Chicken Caesar Salad Recipe

Registered dietitian Liz Weiss trims down a Caesar salad without sacrificing flavor.

Meal Makeovers Caesar salad may sound healthy but believe it or not, it can have the same fat and calories as a fast food hamburger. Hi! I’m Liz Weiss. If you’re watching your waistline or just trying to eat a healthier diet, you’re going to love my makeover for chopped chicken Caesar with feta and dill. Let’s get started. We’re going to begin with a medium head of romaine lettuce. It’s about eight ounces and once you chop it up like I’m doing here, you’ll have about five cups of romaine. And the reason I like to chip it up is because it’s just easier to eat and because it gets really well coated with the salad dressing. So we’re going to add our lettuce to this bowl and then, simply add half a cup of chopped or diced cucumber and I’ve peeled that. Some feta cheese with a quarter cup of feta here, we’ll add that. Dill, now we’ve got some big flavors coming in. We have a tablespoon of fresh dill that I’ve chopped up and finally, I’ll get my knife out of the way, two tablespoons of creamy Caesar dressing. Now you might be wondering why a dietician would be adding a full fat dressing to his salad. Well that’s because we’re only using two tablespoons. The recipe serves two, means a tablespoon per serving, so the fat and calories are still going to be considerably lower than what you would get if you were eating in a restaurant. Now if you’re really concerned about fat and the calories, you can use a light ceasar dressing. Anything goes here but I like the flavor of this and so I’m going to use a little bit and a little bit is going to go a long way. So once we’ve added our dressing, I’ll take some tongs and I’ll just stir it all together. And because I’ve chopped up that salad, it’s going to get really great covered with the dressing. If you like pepper, go ahead and add a little bit of fresh ground pepper. We’ll go ahead and do that. I like pepper, it gives a little more flavor. And finally to finish this main dish salad, which I have to tell you is an incredible easy salad to make. We’ll just plaid it up and top it with some whole wheat croutons, any opportunity to get a little more whole in the diet, why not, and you can find these in the supermarket. And a little bit of grilled chicken. We’ve got about three or four ounces. And on to the salad it goes, very versatile. And we’re done. And since you’re already online, don’t forget, you can click here to download my recipe. Now, I’ve topped my salad with grilled chicken but you can certainly use grilled shrimp or even tofu or beans if you’re going vegetarian. It’s so great. It’s fresh, it’s crunchy, you’re going to love it. For Meal Makeovers, I’m Liz Weiss.