Grilled Lettuces Caesar

🔥 Fire up the grill for this delicious and crunchy salad. It’s a lazy take on a caesar because sometimes simple and easy is best! 🥬

Salad Ingredients:
2 heads of romaine of 3-4 heads of small gem lettuces
Breadcrumbs (plain! Not herbed)
Calabrian chili paste or red pepper flakes
Lemon wedges
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Parmesan

Dressing Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic
4 anchovy filets
1 lemon, juice
1 tsp dijon
1 tbl aioli*

How to assemble — quarter lettuces and set aside. Turn on your grill and while it preheats, let’s make the spicy breadcrumbs. Heat a pan with a little olive oil, toss in the breadcrumbs and a little salt. Once they’re a little toasted, add in the calabrian chili paste and combine well. Remove from heat once desired toast is reached.

For the dressing, I combined all ingredients in a nutribullet. I had a homemade aioli on hand which I used as an emulsifier for the dressing, you can easily substitute with a big spoonful of tahini. The real way is to use an egg yolk and very slowly dribble in olive oil to emulsify. You may notice this dressing doesn’t include vinegar or parm – it’s because I wanted it keep this a little lighter and easier in general but you can certainly add and adjust proportions to taste.

Grill lettuces for about 2 minutes or until charred. Transfer to a platter and squeeze a wedge of lemon around. Spoon on the dressing, top with cracked black better, grated parmesan, and the breadcrumbs. Some large grated slices of parm or nice anchovy filets would be a great addition.

Enjoy 😚