Ina Garten's Chicken Caesar Sandwich Is Going Viral Right Now, and We Can See Why

You may have noticed variations of a Caesar salad sandwich or wrap trending on your social media feeds in the past few months. However, we think Ina Garten’s version may be the best one we’ve seen.

Garten was ahead of this trend, as she made a Caesar Club Sandwich on Barefoot Contessa years prior (it’s also featured in her 2012 cookbook Barefoot Contessa at Home). A fan recently posted this clip of Garten making the sandwich on the show on TikTok, and the video has reached over 3 million views.

Want to learn more about Garten’s delicious sandwich? Here’s what to know and how you can re-create it at home.

“I don’t think there’s a restaurant in America that doesn’t have a chicken Caesar salad on the menu,” Garten says in the TikTok clip. “I like to take something really traditional and do it with a twist, and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to take the croutons and put it on the outside?’”

After slicing her ciabatta, Garten places each sliced half on a sheet pan and bakes it at 350°F for 5 to 7 minutes to get the bread nice and toasted. Before adding the bread to the oven, she takes 8 slices of pancetta and spreads them out in a single layer on a separate sheet pan. That way, the pancetta can crisp up in the oven while the bread toasts. She leaves the pancetta in the oven for a bit longer than the bread—about 15 minutes. 

While that’s cooking, Garten takes 2 split chicken breasts, bone-in, skin-on, that she had baked at 350°F for 35 minutes and seasoned with salt, pepper and oil. She preps that into slices for the sandwich. 

For her Caesar dressing, she adds a diced garlic clove, 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley, 1.5 teaspoons of anchovy paste and 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard into a food processor. She processes this until the garlic and parsley are minced, and then she adds 1.5 tablespoons of lemon juice and a half-cup of mayonnaise to the mixture, processing again until smooth.

With her toasted bread out of the oven, Garten starts building the sandwich. She slathers all of the dressing onto the ciabatta.

“The toasted bread is going to absorb all of this great sauce,” Garten says as she smooths out the dressing with a knife.

For her green, Garten opts for baby arugula, due to its peppery flavor, instead of the usual lettuce found in a Caesar salad. On the bed of arugula, she places sun-dried tomatoes and freshly sliced Parmesan cheese to be featured in each bite.

She then lines up her crispy pancetta on the sandwich. Next, she tops it off with her sliced seasoned chicken breast, salt, pepper and extra arugula before pressing the sandwich together.

Trust us, our mouths were watering by the end of this video. The whole club sandwich makes 5 to 6 servings, which is perfect for a weekend lunch with the family. 

For an easier version of this sandwich recipe, our Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps offer a fresh take on this trend, and you only need 15 minutes to prepare them.