Anyone who works in hospitality despises Caesar salad. Not because it is something bad. Not even because there are thousands of recipes out there and they each go further away from the classic Caesar formula. The real reason is the people that order Caesar salad in restaurants or bistros are obnoxious. You can tell by their faces that they are going to order a Caesar salad because they don’t know anything better. This sounds like I hate the thing, right? Caesar salad is a delicious meal, but it is most often ordered at places that have so much more to offer. And this basic order seems funny. That being said, I love a good Caesar salad. With nice roasted chicken or prawns, with tangy sauce that has a real kick and crunchy fresh Romaine lettuce. This roasted chicken and burst cherry tomato Caesar salad is all that and more.
So what makes a real nice Caesar salad? In my opinion it all comes back to the sauce / dressing. I have tried different kinds of store bought Caesar sauces and they each have tasted completely different and not good enough for my liking. So I usually make my own. This oven roasted chicken and burst cherry tomato Today I was opting for for a classic anchovy sauce, because I love the saltiness and spiciness of the fish. If I hadn’t already opened the can of anchovies, I might have made a sauce using miso paste which also holds very similar umami flavors. But since there where already egg yolks in there, I decided to go ahead and make a classic one. I used an immersion blender but a regular blender or a food processor works well too.
What makes this oven roasted chicken and burst cherry tomato Caesar salad different from others IS the oven roasted chicken and the burst cherry tomatoes. Since it is not tomato season anymore I wasn’t going to rely on fresh store bought cherry tomatoes flavor wise. Hence the oven roasted burst ones. The chicken gets a nice and crispy outside while getting pan roasted in butter in a cast iron pan and the added tomatoes together with herbs and honey make a flavorful marinade that all together gets roasted in the oven. And the juice that comes from those tomatoes, amazing! This roasted chicken and burst cherry tomato Caesar salad has so many flavor dimensions because of the homemade dressing and the buttery fried chicken and burst cherry tomatoes that are oozing with delicious juices.
If salad isn’t really your thing, you can always make a nice one pan chicken dinner instead.