Copycat Outback Steakhouse Caesar Dressing

The Caesar dressing at Outback Steakhouse has its own unique tang to it – it’s richer, has a bit more garlic, and has that anchovy taste that makes you keep coming back. I started making a copycat version at home years ago since going out to dinner with kids on a weeknight went from being a treat to a logistical nightmare.

Using an electric mixer, this dressing takes less than five minutes to make, but then has to set in the fridge for 12 hours. This step is not negotiable; it’s how it goes from \”good\” to \”this is just like Outback’s!\” It will be just right for dinner if you make it the night before.

What Makes This Recipe Work

Caesar dressing falls flat constantly. Ever had a homemade caesar dressing that was weirdly flat, or too lemony, or you could even name what was off? The missing element was always the anchovy. Or it could have been the mixing (or lack thereof). This recipe solves both problems.

Anchovies are non-negotiable. This is what gives restaurant-quality caesar dressing its salty, savory backbone. Roland anchovy paste comes in a small tube in the canned fish aisle — it’s the easiest way to add anchovies without dealing with whole fish. One tablespoon adds depth without tasting “fishy” at all.
Egg substitute keeps it food-safe. Traditional caesar dressing uses raw egg yolk, which some people are (reasonably) wary of. Egg substitute gives you the same richness and emulsification without the raw egg concern.
The electric mixer matters. Beat with an electric hand mixer for at least 30 seconds — this fully emulsifies the oil and creates the smooth, creamy texture that makes it coat the lettuce evenly instead of pooling at the bottom of the bowl.
12 hours of rest transforms it. The garlic mellows, the flavors meld, and the dressing thickens to that perfect consistency. There are no shortcuts here — plan ahead.

What to Know Before You Start

Make this dressing the night before and put it in the fridge for 12 hours. It *genuinely* tastes better after 12 hours in the fridge. I have tested the dressing at 4 hours, 8 hours, and 12 hours. The 12-hour dressing wins every time, and by a *lot*.

If you’ve never cooked with anchovies, anchovy paste is the easiest entry point. Roland anchovy paste comes in a small toothpaste style tube and lives in the canned fish aisle at most grocery stores. You squeeze out what you need, cap it, and it keeps in the fridge for months. One tablespoon is not a lot — you won’t taste “fish,” you’ll taste that deep, savory quality that makes caesar dressing taste like caesar dressing and not just garlicky mayonnaise.

This large batch is perfect to make a big salad for a family, and because it can last in the fridge for a week it definitely is worth making the full batch. You can keep it in a wide mouth mason jar to easily shake before serving, and the dressing won’t absorb any plastic tastes.

Ingredients

1 cup mayonnaise
¼ cup egg substitute
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
½ tsp coarse ground black pepper
⅛ tsp salt (add more to taste)
½ tsp parsley flakes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon anchovies or anchovy paste
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons water

A Closer Look at the Ingredients

Every ingredient in this recipe has a distinct role. If you’re interested in finding out what each one does — and how leaving an ingredient out would negatively affect the end result — check out this breakdown.

Mayonnaise

Mayonnaise is the base for this dressing, and it adds the creamy texture, the fat content that carries the flavor, and the emulsification that combines everything together. Full-fat mayo is recommended \— light mayo will produce a thinner and more flavorless dressing. Both Duke’s and Hellmann’s hit the mark. Miracle Whip should also be avoided. Its sweet and tangy flavor profile would throw off the entire dressing.

Egg Substitute

Classic Caesar dressings contain an emulsion made with a raw egg yolk. The yolk keeps the oil and vinegar or lemon juice from separating. If you want to remove the risk of using raw eggs, you can use something like Just Egg, or a liquid egg product from the dairy case. These still provide the same emulsifying and creamy effects as eggs. If you don’t mind using raw eggs, you can add an entire egg or use just a yolk. Egg alternatives are in almost all commercial Caesar dressings and contribute to the ability of these dressings to remain stable for weeks without separating.

Olive Oil

Two tablespoons of olive oil contributes a richness and a slight fruitiness. The oil also helps to thin the dressing a bit to help it coat the lettece more evenly and not clump. You don’t need an expensive extra-virgin here-a mid-range olive oil is just fine. What you do want to avoid is a neutral vegetable oil, which just adds fat.

Lemon Juice

Lemon juice is the acid that brightens up Caesar dressing and balances the fat from the mayonnaise and oil and helps other flavors pop. Some recipes for Caesar dressing use white wine or red wine vinegar. While those vinegars work, they’re more vinegary and add a sharper note. Lemon juice gives a softer taste and is what most restaurants (Outback included) use. While fresh-squeezed will always be a bit better, bottled will work for this recipe. In fact, since the flavor gets mellowed by 12 hours of rest, the juice will ultimately be better the more processed it is.

Anchovy Paste

This is an ingredient that people hesitate on before trying and then they’re converts. Anchovies—and anchovy paste—provide glutamates, the compounds responsible for the umami quality in food. Umami is the deep, savory quality that makes food interesting, as opposed to the bland and one-dimensional taste. Without anchovies, your caesar dressing will just taste like garlicky mayo. With anchovies, it tastes like Caesar dressing. Roland anchovy paste is available all over the place, and after you open it, it will keep in the fridge for months. If you use whole anchovies from a tin instead, be sure to chop or mash them up really well before adding so that they fully incorporate.

Garlic

2 cloves of fresh garlic. Minced. The garlic will considerbly soften and become less pungent after 12 hours. Garlic that tastes raw and unappetizing will be soft and rounded come serving time. Skipping resting will garlic will cause it to dominate all other flavors. If allowed to rest, garlic will become background flavor and not the dominant flavor. Do not substiute garlic powder. It will not dispersed and the flavors will be drastically different.

Parmesan Cheese

Parmesan cheese adds salt, umami, and a sharp nutty flavor that mellows the dressing. For this recipe, you’ll need ¼ cup grated Parmesan. The canister version (such as Kraft) is perfectly fine, but for the ultimate upgrade, use freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. The “”real stuff”” has a less salty flavor that is more complex and gives the dressing a touch creamier consistency. You can use any type of Parmesan, but, be sure to grate it very fine so it mixes in smoothly and doesn’t leave any clumps.

Sugar

You might wonder why there are two teaspoons of sugar in a savory dressing. It’s actually what makes the dressing taste less like a generic caesar dressing and more like Outback’s. The sugar does not make the dressing sweet. Rather, it helps to smooth the tangy flavor of the lemon juice and the sharpness of the garlic to create a more rounded, restaurant-style flavor.\ It’s what makes the dressing taste less like a generic caesar dressing and more like Outback’s. The sugar does not make the dressing sweet. Rather, it helps to smooth the flavor of the lemon juice and the sharpness of the garlic to create a more rounded, restaurant-style flavor. Make sure to add it.

How to Make It

Put all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Using an electric hand mixer, beat for a minimum of 30 seconds, until the mixture is smooth and well combined. Store in a jar or airtight container and refrigerate for a minimum of 12 hours before serving.

The most difficult thing to do is wait.

Some techincial advice: pour all the ingredients in at once; there’s no need to add the oil in a slow stream as you would for a traditional emulsified vinaigrette. The mayonnaise does the heavy lifting because it is already an emulsion. The dressing is ready when it looks uniform and has slightly thickened. This should take a full 30 seconds on medium-high speed. At this stage, it will seem a little looser than expected, which is normal. It thickens considerably in the fridge.

Caesar salad tossed with Outback copycat dressing

How to Build the Caesar Salad

Romaine lettuce, Parmesan cheese, croutons, and this dressing. That’s classic, don’t overthink it. But how you put it together matters more than you may think.

The Lettuce

Use romaine and not iceberg as iceberg is too watery and it doesn’t hold up to dressing. Butter lettuce is too soft of course. Romaine has exactly the right amount of crunch and enough structure so it can handle a rich creamy dressing without becoming wilted immediately. Chop or tear it into pieces that are big enough to be satisfying but small enough that you don’t need a knife at the table – roughly 1.5 to 2-inch pieces. Dry the lettuce well after washing. Lettuce that is wet ruins a dressing and makes the salad soggy.

The Parmesan

It’s used two times — some is used in the dressing, while you add more on top when you serve. Shaved Parmesan looks better than grated on the finished salad and gives little pockets of concentrated cheese flavor. To make the topping, if you have a wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano, you can use a vegetable peeler and shave it off. Otherwise, for the dressing, you can use grated cheese.

The Croutons

Croutons from the store cannot compete with homemade ones, which take only ten minutes to make. To make, take day old bread, preferably sourdough, Italian, or French bread, and cut it into cubes. Mix the bread cubes with some olive oil and garlic powder. After that, lay the pieces out on a baking sheet and bake them at 375°F for 10–12 minutes until the bread cubes are golden brown. If you’re going to buy croutons, try to buy larger ones. The smaller ones are made from the same type of bread and will break down and turn into mush instead of soaking up the dressing. They’ll help your salad stay crunchy instead of going soft.

The Chicken

I use Montreal Chicken Seasoning, and then cook it in a skillet around medium-high heat until it’s well seared. Then cut it thinly across the grain, so that it is easier to munch on in the salad. I prefer adding the chicken while it’s still warm — first, toss the salad with the dressing and the cold ingredients, then layer the chicken on top. The heat, as from the chicken, will ever-so-slightly wilt the salad leaves thermally at the borders. It’s a small touch, but it really makes a difference in the salad’s final texture.

How Much Dressing to Use

Not as much as you think. This is a very rich dressing, so a little will go a long way. For a large salad serving 4 people, start with about 3-4 tablespoons, toss well, taste, and add more only if necessary. The goal is to achieve lightly coated lettuce. Every piece should have dressing, but no piece should be drowning. Toss in a large bowl so you have room to really coat everything evenly, and then transfer to serving bowls or plates.

For best results, toss everything in a big bowl. Then, put the salad into individual serving bowls. This way, the dressing will be mixed evenly, so you won’t have half overdressed and half underdressed salad.

How to Make a Caesar Wrap

The Caesar wrap is a classic lunch that hits just right and, best of all, uses leftover chicken and dressing from last night’s dinner.

Pick the biggest tortilla you can find – the burrito-sized ones (10 or 12 inches) give you space to roll it without stuff spilling out. Quickly warmth the tortilla in either a dry skillet or the microwave so that it is flexible and won’t break when you fold it.

Place the tortilla flat and add a handful of chopped romaine, several pieces of grilled or sliced chicken, about a tablespoon of dressing, some shaved or grated Parmesan, and if you have them, a small handful of croutons (they add crunch but will break down after a few minutes so eat the wrap fairly quickly). Some people like to add a thin spread of dressing on the tortilla before adding the filling, which is good because it adds flavor to every bite.

To roll it up, fold the sides in first. Then, start rolling from the bottom, and be sure to keep it tight as you go. Remember, if the wrap is overstuffed, it will unfold. A wrap with less filling that is rolled tightly is better than one that is maximalist and falls apart. To finish it off, cut it in half diagonally. And with that, lunch is done!

This vs. Bottled Caesar Dressing

I receive this question fairly often. Why should I make this from scratch when I can buy a decent bottled caesar at the grocery store? That’s a fair point. Let me explain.

Bottled Caesar dressings like Ken’s Steak House and Cardini’s are created to have long shelf lives. That typically means they’re made with more vinegar, which can make the flavor more harsh and unbalanced. To top it off, they add things like stabilizers that can give the dressing an odd slimy texture. These dressings are decent and much more convenient than something homemade, but they lack that restaurants Caesar flavor.

Compared to most bottled dressings, the Caesar from Outback Steakhouse has a smooth flavor that is round with a rich garlic flavor and a milder sharpness. That is the flavor we are trying to recreate. The egg/mayo base provides a richer mouth feel. The 12 hours of rest lets the garlic mellow in a way that bottled dressings can never replicate: they’re simply not designed for next day use.

Here’s a simple way of putting it: the cost per serving is less than that of a quality caesar dressing, it makes more, lasts just as long, and tastes way better. Put in the 5 minutes of active work.

Here’s when you can lean toward bottled dressings: They can be super convenient and require zero planning. No need to wait 12 hours, and if you forgot to plan for dinner, you can grab a caesar dressing at 6 p.m. tonight right from your fridge. If you’re scheduling a dinner for the next day, then definitely go for this!

Helpful Tips

Go easy on the dressing at first. This is a rich dressing — start with less than you think you need, toss, taste, and add more. It’s much easier to add than to fix an overdressed salad.
Freshly grated Parmesan is better. Pre-grated Parmesan in the canister works, but freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano gives the dressing a creamier texture and more complex flavor. It’s worth the extra two minutes if you have a block of it.
If the dressing is too thick after refrigerating, whisk in a small splash of water to thin it to your preferred consistency. Start with a teaspoon at a time — a little water goes a long way.
Make it the night before. Seriously — 12 hours is the minimum. I’ve tried it at 4 hours and it’s fine, but at 12 hours it’s noticeably better. Make it before bed, use it for dinner the next day.
Dry your lettuce thoroughly. Water on the lettuce dilutes the dressing and makes the salad watery at the bottom of the bowl. A salad spinner is ideal; paper towels work if you don’t have one.
Add croutons last. Toss your salad fully dressed first, then add croutons right before serving. This keeps them from absorbing the dressing and going soft.

Storage

Seal the container in a jar or airtight container to keep it fresh for 1 week in the refrigerator. Store it in a mason jar to shake it before serving. This also keeps the dressing from absorbing any plastic taste for a week. Quickly stir or shake it before using as the ingredients may separate slightly while sitting.

The dressing keeps on improving for the first day and then levels off. Days two and three are usually the best. After about day five, the garlic can start to be a bit sharp again as the sugar and acid lose their influence, so use it up within the week.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I leave out the anchovies?

You could say yes, but the dressing won’t be authentic caesar dressing without the anchovies. Anchovies are the backbone of caesar dressing. If you are scared of using anchovies, take the risk and try anchovy paste first. It is a lot milder and less “fishy” than whole anchovies.

What can I substitute for egg substitute?

If you prefer to use egg substitute, you can use one whole egg in equal measures. The egg substitute just a food-safe option. Some people use 2 tablespoons of sour cream. This will add a little tanginess as well as some of the richness that the egg would provide. The result will be slightly different but still good.

Is this dressing gluten-free?

The dressing itself does not contain any gluten ingredients. Just make sure to verify your specific brands of mayonnaise and any dressing or sauce you decide to add to the salad. The croutons are where gluten usually comes in. Either substitute for gluten-free croutons, or leave them out entirely.

My dressing came out too thick. What do I do?

Add water a teaspoon at a time and whisk until reaching desired consistency. The recipe includes 2 tbsp of water, but refrigerating the mixture will cause it to thicken. Begin with 1 extra tsp of water. Stir, and check the consistency. Once water is added, it can’t be removed, so be cautious. A little too much water made the dressing too thin? Whisking a small spoonful of mayonnaise will bring the thickness back.

My dressing came out too thin. What do I do?

To begin, confirm if it’s truly been left to chill for 12 hours — refrigerating the dressing causes it to thicken. If it has been fully rested and is still too thin, whisk in another tablespoon of mayonnaise. You may also wish to incorporate an additional tablespoon of grated Parmesan. This will absorb some liquid and create an overall creamier dressing. Usually, a thin dressing indicates that it either didn’t rest long enough or a bit too much water was added.

The dressing is too salty. Can I fix it?

Caesar dressing contains salty ingredients like anchovies and parmesan, which makes it on the salty side naturally. If your dressing is overly salty, the simple fix is to add some extra mayonnaise and maybe a little lemon juice which should balance it out. Be sure to take note on your type of parmesan. Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano tends to be far less salty than the container kind, so keep that in mind. Next time, you might want to cut down on the added salt as it isn’t really necessary.

The dressing isn’t tangy enough. What am I missing?

To get the brightness you want, add more lemon juice, ½ teaspoon at a time. After each addition, taste the mixture. If you are looking for a sharper edge, you can add a tiny splash of white wine vinegar. The sugar in this recipe purposefully tones down some of the acidity. If tangy is your priority, adjust the sugar down a little. If you are making it again, try it with 1 teaspoon instead of 2.

Can I make this dairy-free?

You’re welcome to leave out the Parmesan or swap it for a dairy-free Parmesan alternative. The flavor won’t be the same since Parmesan adds a lot of the savory depth, but the dressing will still work and taste good. The remaining ingredients are all naturally dairy-free.

Can I use this as a dip?

Correct! Once the consistency has thickened in the fridge, it can double as a dip for raw veggies, a spread for sandwiches and wraps, or even a dipping sauce for chicken strips. If you really want to go for something more adventurous, it also works really well as a dip for grilled artichokes!