Okay, so I’ve been buying those big Caesar salad kits from Costco for ages, you know the ones? The dressing is pretty good, honestly. My family really likes it. The other day, I was thinking, maybe I could try and make something similar, or at least figure out what makes it taste that way. You always wonder what they put in this stuff.
So, on my last Costco run, I made it a point to actually grab the bottle of just the dressing itself – they sell it separately too, not just in the kit. Got home, unpacked everything, and then remembered, “Oh yeah, the dressing ingredients.”
I grabbed the bottle from the fridge. Had to put my reading glasses on, the print on these labels is always ridiculously small, isn’t it? Turned it around a few times to find the ingredients list. It’s usually tucked away on the side or back.
Figuring Out What’s Inside
Alright, after squinting for a bit, here’s the rundown of what I saw listed on the bottle. It’s quite a list, actually. No big surprises for a store-bought dressing, but here’s what I noted down:
- Soybean oil seemed to be the main base, listed first.
- Water, naturally.
- Parmesan cheese – gotta have that for Caesar, right? They specify it’s made from pasteurized part-skim milk, cheese culture, salt, and enzymes.
- Distilled vinegar.
- Egg yolk was in there.
- Salt.
- Garlic, including dehydrated garlic.
- Lemon juice concentrate.
- Spices – they never tell you exactly which spices, just “spices”.
- Dijon mustard (made with water, mustard seed, vinegar, salt, white wine, citric acid, tartaric acid, spices).
- Anchovy paste – that’s a classic Caesar ingredient. Made from anchovies, salt, and water.
- Onion, dehydrated.
- Xanthan gum – that’s usually for thickening, keeps it from separating.
- Potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate – preservatives, keeps it fresh on the shelf.
- Calcium disodium EDTA – another thing to protect flavor.
So yeah, that’s basically the list I pulled off the bottle. Lots of the usual suspects for a creamy dressing like soybean oil, egg yolk, cheese, and anchovy. The gums and preservatives are pretty standard for shelf-stable stuff you buy at the store. It definitely gives you an idea of why it tastes the way it does. Seeing anchovy paste and garlic high up explains a lot of that classic Caesar kick.
Anyway, that was my little investigation into the Costco Caesar dressing. Just wanted to see what was actually in the bottle I keep buying!
