The Simple Ingredient Swap For Lighter Caesar Dressing

In the world of salads, there are a few classic recipes that many of us have enjoyed, over the years, both in restaurants and at home. Perhaps you favor that steakhouse favorite, the wedge salad, typically a quarter of an iceberg lettuce drizzled with blue cheese dressing and sprinkled with bacon bits; Maybe you like a Waldorf salad, featuring chopped apples, celery, and walnuts in a creamy dressing; Or maybe you go for an OG Caesar salad, the well-known mix of chopped Romaine lettuce, crunchy croutons, and grated Parmesan cheese tossed in a mayonnaise-based dressing.

Wait, you might be thinking, Caesar salad dressing contains mayo? Technically, it does: A classic Caesar dressing typically combines olive oil and egg yolks, which, when whisked, come together as mayonnaise (via Olive Oil Times). But if typical Caesar dressings are just a bit too heavy for you, you'll want to check out a lighter ingredient you can use in the dressing's base — that's just as creamy as mayo.

If you're just not a mayonnaise person, or if you're looking for a Caesar salad dressing base that's a bit lighter in flavor and heft than dressing's typical olive oil-and-egg-yolk mix, then you might want to do as chef Jamie Oliver does and use creamy Greek yogurt, instead. His recipe for Caesar on the Light Side, published by Food & Wine, uses a third of a cup of low-fat or nonfat Greek yogurt — the thick, strained dairy product that's so often used as a mayo swap — as the base for a healthier Caesar dressing. The dressing features other classic Caesar ingredients, including anchovies, garlic, fresh lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and Parmesan cheese, for a flavor that hews closely to the original.

Another fan of using Greek yogurt in Caesar dressing is Food Network host Giada de Laurentiis, who has a recipe for a similar dressing on her blog Giadzy. Her recipe also adds dijon mustard and anchovy paste, rather than actual anchovies.