Our Caesar salad is completely vegetarian: with oven-roasted cauliflower, crispy garlic croutons, crispy garlic chips and a pleasantly sour caper dressing – the ideal salad for warm summer days.
Summertime is salad time, and ideally they come to us Salads on the tablewhich are relatively quick to prepare and inexpensive, like this one Vegetarian cauliflower Caesar salad with roasted capers, garlic chips and garlic croutons. Then you have more time for the things you normally do in the summer: sitting on the balcony with a drink and watching the foxes, squirrels, bats and birds in the backyard, going swimming in the outdoor pool early in the morning, standing in line for far too long at your favorite ice cream parlor, hiking around a lake in Brandenburg (unfortunately we have the mountains left in Bavaria) or enjoy the sunset in the beer garden. You can see that the program is tight, but we still want to cook at home every now and then.
This variation of the Caesar salad is vegetarian, light enough for warm to hot summer days and still filling after a hard day of work or fun. The only downside is that you have to turn on the oven. But at least you don’t have to stand at the stove and can escape to the balcony, into the garden or in front of the fan while cauliflower, capers and bread are roasting in the oven. The dressing is pleasantly sour and refreshing thanks to the capers and lemon. We also love the noticeable mustard note in the salad dressing. The vegetarian Caesar salad tastes best when it is served fresh and lukewarm, but you can also eat the leftovers fresh from the fridge the next day without any problems. Only the bread is no longer as crispy.
How does a Caesar salad become vegetarian or vegan?
Many people don’t realize that the classic Caesar salad isn’t vegetarian at all. It was also a painful realization for me when I started eating vegetarian in my teens and fell head over heels in love with the classic salad that is so popular in the USA during a vacation in California a few years earlier. The dressing of the typical Caesar salad relies on anchovies and raw egg yolk – we leave both of these out in our vegetarian version. Instead, capers and caper stock provide the salty-spicy umami kick, and the egg is replaced with mayonnaise. The result is very close to the classic Caesar salad, so that I no longer have to completely do without my former favorite salad. If you like it vegan, swap the mayonnaise for a plant-based version and replace the parmesan with grated vegan hard cheese.
More summer salad recipes
If you’re always looking forward to new salad inspiration when the temperatures hit the 30 degree mark (or even 40), here you’ll find fresh and uncomplicated summer salads to get you through the hot days:
Vegetarian Cauliflower Caesar Salad with Roasted Capers (Recipe for 2-3 people)
Ingredients for the salad
- 1 medium head cauliflower
- 40 g pickled capers
- 2.5 tbsp olive oil
- Salt
- pepper
- 200 g sourdough bread (from the day before)
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 head of romaine lettuce
- 1 large handful of flat-leaf parsley
- 20-30 g Parmesan
Ingredients for the dressing
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 4 tbsp mayonnaise
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp caper stock from the jar with the pickled capers
- 30 g Parmesan, finely grated
preparation
- Preheat the oven to 220 °C fan oven. The Cauliflower Clean and cut into bite-sized florets. The cauliflower with the Capers and 1.5 tbsp olive oil Mix on a baking tray lined with baking paper and add Salt and pepper Season, then roast on the middle rack of the oven for 15-20 minutes until the cauliflower is lightly browned. Turn the florets halfway through.
- The Sourdough bread cut into coarse cubes. Peel the garlic cloves and cut them into thin slices. Mix both with the remaining olive oil in a baking dish or on a second baking tray and season with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven at the same temperature for 10-15 minutes, until the bread is crispy and the garlic is well browned.
- For the dressing, lemon juice, mayonnaise, Dijon mustardcaper stock, 30 g grated Parmesan and 1/2 teaspoon salt thoroughly mix in a bowl.
- Wash the romaine lettuce and cut it into bite-sized pieces. Wash the parsley, shake dry, pluck the leaves and chop roughly depending on size. In a large bowl, mix the romaine lettuce, parsley, cauliflower, garlic chips and capers with the dressing until well combined. Divide the salad onto plates, sprinkle with the croutons and generously grate the Parmesan over each dish, then serve immediately.
