Room for one more.
I love salsas, sauces and dressings I can drizzle on to things or dip things in to. You’ll find some of my favourites here on my site, like Bloody Mary (great with croquettes), coriander salsa (great on salads), rocket and walnut pesto (great on sarnies), and romesco (great with nuggets), and now I have a new one to add to the list; green Caesar, and it’s great on all of the above.
Like a cross between Caesar and pesto, it’s silky and rich but its yogurt base means it’s still light enough to let the flavours it’s paired with shine through. Like delicate white crab and avocado — which with crisp and fresh sweet gem lettuce leaves, makes for a flavoursome salad that is summer on a plate.
Top tip:
With salads it can be tempting to sling all the ingredients in the bowl and then cover them with the dressing (I do this all the time), but the trick with a good Caesar salad (or one like it) is to instead build it up gradually and a bit more carefully — dotting each of the gem leaves with some of the filling and dressing. It makes a salad that’s well balanced in terms of flavours and textures as well as looking like the real deal.
For two, and with about a third of the dressing left for another day
- 200g white crab meat — preferably fresh
- Head of 2 sweet gem lettuces
- 1 ripe haas avocado, diced just before using
- A handful of fresh basil leaves
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 garlic clove
- 4 tbsp natural yogurt — I use low fat
- 4 tbsp mayonaise — I use low fat
- 25g finely grated Parmesan
- Sea salt and black pepper
- A glug of extra virgin olive oil
Method
- Take the crab out of the fridge about 30 mins before you want to eat it.
- For the dressing, in a food processor or blender, (or if you have a NutriBullet that works perfectly too), add the basil, lemon juice, mayo, garlic, yogurt, Parmesan, olive oil and a little salt. Blend until as smooth as possible and pour in to a jug or dressing bottle. Keep in the fridge.
- When you’re ready to eat, in 2 bowls layer up the sweet gem lettuce leaves, diced avocado, white crab and drizzle over the dressing, layer by layer until you’ve used all the leaves, avocado and crab and you’ve got a little of the dressing over each of the leaves.