What To Consider When Pairing Wine With Caesar Salad
There are a few essential wine pairing tips that you should always keep in mind when trying to match your meal to your drink order. Even if you don't consider yourself much of a sommelier, you should be able to follow the more general of these tips, at the very least. One of the easier ones to consider is matching the intensity of the wine to that of the food.
If you're enjoying a rich prime rib steak, then you need a wine with flavor to match. Anything else will just be the taste-equivalent of white noise. This can be tricky when it comes to pairing wine with Caesar salads. While most salads are considered light, Caesar dressing packs a stronger, savory punch. Umami notes — courtesy of Worcestershire sauce, mustard powder, garlic, anchovies, and parmesan — play against the acidity of lemon juice and fats in the oil. Not to mention the optional addition of grilled chicken to go on top.
If you don't know a lot about wine, you're usually safe pairing a chicken salad with a crisp white. It should be refreshing and light, so the drink doesn't risk overpowering the Caesar. Fortunately, there are a lot of great wines out there that fit this description.
Understanding the flavors of a Caesar
Before we get into the specifics of the best wines to pair with a Caesar salad, we need to better understand this iconic dish, so we know what flavors the wine should bring to the table.
If the legends of its origins are true, then the Caesar salad is roughly 100 years old. The most common version of the story goes like this: Caesar Cardini was operating his Tijuana, Mexico restaurant on July 4th, 1924, when he found himself overrun with guests. So, he whipped up a sauce from what he had around the kitchen and paired it as a dip with whole lettuce leaves to be served as finger food. The sauce was a hit, and a legend was born.
Today, Caesar salad recipes are highly varied, but most stick to that original template laid out by Cardini. The keys here being a rich and creamy emulsion paired with several strong, overlapping flavors.
When making a homemade Caesar dressing, you're using a lot of ingredients, but a good one should be greater than the sum of its part. Your wine should also complement that balance. This means, while there is a wide range of wines that work, some of them will pair better with certain elements than others. The presence of lemon means you can use a citrusy white, but the rich, savory notes mean even a lighter red will work, too.
Specific wines that pair well with Caesars
The varied elements of a Caesar salad can be a lot for wine to compete with, so you don't want anything wimpy that'll get overpowered. Some great options are wines like Chablis, Albariño, or even pinot grigio. If you're adding the grilled chicken, then you might also want to consider something that's been oaked, such as a chardonnay, to help keep up with those richer flavors. Other good options are French rosés. These tend to be nicely acidic with notes of fruit that pair well with salads, and they share the refreshing crispness of a white wine.
If you're going to try and match Caesar salad with a red wine, then you need to make sure you aren't choosing one that's full-bodied. A light, refreshing crispness is going to be more complementary here. Wines like gamay can be a great option in this category. Some may consider it a faux pas to pair red wine with poultry, but the most important rule should always be to drink what you enjoy.