Miso Caesar Dressing is a deceptively delicious way to simplify your caesar salad! The average Caesar dressing recipe has ten ingredients. For this one, you only need seven. White miso paste and mayonnaise do all the heavy lifting. No egg yolks, no anchovies. No exhaustive whisking or food processor. Just delicious umami goodness.
I mix the dressing with crunchy romaine, crispy wonton chips, buttery roasted cashews, and parmesan for the perfect twist on Caesar salad—which also feels easier to make!
If you have a box of miso in the fridge that needs using up, this recipe will do the trick in very little time. It’s such an easy side dish that goes with everything—you’ll make it on repeat. To make it a full meal, serve it with some grilled chicken, pan-fried salmon, or even shrimp or steak!
Miso Caesar Dressing For the Win
When I first encountered the idea of a Miso Caesar Salad at a restaurant, I admit I wrinkled my nose. A lifetime of being Chinese in America and also my job as a food blogger has made me just a bit allergic to excessive fusing of east and west on the plate. I thought the parmesan might be overly funky alongside the miso paste or that it all might taste a bit…off.
How wrong I was! It’s umami bomb on umami bomb, and I should have known, because most of the time all those extra tasty umami-filled ingredients make fireworks together. See also soy sauce + butter (in a noodle and another noodle and steak), soy sauce + ketchup (with shrimp), and tomato + oyster sauce (with beef).
Of course, I ran home to tinker with my own version. Bill, known in our personal circles as a bit of a Caesar salad connoisseur, gobbled this one up and declared it a winner! Back in the 80s, he was responsible for batch-making caesar dressing for resort goers at the Holiday Inn kitchen in Liberty, NY after all.
Caesar Salad with an Asian Twist!
We’re leaning into the miso of it all by adding some crispy wonton chips and cashews for crunch and a festive fusion energy.
(By the way, how did the cashew become such a poster child for Chinese and Asian fusion cooking? Any food historians out there, please enlighten us all.)
Now of course I could have gone full gourmand and fried my own wonton chips using our recipe, wherein we compare the fried texture of egg noodles (the classic technical “fried crispy noodle”), wonton strips, and egg roll wrappers.
But I realized that Whole Foods makes an organic wonton chip, so why make life more difficult than it already is?! Go for the store-bought. You have my blessing.
Our Favorite Brand of White Miso Paste
Yamabuki Shiro Miso is relatively inexpensive and has a delicious light and nuanced flavor that we find to be just right. While my mom sometimes prefers to reach for an organic white miso paste, Yamabuki is the one I always buy!
Miso Caesar Dressing Recipe Instructions
In a medium bowl, add the mayonnaise, olive oil, lemon juice, miso paste, dijon mustard, garlic, and black pepper. (You may want to first squeeze the lemon juice into a separate bowl to fish out any seeds.) Whisk until the dressing is smooth and emulsified. (At this point, you can refrigerate the dressing, and it will keep for 1 week.)
When you’re ready to serve the salad, prepare your salad greens. After washing, pat the leaves with a clean kitchen towel or run them through a salad spinner to remove excess moisture.
I saw an old trick on PBS once where you put the leaves in a kitchen towel, bundled up so they won’t fall out and then hold each end of the towel tightly with either hand then shake the towel up and down to gently get rid of excess water. It’s like a low tech salad spinner. The kitchen towel absorbs all the water as you shake it!
To cut them, I usually slice them vertically along the rib 1-2 times and then I stack up a bunch of leaves and chop them into ½-inch (1.25cm) lengths so you get a chopped salad texture.
To a large serving bowl, add the chopped lettuce, cashews, parmesan, wonton chips, and dressing. Toss to coat.
If you’re making this ahead, keep the lettuce, dressing, parmesan, cashews, and wonton chips separate until ready to serve.
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Recipe
Miso Caesar Dressing
Ingredients
For the dressing (makes ½ cup):
- 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice (about ½ a large lemon)
- 1 tablespoon white miso paste
- 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 1 garlic clove (finely minced)
- Black pepper (to taste)
For the salad:
- 12 ounces romaine lettuce (romaine hearts ideal)
- ⅓ cup grated Parmesan cheese (or to taste)
- ½ cup roasted cashews (salted cashews make this salad super tasty, but unsalted cashews work well too)
- ½ cup wonton chips (store-bought, or make them using our recipe!)
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, add the mayonnaise, olive oil, lemon juice, miso paste, dijon mustard, garlic, and black pepper. Whisk until the dressing is smooth and emulsified.
- When you’re ready to serve the salad, prepare your salad greens. After washing, pat the leaves with a clean kitchen towel or run them through a salad spinner to remove excess moisture. To cut them, I usually slice them vertically along the rib 1-2 times and then I stack up a bunch of leaves and chop them into ½-inch (1.25cm) lengths so you get a chopped salad texture.
- To a large serving bowl, add the chopped lettuce, cashews, parmesan, wonton chips, and dressing. Toss to coat, and serve immediately.
