Adding pasta to chicken Caesar salad is a nice change from the classic Caesar lettuce salad. This recipe consists of grilled chicken with pasta and lettuce that is tossed with a Caesar salad dressing. The best part about this recipe is, of course, the homemade dressing. The Caesar salad dressing gets a lot of its flavor from ingredients such as lemon juice and minced anchovies. If you do not have a blender to prepare the dressing, whisking the ingredients together in a bowl will work fine. For the chicken, you can grill it or bake it in the oven. If you want to save time, the meat from a cooked rotisserie chicken will also work well. This makes a great cold salad for summer. I like to serve this chicken Caesar pasta salad with garlic bread. Enjoy.
Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad Recipe
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 Servings 1x
Ingredients
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- salt and ground black pepper (to taste)
- Caesar Dressing-
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 garlic cloves (minced)
- 1 anchovy fillet (rinsed, dried, and chopped)
- salt and ground black pepper (to taste)
- Salad-
- 1lb rotini pasta
- 2 romaine hearts (cut into ½ inch pieces)
- 1 cup grated parmesan cheese
- salt and ground black pepper (to taste)
Instructions
- In a blender combine mayonnaise, lemon juice, olive oil, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, Parmesan cheese, garlic, and anchovy.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste. Process until smooth.
- Cover and refrigerate until needed.
- Season the chicken breasts on both sides with salt and pepper.
- Lightly grease the grates of an outdoor grill. Heat the grill to medium-high heat.
- Add the chicken breasts onto the grill and cook for 6-8 minutes per side or until the chicken is fully cooked (the internal temperature has reached 165 degrees F.).
- Remove the chicken from the grill and chop it into small chunks.
- Cook the rotini pasta according to package directions. Drain and rinse with cold water.
- In a large bowl toss the pasta and chicken with the romaine lettuce. Pour the dressing over the salad. Add the parmesan cheese and toss to combine and coat. Season with salt and pepper.