Vegan Chicken Caesar Salad
Everyone loves a good Caesar salad am I right? I would go on kicks where I would eat them everyday for lunch until I would get burnt out. Anyone else go on stints like that and eat the same thing for days at a time? I haven’t had a Caesar salad since going vegan, so I was pumped to see Trader Joe’s came out with a Vegan Caesar dressing. It’s got a nice tangy to it thanks to the Dijon mustard and Miso paste and the capers help give the hint of the anchovy taste you get from traditional Caesar dressing.
I decided to go all out with this salad, so I made the croutons from scratch, but you don’t need to do that to make a bomb salad. TJ’s plantain croutons are great, but some store brand croutons will do. Just make sure they don’t have milk or egg in them. A lot of them have milk which is super annoying. If you have a baguette or a loaf of bread, you can make croutons in a matter of minutes.
You can leave the protein out, or switch it up with marinated tempeh, breaded tofu, grilled chicken-less strips, or Trader Joe’s Hi-Protein veggie patties diced up. I prefer TJ’s chicken-less nuggets air fried and diced up. The air fryer is key to a quick and easy salad by cooking the chicken and croutons in no time.
Violife has the best vegan parmesan cheese on the market, and I’ve tried my fair share of vegan parm. I love to make my own for grated parm since I can make it with nutritional yeast, cashews, and spices that are all healthy for you. When I want legit, shredded or block parmesan, Violife is the way to go. You could just use nutritional yeast if that’s all you have, but I like to go all out on this salad since there aren’t a lot of ingredients.
Do you have a vegan Caesar dressing recipe you like? Did you realize traditional dressing had fish in it? I didn’t for years and it always grossed me out. What is your favorite go-to salad? Let me know in the comments below if you try this dressing and what you thought of it.
Thanks for reading,
Jessica
Vegan Chicken Caesar Salad
Ingredients
- 1 large head of organic romaine lettuce diced up.
- 6 oz Trader Joe’s Chicken-less crispy tenders (sub out whatever protein you want to use here)
- 6 TBSP TJ’s Vegan Caesar dressing
- 3 oz freshly grated Violife parmesan
- Fresh cracked pepper, to taste
- 2 cups freshly made croutons (see below)
- Optional: cherry tomatoes, capers, or grilled artichoke hearts.
- 2 cups diced baguette or bread loaf (sourdough, French baguette, or ciabatta bread works great)
- 2 ½ TBSP olive oil or melted vegan butter
- 1 TBSP herbes de Provence
- ½ TSP Better than Bouillon Roasted Garlic Base or garlic powder
- ½ TSP Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute
- 1 TSP parsley
- ½ TSP Savory Spice Blend
- ½ TSP Onion powder or salt (whatever you have on hand)
Instructions
- Cook the chicken-less tenders in the air fryer at 390 for 12-15 minutes, turning halfway until crispy on both sides. While the tenders are cooking, clean and dice up the lettuce, grate the cheese, and cut up any of the optional items I mentioned. Once done with that, dice up the bread and place in a bowl. In another bowl, add the olive oil or melted butter with the spices and grated cheese. Mix well. Add the diced bread into the bowl of seasoned oil/butter and toss the bread gently, but well. You want to make sure you coat all the bread evenly.
- Once the chicken is done, pull out of the fryer and let rest before cutting. While that rests, toss the bread into the fryer and cook for 5-7 minutes or until golden brown and crispy. I like to toss the basket a couple of times while they are cooking to get them evenly browned.
- While the croutons finish up, dice up the cooled tenders and top the lettuce with them. Add the grated cheese and croutons and drizzle the dressing all over. If you added any of the optional toppings, add them before you drizzle the dressing on.
- Serve immediately and feeds two.
- Enjoy!!
