Chicken Caesar Salad Lettuce Wrap
A dollop of homemade Caesar dressing and some leftover rotisserie chicken is all you need for this low-carb lunch.
All the beauty and grace from a chicken Caesar salad rolled in crunchy iceberg lettuce wrap to take on the go for an easy lunch. No forks are required for this salad! Do you have any leftover chicken? You only need half a cup of cooked chicken to make a wrap. The topping ideas are endless. Start with some parmesan shavings, then your favorite croutons, your cooked chicken pieces, this easy five-minute Caesar dressing, and some slices of tomato. Lunch is ready in less than ten minutes! We used a rotisserie chicken breast for the cooked chicken and my go-to Caesar dressing recipe to tie everything together. My favorite part of my Caesar dressing is zero anchovies or no raw egg yolks. Too divisive! This dressing takes just five minutes and a hand blender.
We made this as a part of a test to utilize a whole rotisserie chicken.
To see how they stack up, read on here:
Four Recipes and One Rotisserie Chicken. Let’s Make Lunch!
You can see the other three chicken recipes here:
Rotisserie Chicken Noodle Soup
Chicken Pesto Pasta Salad
Chicken Burrito Bowl
As a chef who’s worked his way through restaurants, you learn A LOT of Caesar dressing recipes, so as time has passed, I’ve naturally adjusted a recipe for Caesar that works for me. Working as a private chef, we deal with food allergies daily. We serve immune-compromised guests, pregnant guests, vegetarian, and vegan guests. This means that certain raw ingredients are typically omitted while preparing food for service. I love anchovies in recipes, but it is a divisive and non-inclusive ingredient in this recipe, so I omit them. The anchovies in this recipe will not be missed and if you do, mash one or two in your bowl then mix them into your Caesar before tossing them with lettuce.
Let’s talk about how to wrap this salad in lettuce instead of a flour tortilla because it does take technique. Start by removing the core from the head of lettuce, then running the leaves in cold water. Carefully peel the bottom two layers of the iceberg from the bottom side of the lettuce and set aside. You did it! The more layers of lettuce you peel the longer the lettuce will last hold as a wrap. If you are not eating your wrap within the hour, BE SURE to peel more layers. It won’t sacrifice quality with more lettuce. When you go to wrap it all up, make sure to roll that bad boy confidently into a nice burrito. Your lettuce wrap may crack or split, but all is forgiven once you wrap your lettuce tightly in parchment, and then again in saran wrap. This is the true glue to hold your wrap together.
When you go to eat your wrap, simply peel down the parchment and plastic wrap and dig in.
Chicken Caesar Salad Lettuce Wrap
Diet: Gluten-Free
Ingredients
- 1 head iceberg lettuce
- 1/2 cup shaved parmesan cheese, divided
- 1/2 cup croutons
- 1 cooked skin-on chicken breast, sliced (rotisserie chicken preferred)
- 1 Roma tomato, sliced thin
- 2/3 cup Caesar dressing
For caesar dressing:
- 3 tablespoons mayo
- 2 tablespoons shaved parmesan cheese
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons water
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Preparation
- Prepare the iceberg cups by removing the core and root end of the head. Run the lettuce under cold water making sure to get water between the layers of lettuce to help separate the lettuce. Remove two layers of lettuce from the bottom by gently shimmying the cup off the head of lettuce. Take your time.
- Mix the caesar in an immersion blender until smooth. Set aside.
- Build the Caesar wrap starting with the iceberg, then some salt, then half the parmesan cheese shavings, the croutons, then chicken breast, 1/2 of the dressing, then tomato slices, then the remaining Caesar and parmesan.
- Wrap up the lettuce by rolling with the filling to create a burrito. The more lettuce you use, the easier. Place the rolled lettuce burrito over parchment paper and roll the wrap tightly, then wrap tightly in saran wrap to help create a firm lettuce burrito. Cut in half, peel back the parchment and plastic. Enjoy!
Recipe adapted from No Crumbs Left