In 2021 in my second month of writing about sandwiches, I wrote about a chicken Caesar sandwich. That was a little over 3 years and 3 months ago so I decided to do it again. This time it’s different though.
What is this sandwich?
This sandwich is a combination of a fried chicken sandwich and a Caesar salad. Instead of croutons, we bring in a crusty garlic bread-ed roll that brings extra crunch and flavor to match against the creamy Caesar salad and tender chicken.
Everyone knows that fried chicken is fantastic and Caesar salad dressing that you make yourself is in a whole different category than the store-bought stuff. And when you make it yourself you can control some of the flavor components. Not a fan of garlic? Reduce the amount in the recipe. Hate the idea of anchovies in a dressing or want to make the recipe a bit more vegetarian-friendly? Use capers instead.
Let’s get started on this sandwich. First, we need a good sandwich roll that can stand up to the garlic bread-ing process.
French-style sandwich roll
I have shared my French-style sandwich roll before and it’s probably similar to something you could buy at your local bakery. It’s not quite a super firm and sturdy baguette but it’s also not a super soft sub roll like you’d find at a chain sub sandwich restaurant. It’s a crunchy roll with a crispy exterior but still tender on the interior.
When I see the term “French” in reference to bread it tells me at least one thing which is that the bread will be made without sugar or fat added. Almost all mass-produced sandwich rolls sold in the United States will have sugar and fat in the form of butter or oil added to help the bread brown and rise. A dough without either fat or sugar will probably require a bit more time in the proofing stages and you might need to manipulate things in your oven to get proper browning.
Overnight starter
This is a bread option that does take 12 to 24 hours of prep time to accomplish because it requires an overnight starter. You can skip this step—and I have quite a few times—but leaving it out does change the flavor considerably. If you decide to skip this step you can just add the overnight starter ingredients right into the rest of the dough and it will just end up with perfectly fine rolls that don’t have quite as much yeasty bread flavor.
This is another of my recipes where we want to try to get steam into our oven during the baking process. A steamy oven helps dissolve any sugars on the outside of the bread, which will help with browning and crust formation. I create a steamy oven environment by spraying down the rolls with a mist of water from a spray bottle and I also keep an oven-safe dutch oven in the bottom of my oven that I fill with water right when I put the rolls in to bake. This water hitting a very hot pan quickly creates steam that helps with the baking process.
French-style sandwich rolls
An overnight starter sets these French-style bread rolls to be extra flavorful. A hot water steam in the oven provides a hearty crunch to the crust, while leaving a soft interior perfect for sandwiching.
Get RecipeOnce we have the bread baked I turn the sliced sandwich rolls into really large and flavorful croutons.
Garlic bread
You don’t have to go through with this step if you hate garlic and good things, but it turns the sandwich roll into a super garlicky and buttery crouton that is wrapped around the Caesar salad sandwich. Toasting a bun or roll generally is already a good practice when making a sandwich and this simply amplifies that.
First, you make a compound butter which is very similar to a recipe I have shared before (minus the parmesan, but the parmesan would work here as well).
Garlic compound butter
5 minutesOnce you have the compound butter the biggest thing to remember is that you have to pull the compound butter out of the fridge at least 30 minutes or so before you need it because otherwise it will be difficult to spread.
Spread the compound butter all over both sides of the roll and broil for 4 or 5 minutes to create a crunchy garlicky roll that’s perfect for a crispy fried chicken sandwich.
Crispy fried chicken
I have fried quite a bit of chicken for this sandwich blog but I do try to space things out so that I’m not frying chicken every single week. I scrolled through my past content and found out that it has been almost six months since I last fried a piece of chicken. Amazing. It’s definitely time we fixed that.
Butterflying a chicken breast is a good start to turning one large piece of chicken breast into two much more manageable pieces. Since my rolls are around six inches long and 3 or so inches wide, a long and skinny piece of flat chicken breast is a good size to fry for this type of sandwich roll.
The chicken gets marinated in a buttermilk, salt, black pepper, and hot sauce solution for at least an hour but 4 hours is much better. I like to marinade in a bowl with a lid so that the chicken is easier to remove for the next step.
Fill a large plate or bowl with seasoned flour and move the chicken pieces straight from the marinade into the flour mixture. Coat both sides really well and then allow the flour-coated chicken to rest for about 10 minutes while the frying oil comes up to temperature.
For this recipe, I get my peanut oil up to 350 F (176 C) and then fry each breast piece for about six minutes or until the center of the chicken is between 160 and 165 F (74 C). You can really dry the meat out when frying chicken breasts, so it is helpful to have a quick read meat thermometer just to double-check that you’re not under or overcooking it.
Even if the oil in your pan is above the level of the crust of the chicken, I still like to flip it at the halfway point so that neither side has darker areas where the chicken rests on the bottom of the pan.
Let the chicken rest after frying on a cooling rack or directly on paper towels. The interior of the meat will stay hot for at least 10 minutes so you don’t have to worry about serving a cold sandwich. Letting the chicken cool on a rack will also prevent the bottom of the chicken from getting soggy due to the crust steaming itself.
Thermometers
If you plan to fry, I suggest you get a couple of options of thermometers. I try to cook my chicken to temperature rather than cooking by time. I have a quick-read thermometer from ThermoWorks called a ThermoPop. They’re on version 2 now (I still have version 1) and it’s around 35 bucks (not sponsored). It’s a great thermometer and I always use it when frying or grilling meat.
You could get by with a quick-read thermometer being the only thermometer you own, but if your frying vessel is a large pot, you might want a candy thermometer that just hangs on the side of the pot. This deep frying thermometer is around 10 or 11 dollars and will keep your hands free if all you need to do is monitor the oil temperature.
Grab one or both of those thermometers if you don’t have one because temperature is extremely important when cooking. Another thermometer that I use often and highly suggest is an infrared temperature gun. This device measures surface temperatures and can be used when frying, but it’s not nearly as accurate as the other two options. But it’s great for measuring the temperature of a pan or griddle.
Caesar dressing
The first ingredients that you need to work with when creating a Caesar dressing are anchovy and garlic. Both of these are big flavor bombs and you chop them together until you have created a semi-smooth paste. As I have written already, you can reduce the amount of garlic if you don’t like the flavor, but don’t remove it altogether.
If you hate the flavor of anchovies or you are trying to make the dressing more vegetarian friendly you can swap the anchovies out for a couple of tablespoons of drained capers. The capers bring the savory and salty flavor that would be lost by removing the anchovies.
With a sharp knife, you can very finely dice the garlic and anchovies into tiny pieces. Then with the flat side and edge of the knife blade, you can smear the two diced ingredients into a fine paste that can be added to the dressing.
After all the ingredients are added, whisk with oil to create a creamy emulsion. Alternatively, you can add all the ingredients to a jar and shake thoroughly to combine and incorporate the dressing.
Then when the dressing is completed you can store in the fridge and simply shake the jar again before building the sandwich or salad.
My recipe for Caesar salad dressing is below but it’s also in the full sandwich recipe at the bottom of this page.
Caesar dressing
Great for a salad or used as the spread on a sandwich. Caesar dressing is a super garlicy and tangy sauce to dress your sandwich veggies.
Get RecipeCaesar salad
This sandwich is basically just fried chicken topped with a Caesar salad. So we don’t need to make things any more complicated than that.
Once you have the dressing, the salad part of this sandwich is easy. I just used sliced Romaine and thinly sliced red onion. Toss that with a couple of tablespoons of Caesar dressing and you’re set. You could add some quartered grape tomatoes or even a few pickled pepperoncini if you wanted to change things up a little bit but I kept it simple with just lettuce and red onion.
Shaved parmesan cheese
You don’t really need to add more parmesan cheese to the salad because the dressing does contain a lot of shredded parmesan, but I do like the texture that shaved pieces of parmesan bring to the final sandwich.
I simply used a potato peeler to get thin shavings off of a wedge of Parmesan Reggiano. The shavings add a ton of flavor and they actually do offer some texture to the final sandwich or salad as well.
Sandwich assembly
We don’t need any fancy slide shows or gifs for the sandwich build method here. Once you have your piece of fried chicken and the sandwich roll has been turned into garlic bread, you can simply toss chopped romaine lettuce and red onion slices in Caesar dressing and build the sandwich.
Chicken topped with a small Caesar salad with the garlic bread sandwich roll serving as a big crunchy flavorful crouton. This is a sandwich I will be thinking about for a long time.
Seared chicken Caesar version
Before we get to the full-fried version of this sandwich I did want to say that I also used one of my extra chicken breast pieces to make the same sandwich with a seared piece of meat instead of a battered and fried piece of chicken. If you’re worried about the extra calories from frying or you simply prefer grilled chicken, this is obviously a good option. Otherwise, everything else is the same and you can follow the rest of the recipe for this sandwich.
The crispy and garlicky chicken Caesar sandwich
Scroll through to check out a whole lot of fried chicken Caesar salad sandwiches and the full recipe to create this sandwich in your own kitchen.
Crispy and garlicky chicken Caesar sandwich
This crispy fried chicken sandwich is topped with a savory, crunchy, and creamy homemade Caesar salad and tucked inside some buttery garlic bread toasted rolls. This sandwich packs a full powerhouse of flavors and textures.
Ingredients:
Caesar dressing- 2 ounces can oil packed anchovy fillets
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 3 egg yolks
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon worchestershire sauce
- 1⁄2 cup vegetable oil
- 3 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons hot sauce (optional)
- 1 large chicken breast, cut into two pieces (or two smaller breasts)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1⁄2 teaspoon cayenne pepper powder (optional)
- 1⁄2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1⁄2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1⁄2 teaspoon paprika
- peanut oil or another neutral frying oil (2 inches deep in your pot/pan)
- 1⁄2 stick of butter
- 2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
- 1 teaspoon parsley
- 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 French-style sandwich rolls (6-inches long)
- 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 cup Romaine lettuce, roughly chopped
- 1⁄4 cup red onion, thinly sliced
- 3 to 5 tablespoons Caesar dressing (from above)
- 2 crispy fried chicken breast pieces (from above)
- additional parmesan cheese (optional garnish)
Directions:
Caesar dressing: first, you want to drain your anchovies and put them on a cutting board with your peeled garlic cloves. Start chopping them both together and get them to a fine dice. At this point, you should add a small pinch of kosher salt and mash/chop all three ingredients until you are left with a smooth paste. This may take a few minutes. You can use the side of your knife and drag it through the paste to smash and help smooth everything out. Adding the salt will help this process.
In a medium mixing bowl, add your egg yolks, lemon juice, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce and whisk to combine well.
Add the anchovy and garlic mixture to the mixing bowl with your egg yolk mixture and whisk again for a minute to make sure everything is incorporated.
The next part is the magic in the dressing-making process. This is the point where you'll be emulsifying the dressing. You want to add your vegetable oil very slowly while whisking everything together. I like to measure out my oil and add it to a clean squirt bottle. But you can use a measuring cup with a spout. At first, you will want to almost add the oil drop by drop. This will take a few minutes and you will probably be left with a sore arm, but it's worth it. Just keep slowly adding oil and whisking until you're left with a smooth, thickened dressing that is thinner than mayonnaise, but still has a slightly thick consistency.
Add your Parmesan cheese and whisk to incorporate it in with everything else.
Pour dressing into a jar or container with a lid and store in the fridge for a week or so.
Chicken marinade and frying: in a medium bowl add salt and pepper, to buttermilk (add hot sauce if you want extra spice). and whisk to combine. Put two sandwich-sized pieces of chicken in a zip-top bag or bowl with a lid. Pour buttermilk marinade over the chicken and store in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight.
Make seasoned flour by combining flour with all the spices, salt, and pepper in a bowl or pan that is large enough for a piece of chicken to lay flat in the flour.
Remove one piece of chicken at a time from the marinade and dredge in the seasoned flour mixture until thoroughly coated on all sides. Place the fully coated chicken onto a piece of parchment or a sheet pan rack to rest.
Heat 2 inches of peanut oil in a skillet to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Fry each piece of chicken for 6 to 7 minutes or until it reaches 165 degrees internal temperature. You'll probably want to fry for 3 minutes on the first side and then flip it to make sure you're getting the level of browning that you want. Continue cooking on the other side.
After frying, place the finished chicken on a cooling rack over paper towels to drain some of the oil away.
Garlic compound butter and toast: in a small bowl combine the butter, garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper, and using a spoon or spatula mix everything very well.
This is a garlic compound butter and it can be placed in a sealed container or wrapped in plastic wrap in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Slice your sandwich rolls and spread some garlic compound butter on the inside of each piece (about 1 to 2 tablespoons per slice).
Broil each slice for 4 to 5 minutes or until the bread is crispy and just starting to turn golden brown.
Caesar salad: while the bread is broiling, add Romaine lettuce and thinly sliced red onion to a medium bowl. Toss the lettuce mixture with Caesar dressing as you would with a salad.
Sandwich assembly: place a piece of fried chicken on top of the bottom piece of garlic roll. Top the chicken with Caesar salad.
Garnish with more parmesan cheese and/or a bit more Caesar dressing.
Close the top of the sandwich and serve.
Check back next week
I should be in a foreign country next week, but I am working my butt off to have extra sandwich content coming your way while I’m sipping port and eating a Francesinha or two. Hopefully, I will be able to keep my regular Monday schedule, but if not, don’t worry, I’m not done here yet.
