Belinda's Classic Chicken Caesar Salad

Want to enjoy warm chicken with crispy skin all year round, even on hot summer days? I love the decadence of having warm chicken in a classic Caesar salad. It’s perfect to enjoy in the garden with friends and family in the summer. It also makes a great lunch using any leftovers you have from a roast chicken.

For this salad, I wanted to use as many delicious local ingredients as possible. I used the farmhouse white bread from a local bakery in Woodbridge to make the croutons, lettuce from my garden, and eggs from village shop. For a quick cheat, you can also use the Stokes Sauces Creamy Caesar Dressing.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

• 4 chicken breasts with skin on, or leftover meat from a roast Sutton Hoo Chicken

• 2 thick slices of sour dough bread or white farmhouse cut into chunky squares

• 4 tbsp olive oil

• 2 Little gem lettuce or Romaine lettuce, leaves separated and washed

• Parmesan shavings, these can be done easily with a potato peeler

For the Caesar dressing:

• 1 clove of garlic, crushed

• 2 egg yolks

• 1 generous tsp of Dijon mustard

• 2 tbsp grated Parmesan

• 8 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

• 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

• Sea salt and black pepper

METHOD

1.   First make the dressing (or cheat with Stokes Sauces Creamy Caesar Dressing!). In a bowl add all the ingredients except the lemon and either with a hand whisk or a hand held blender, whizz or the ingredients together. Taste and add sea salt and pepper and gently add the lemon juice. You want a pale creamy sauce.

2.   Next to make the croutons. Place the chunky square bread pieces into a bowl and pour over the olive oil and stir to coat them then place into a frying pan over a moderate heat and fry to colour. I like mine to remain slightly soft and not too crisp but if you want yours to be crispy you can place in a preheated oven on a low temperature and bake whilst you finish the salad.

3.   Now you can cook your chicken breasts. Season well with sea salt and black pepper and pre-heat either a griddle pan or frying pan. Once the pan is hot, lightly oil it and place the chicken breast skin side down into the pan and cook over a medium heat for 5–7 minutes on each side, until golden, cooked through and reaching 75°C at the thickest part. Rest for at least 5 minutes before slicing and meanwhile start to make up your salad. The meat should have clear juices when slicing with no pink remaining. Don’t forget you can also use leftovers from a roast Sutton Hoo Chicken for this recipe and therefore you would skip this step!

4.       To construct the salad, place the lettuce leaves in a wide shallow bowl and spoon over some of the dressing to coat the leaves. Cut the chicken into thick slices and lay on top of the lettuce. Scatter the croutons and Parmesan shavings over the salad and add a little more of the dressing.

You can purchase our Sutton Hoo Chicken from The Wild Meat Company. For more delicious chicken recipes head back to our recipe page here.