Every Fourth of July, Americans fire up the grill, gather to watch fireworks, and celebrate the nation’s birthday and the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But what many don’t know is that the day is a double holiday: the Fourth of July also marks the birth of the famous Caesar salad. A delicious cross between a side salad and a main course, Caesar salad is a salty, creamy combination of romaine lettuce, croutons, Parmesan cheese, and, of course, Caesar dressing.
The birthplace of salad Origin story ChangeHowever, some key details tend to remain the same. The dish was invented in Tijuana, Baja California.Italian immigrant chef Caesar Cardini founded the restaurant after a group of Americans were trying to escape the prohibition-era regulations. I went into his restaurantCaesar’s Place. Cardini created the salad on a whim, using leftover ingredients he found around his kitchen: eggs, garlic, lemon, Parmesan cheese, and romaine lettuce leaves. The Caesar salad is widely believed to have been created 100 years ago, around the Fourth of July, 1924. A fusion of culinary influences and appetites, the Caesar salad reflects the multiculturalism of the US-Mexico border and the ingenuity of immigrant kitchens. Perhaps for this reason, the Caesar salad has become such a major part of American cuisine. America’s Cultural Imagination For a century.
However, for people with dietary restrictions, such as vegans or those who cannot tolerate dairy products, anchovies and raw egg yolks (or mayonnaise) are As a shortcut), and the copious amounts of grated cheese that characterize Caesar salad pose a conundrum. Small canned fish and Eggs have a relatively low impact on the environment, The carbon footprint of Parmesan cheese This could be a problem for those trying to eat more sustainable diets. The U.S. retail market for plant-based alternatives to animal products is $3.9 billion to $8.1 billion between 2017 and 2023This comes at a time when Americans’ concern about climate change is at an all-time high.
In response to this demand, restaurant chefs have been developing vegan Caesar salads, using a host of secret ingredients like tahini, cashews, and coconut aminos to aim to recreate the flavor of Caesar salad without the animal products.
“It’s my favorite salad and a lot of people’s favorite salad,” said Odie O’Connor, who has worked in restaurants for about 20 years and has been a vegan for almost 10 years.
When O’Connor started making and selling vegan pizza in Portland, Oregon, he knew he had to have Caesar salad on the menu. The chef has experience working in pop-ups and now Boxcar Pizza The restaurant specializes in Detroit-style pies. In the restaurant’s early days, O’Connor used a store-bought vegan dressing, but then he decided to make his own dressing in-house.
“When I’m trying to veganize something that’s obviously non-vegan, I just dissect it and think about what its flavor profiles are,” O’Connor says. “For me, it’s garlic, it’s a little smoky, it’s salty, it’s lemony.” Caesar salad also has a distinct umami flavor that comes from the use of anchovies, egg yolk or mayonnaise, and Parmesan cheese. Discovered by Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda Developed in 1908, umami refers to a rich flavor that results primarily from the presence of the amino acid glutamic acid. Umami is considered to be the fifth taste, alongside salty, sweet, sour, and bitter.
To recreate these flavors, O’Connor relied heavily on grocery store staples: He kept the garlic and lemon from the original Caesar dressing (it’s already vegan), added salt, pepper, and Dijon mustard, and used tahini, a sesame paste, as the base for the salad dressing. He used nutritional yeast instead of Parmesan cheese. And to recreate the subtle tang that characterizes the Caesar salad, O’Connor used lots of capers and their brine.
“We’re very intentional about the ingredients,” O’Connor said, attributing his veganism to a desire to eat sustainably. Though Boxcar is primarily a pizza restaurant, O’Connor said the Caesar salad sells “a ton.” For those with dietary restrictions, “I think people are excited to still be able to enjoy things that they couldn’t always have because of their dietary restrictions,” O’Connor said.
But proving the power of animal-free Caesar salad recipes, even some meat-serving restaurants are now making vegan versions of the salad.
One of them is Scar’s Pizza New York City. The recipe was created by Gerardo Lalo Gonzalez about 10 years ago, when Scar’s owner, Scar Pimentel, specifically requested a vegan Caesar on the menu. For the recipe, Gonzalez focused on using cashews as a base to replicate the flavor that anchovies bring to a traditional Caesar. He wouldn’t tell us what else goes into the dressing, though, hinting that seaweed may be involved. “Usually, I’m very open about my recipes,” Gonzalez said. But he assured Pimentel that he would keep the details of the recipe a secret (Scar did not respond to a request for comment before publication). The final recipe is “something I’m really proud of,” Gonzalez said, and although he now lives and works as a freelancer in California, he still frequently hears from Scar’s clients who have found out that the salad was his invention.
“Caesar salad is everybody’s favorite salad,” he says, “and it’s just so refreshing and satisfying. I mean, if you break it down, it’s the dressing itself that makes the salad so great. It’s like a dip. It really makes you feel like you’re eating raw vegetables.”
digEast Coast-based fast-casual chain Dig is another franchise that serves animal products, but opted for a vegan Caesar. Chef Matt Weingarten, who wanted to avoid controversial ingredients and common allergens, says experimentation played a big role in developing the recipe. “We tried it for six months,” says Weingarten, Dig’s executive chef. “We took this recipe really, really seriously.”
dig
The final recipe uses cashews to replicate the rich texture that egg yolks and mayonnaise bring to traditional Caesar salad dressing. “The best way to understand why this decision was made is that one of the great attributes of Caesar salad is that it has so many great attributes: the garlicky flavor, the unique flavor, the brightness,” Weingarten says. “But what really defines Caesar salad is its rich texture,” he says. The chefs discovered early on that they could replicate that texture by soaking roasted cashews in water and pureeing them.
Their recipe also uses coconut aminos, a popular soy sauce substitute, to add a unique flavor to the dish. The salad’s cheesiness comes from “blending” the salad dressing ingredients rather than substituting them one-to-one. (Weingarten says she’s “not convinced” that nutritional yeast tastes like Parmesan cheese.)
Originally developed around 2015, the chain’s vegan Caesar salad started out as a seasonal item, only on the menu for a specific time period. But the recipe was an almost instant hit. “Once we put it on the menu, it never leaves,” Weingarten says. Rather than replacing or sitting next to a traditional Caesar salad on the menu, Dig’s vegan Caesar salad has carved out its own place.
Of course, a vegan diet does not equate to zero impact, especially if your definition of “impact” goes beyond carbon emissions. For example, the production of cashew nuts is “Cruel” and highly exploitative of workersAnd American farm workers Many of them are immigrantsoften tolerated Dangerous working conditions with very low wagesOn the other hand, cows and chickens raised for food are Large-scale agricultural facilities They often experience dire situations.
Making ethical food choices as a consumer can be daunting, but the journey toward a more sustainable diet can be rewarding and exciting. While Gonzalez himself is not “fully plant-based,” he says the pursuit of cooking without animal products is inspiring, both creatively and professionally. “I’ve always been drawn to plant-based cooking because I think it’s so much more interesting, flavor-wise, than relying solely on animal products,” he said. After developing the vegan Caesar at Scars, Gonzalez said, “I was really inspired. I thought, ‘I’m going to make a vegan blue cheese.'”
