So we've got our anchovy paste. We've got our garlic. We're mixing it up with our egg yolks, our lemon and our salt. And now this is the only tricky part of making a Caesar salad dressing. And that is drizzling in the oil slowly enough while you continue to whisk. Whisk quickly, add oil slowly. Once you see the Caesar salad dressing start to come together and thicken, you can add the oil a little more quickly but continue to whisk. So when you've added all of that oil, you should have a thick dressing now. A thick mayonnaise like dressing, full of flavor but of course the best way to taste it to make sure it has the right seasoning for you, is to taste it on whatever it is you're serving it on. So, there you go. A little bit of lettuce into the Caesar salad dressing. hmm It's nice and bright and lemony. I'm gonna add a touch more salt and I'm gonna add some black pepper. So there you have it. That's your Caesar salad dressing, but here's a really really quick and easy way to make a lighter version. It has almost all the same ingredients. So in this bowl, I have my garlic paste, I have my anchovy paste, and I have my lemon juice. I'm gonna add to that: Yogurt. In goes my yogurt and then I'm gonna add just a couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce. Worcestershire sauce is actually made from anchovies. So, we're keeping the theme here and that flavor intact. So whisking that together, that was really, really easy. It's a lighter version of course because it's not using the egg. It's just using yogurt. Super bright and flavorful. I'm gonna add a little bit of olive oil to it and then we're good. All we have to do now is check on our croutons which are just finished in the airfryer. Here they are! They look fantastic. If you don't happen to have an air-fryer you can put these on a cookie sheet and cook them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes and look how beautiful they are! Nice and toasty on the outside, tender on the inside. Let's put this salad together. Here's our romaine. We're going to use the classic dressing today and we're going to put some of that on top. We are going to grate some good true parmigiano-reggiano cheese in here as well. I like to finish with it but I also like to have some tossed into the salad. Let's go ahead and toss this up. Yes, I use my hands. They're the best tools you have in the kitchen. If you don't want to do this, you could use tongs, but your hands are gonna get every single piece of lettuce there coated. Let's put our croutons in at the last minute so they don't get too soggy. And then let's plate this up for lunch, dinner, or whenever you just need a delicious Caesar salad. Thanks for watching. If you'd like to see more of the Basics, click over here. If you'd like to see everything I used in this recipe, click over here. And if you have any question, comments, or suggestions for more Basics, put them in the comment section below.