The Best Substitute For Anchovies When Making Caesar Salad

Anchovies are a divisive flavoring agent. To some people, there's nothing better than the intense burst of fish flavor anchovies add to otherwise simple dishes. To others, they want the salty, little fish as far away from their pizzas, salads, and sandwiches as possible. It's easy to leave the anchovies out of some plates when trying to appease the anti-anchovy faction in your life while others, like Caesar salads, are a bit harder. Caesar salad is made with so few ingredients that the anchovy filets Caesar Salad dressing calls for are crucial to the overall flavor profile of the dish. However, there are options for substitutes.

Tasting Table spoke with Chef Charlotte Langley, President and Founder of Langley Foods, who had some creative solutions for substituting anchovies from your Caesar salad. "[C]apers are a great option. They provide a similar briny flavor, though the umami depth won't be as pronounced," she explained.

If you are planning on using capers to replace the anchovy fillets that many chefs add to the dressing, a little goes a long way. Start by adding 1 teaspoon of chopped-up capers to your dressing, blend together with the other ingredients, and give it a taste. If you want more salt, increase the capers by 1/4 teaspoon until the flavor is to your liking. We like to fry up some capers in butter until they start to pop open and add that on top of the salad for more brine and texture. 

Interestingly enough, Caesar salad wasn't initially conceived with anchovies. According to culinary lore, Caesar salad was invented in the early 1920s by an Italian chef named, of course, Caesar Cardini, at his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico. We call it "lore" because some accounts claim Caesar's brother, Alex, was the one who invented the salad on a night when the restaurant was running low on ingredients and high on hungry customers. Cardini's daughter, Rose Cardini, claims the salad came together with leftover ingredients including the ones we're used to seeing in a typical Caesar salad — except for the anchovies. Instead, their salad was made with Worcestershire sauce, which Chef Langley points out "actually contains anchovies and can mimic the [anchovy] flavor quite well."

Even though most Worcestershire sauces include anchovies as an ingredient, the funky fermented taste that comes from the vinegar and sweetening agents does a good job of diffusing the fishiness into a more subtle umami flavor. Plus, it's a thin liquid sauce so no little fish carcasses to deal with — if that's your main ick. Ultimately, Caesar salad shines with a rich, brothy bite balancing out the creaminess from the egg yolk and parmesan — which doesn't have to come from anchovies.