Little Gem Salad with Spicy Caesar Dressing, Maybe Better than Jon and Vinny's

When it's fall/winter and you think there's nothing fresh for a salad, think again! Little Gem Salad with Spicy Caesar Dressing is the perfect dish! Hit that JUMP button right here ↓ to go directly to the recipe.

Explore More

• Is Caesar Salad Healthy?
• Is this the Famous Gem Lettuce Salad with Calabrian Chili Dressing at Jon and Vinny's?
• What Ingredients You Need for Little Gem Salad with Spicy Caesar Dressing
• What are Little Gems aka Gem Lettuce?
• Instructions for How to Make Little Gem Salad with Spicy Caesar Dressing
• Pro-tips and Suggestions
• Little Gems with Spicy Caesar Dressing Recipe

Is Caesar Salad Healthy?

Depending on your health needs and dietary considerations, Little Gem Salad with Spicy Caesar Dressing is healthy! To be honest, I can't really think of a case in which this salad would not be healthy, unless maybe acid from lemon juice and apple cider vinegar or spice in the dressing causes heartburn for you.

Is this the Famous Gem Lettuce Salad with Calabrian Chili Dressing at Jon and Vinny's?

Almost. This Little Gem Salad with Spicy Caesar Dressing recipe is almost the same as the Gem Lettuce Salad at Jon & Vinny's, but with slightly different ingredients based on a more Asian-focused pantry.

I did a little taste-testing, true ingredient detective work, and just read the ingredients in their recipe that chefs Jon and Vinny just straight shared with Food & Wine magazine. A few things are different:

• no raw egg in the dressing, rather add hard boiled eggs to the salad
• in place of the Calabrian chilies, use gochujang and gochugaru
• no Parmesan cheese in the dressing, just grated directly onto the salad
• pistachios in place of the toasted breadcrumbs

Most importantly, the price tag. As of publication of this blog post, the Gem Lettuce Salad at Jon and Vinny's is $18. Now I'm not saying that that's expensive for a salad, but I'm not not saying that no one goes to Jon and Vinny's and orders just a salad. What I AM saying is that you can make this salad for oh, I don't know, way less, without adding tax and tip, and eat it wearing PJs in the comfort of your own home.

What Ingredients You Need for Little Gem Salad with Spicy Caesar Dressing

Salad ingredients for 4 servings:

• Little Gem lettuces, 4 heads, leaves separated
• Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, ½ cup shredded or shaved
• eggs, 4 large hard-boiled
• pistachios, ½ cup toasted and rouch chopped
• parsley, leaves from a few sprigs chopped for garnish

Dressing ingredients:

• garlic, 2 cloves grated or very finely minced
• lemon, 1 large juiced about 2 tablespoons
• gochujang, 2 tablespoons 
• apple cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons 
• gochugaru, 1 tablespoon 
• anchovies, 2 
• soy sauce, 1 teaspoon 
• olive oil, ¼ cup 
• avocado oil, ¼ cup 
• sea salt, ½ teaspoon plus more to taste
• black pepper, optional

What are Little Gems aka Gem Lettuce?

Little Gem lettuce is a small, compact variety of Romaine that grows in single-serving heads between four and six inches long. Like most lettuces, they're typically available year-round, but peak season is in the spring and early fall. The leaves are crisp, sweet, and earthy. To me, Little Gems have a more "lettuce-y" flavor than regular Romaine.

If you can't find Little Gems, substitute with baby Romaine, Romaine hearts, or even butter lettuce.

Additional Ingredients Notes, Resources, and Substitutions

Salad Ingredients

Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. "Parm" as everyone likes to call it, is a signature of traditional Caesar that provides salty, umami flavor, both as part of the dressing and sprinkled on top of the salad at the end. Buy a whole wedge and grate, shred, or shave it yourself. If you absolutely need convenience, get hand-shredded in the refrigerated deli section of the grocery store, and avoid the shelf-stable shredded stuff in the green can. You can also substitute with similar hard, aged cheees like Grana Padano and Asiago which are both cow's milk cheeses, or Pecorino-Romano which is sheep's milk.

Garlic, lemon and any other fresh produce from either the Santa Monica Farmers' Market on Wednesday, Mar Vista Farmers Market on Sunday, or Whole Foods Market.

Dressing Ingredients:

Anchovies. Anchovies are a hallmark of Caesar salad, whether in the form of actual anchovies or as an ingredient in Worcestershire sauce. Use the highest quality anchovies you can afford. I like this brand. You can sub with 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, anchovy paste, or ½ teaspoon southeast Asian fish sauce. 

Gochujang. Gochujang is a Korean hot pepper paste made by fermenting chili peppers with rice and/soybeans. This brand is sweetened with tapioca syrup rather than corn syrup, and does not contain wheat in the ingredients, though the label indicates that it's made in a facility that also processes wheat.

Gochugaru. Gochugaru is a bright red Korean chili pepper powder made from a specific variety of Korean chili pepper, generally considered medium spicy. You can find gochugaru in Korean grocery stores like H-Mart and other Asian grocery stores. I have also seen some independent, new-ish spice companies like this and this at Whole Foods. This organic brand and the one in the photo above, purchased at HMart, are currently what I have in my pantry.

Soy sauce or Tamari. I use tamari, which is Japanese-style soy sauce that has little or no wheat. Therefore, tamari can be gluten-free, though not always. If you eat gluten-free, make sure to read labels. I use this organic gluten-free tamari. This brand is also great.

Apple Cider Vinegar. Any brand of apple cider vinegar works. This generic store brand of organic ACV is the most affordable where I shop. This is the well-known apple cider vinegar brand that's available everywhere. You can substitute with organic brown rice vinegar or red wine vinegar.

Instructions for How to Make Little Gem Salad with Spicy Caesar Dressing

The hardest step in making this salad is washing the Little Gem lettuces. That's it. Otherwise, like most salads, there isn't much to the actual recipe than placing all the ingredients in a large bowl, drizzling with the dressing, and tossing until everything is well coated.

HOWEVER. As easy as any salad recipe is, there are a few tips and tricks along the way that will make this, or any, salad, the best salad of your life.

Pro-tips and Suggestions

Medium- or soft-boil eggs. Personally, I like hard-boiled eggs so that the yolks are cooked completely, aka "velvety." However, if you like soft- or even medium-boiled eggs, then the dressing in the salad will mix with the egg yolks effectively creating a thicker dressing right on the plate.

Chop the Little Gems. Part of the charm of Little Gem lettuces is the presentation as whole leaves. However, if you prefer eating your salad chopped, which technically I do too, by all means chop the Little Gem leaves. I would still use Little Gems over Romaine because they do taste different.

Make double the Spicy Caesar Dressing. The dressing is so so good and will keep for several days in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Your future self will appreciate having it for more Spicy Caesars or to drizzle or drip on pretty much anything else.

Crispy rice as topping. Not that I have anything against buttered toasted breadcrumbs, but if you want to substitute out the pistachios or an alternative like walnuts or almonds for whatever reason, use crispy rice. I am talking crumbled rice cakes because I'm not about to tell you to steam your own rice, cool it, then deep-fry it just to top a salad. For real. Easy. Crispy. Rice cakes.

Best Restaurant Salads You Must Make at Home

I wasn't kidding when I said "think again!" if you thought there was nothing fresh in the fall/winter. In addition to this Kale White Bean Salad, try:

• Tri-Colore Salad with Anchovy Vinaigrette inspired by Nancy Silverton's Mozza
• Erewhon Kale and White Bean Salad recipe
• Chinese Chicken Salad, LA-restaurant Style
• Emerald Kale Salad with Sesame Miso Vinaigrette from Hillstone
• Houston's Kale Salad with Roasted Peanut Vinaigrette
• La Scala Chopped Salad
• McCarthy Salad, Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge version of a Cobb

Food for Afterthoughts

When we were kids my mom would give us almond roca as candy and buttered tortillas for breakfast and stir soy sauce into Italian dressing and serve steak with kimchi and all I ever thought to myself because I’d never say it out loud and get my ungrateful ass beat was why can’t we just be a normal family and eat normal food like snickers bars or pop tarts or bottled Ranch dressing or steak with A1 sauce but today I blended gochujang and gochugaru into anchovy vinaigrette and made the greatest spicy Caesar of my life but I still don’t understand what even is almond roca.

I am always amused when people are “embarrassed to admit…” to something, particularly when it comes to food and restaurants.

“I’m embarrassed to admit…I like McDonald’s.”

“I have to confess…I don’t really like foie gras.”

“I secretly think…KFC is better than homemade fried chicken.”

Why? Why do we say that we’re embarrassed to admit to liking something? Is there something wrong with liking what you like? If you think it’s good and you like it, that’s fine. If you think it’s bad and you don’t like it, that’s also fine. The trouble comes, of course, when you think it’s bad and yet you still like it. That makes you a hypocrite.

If you think it’s bad and yet you still like it, doesn’t that actually mean you do think it’s good, but everyone else thinks it’s bad so you should think it’s bad, and therefore, you shouldn’t like it? That means you’re easily influenced by others’ opinions. You’re brainwashed. Confused.

You shouldn't feel like you have to admit to liking something that everyone else doesn’t. It’s your opinion. Like it because you like it, dammit. Unless it’s illegal, immoral, or undeniably ugly, you’re allowed to like it, whatever "it" is.

Except the Cheesecake Factory. And Uggs. Both, I’m sorry proud to say, are undeniably ugly.

Man, I should follow my own advice.

I am embarrassed to admit that I have gone to i Cugini. Even worse, I have gone to i Cugini multiple times. Worst of all, I have gone to i Cugini multiple times because…I kind of, um, like it.

*she crumbles into a shameful, red-faced heap onto the floor with a bucket of the Colonel’s Original Recipe*

Really, I shouldn’t like Jon & Vinny's. It’s near the hateful Promenade. It’s overrun with the I-word (influencers). Most of the food, or rather, the food that requires actual cooking, is mediocrity at the price of oceanfront.

Now comes the self-acquitting “but” statement that always follows opinions coupled with contradicting confession.

I shouldn’t like Jon and Vinny's, but I love the utterly sacrilegous way their kitchen turns out Caesar Salad.

Good grief. There’s another one. And another one. And, oh-em-gee, yet another confession that makes me a hungry hungry hypocrite.

Even with the abundance in southern California of fresh produce and accessibility to unique ingredients that could be tossed into the most beautifully tri-colore-ful arugula, radicchio, endive, goat cheese, pistachios and pomegrantes in a yuzu persimmon balsamagrette.

Even though pretentious fools believe Caesar naturally belongs on a Roman Emperor’s menu.

Even with my stubborn to tradition and they way something is “supposed” to be and taste.

Even still…I love Caesar Salad. I always order it in Italian restaurants. I fall all over myself when whole anchovy fillets sheets of parmesan blaspheme uncut hearts of Romaine that have been tossed with a dressing made with cooked eggs and an unholy amount of garlic. No croutons.

Señor Caesar Cardini would choke on his Worcestershire sauce.

Caesar Salad, you see, is quite possibly the most unimaginative thing you can serve as a starter in a restaurant other than a diner dinner salad of iceberg, cucumber coins and halved (ass) cherry tomatoes with Ranch dressing. It is also the most Mexican malapropos salad you can serve in an otherwise Italian context.

Yet, the Caesar Salad has to appear on the menu because there are bloggers like me who love it. I order it every time I shamefully hide away in a shady corner of a pseudo-outdoor patio.