Je Goûterai - I will taste

Tomato and Basil Chicken Sausage Caesar Salad with Low Fat Caesar Dressing

No. 20: Low Fat Caesar Dressing – 18.2.12

I adore Pizza Express Chicken Caesar salads, they are the nicest Caesar Salads ever! Every time I would go out for a meal at a new restaurant I would try their Caesar salads to try and find one nicer. I never did. However, I’m not usually a fan of salad dressings. When I make a salad I usually add a bit of cottage cheese or a bit of Balsamic vinegar to it. Caesar dressing is one of the only ones I liked but I know how fatty dressings can be. Reading through my cook books I came across a low fat dressing in my copy of ‘Cook Yourself Thin’ and decided to give it a try!

Serves 2

1 small clove of garlic, peeled and grated
2 anchovy fillets, in olive oil from a tin or jar
pinch of salt and ground white pepper
3 tbsp 0% fat Greek yoghurt
a squeeze of lemon juice
20g of freshly grated Parmesan, with a microplane (Not the stuff you can pre grated)

• Place the anchovy, garlic, salt and pepper in a pestle and mortar and bash until made into a smooth paste. If you don’t have one, I would put these into a sandwich bag and mash with the end of a rolling pin.

• Add the yoghurt a tablespoon at a time with the lemon juice and mix until combined.

• Stir in the Parmesan and season to taste.

This was delicious!!! I had bought some chicken sausages from a Farmer’s Market the same day so made a Sausage Caesar Salad for my lunch. The dressing tasted so much like a regular Caesar dressing! I used Mature Cheddar instead of Parmesan because, lets face it, Parmesan is pretty expensive and I had cheese already. I think once you have tried to make it you can alter the quantities of ingredients to suit your taste, for example mine wasn’t garlic-y enough so next time I will add more. I am defiantly going to use this in the future as it is so close to a regular Caesar dressing and is absolutely wonderful!