These Caesar Salad Tartlets with Sweet Garlic Butter Crusts are a wonderful first course to any dinner.

Caesar Tartlets with Sweet Garlic Butter Crusts on plates.

How elegant would it be to serve these Caesar Tartlets with Sweet Garlic Butter Crusts at a dinner party? Your guests would be blown away.

Instead of serving the salad with the traditional garlic croutons, just place the salad in these flakey, garlicky, buttery, and cheesy crusts. Ah-maze-ing. Your guests will be raving about it for days. The pastry crusts are loaded with sweet roasted garlic.

The crusts can be made a day or two in advance, wrapped in foil, and refrigerated until your elegant party for eight or romantic dinner for two.

The dressing is crazy delicious. I thing the difference is the addition of crushed capers. This will be my go-to Caesar dressing forevermore. It's the best Caesar dressing I've ever tried so far.

All you need is fresh romaine and grated Parmesan and you have a stunning garlicky first course.

Caesar Tartlets with Sweet Garlic Butter Crusts on plates with whole garlic bulbs in background.

Ingredients:

For the crusts you will need flour, salt, and butter along with roasted garlic and finely grated Parmesan cheese.

For the dressing, you will need more garlic, capers, rinsed, fresh parsley, anchovy paste, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, salt, cayenne pepper, and olive oil.

To complete the salad, you'll need romaine lettuce, freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and freshly ground black pepper.

Procedure:

First, prepare the garlic butter crusts. Bake the garlic heads in olive oil and wrapped in foil for about 40 minutes.

Next, mix the roasted garlic with butter, Parmesan, salt, and flour in a stand mixer until crumbly, and then press it into tartlet pans and bake the crusts for about twenty minutes.

To Make the dressing, pulse the ingredients in a food processor until blended.

Finally, assemble the salads and serve.

Make-Ahead:

You can make both the crusts up to two days in advance and the dressing up to three days in advance. Refrigerate until ready to use them.

April is National Garlic Month.

Enjoy these wonderful recipes featuring garlic!

Garlic Butter Pasta by Jolene's Recipe Journal

Sauteed Garlic Spinach Agrodolce by Palatable Pastime

Garlic Scape Butter by Art of Natural Living

Caesar Tartlets with Sweet Garlic Butter Crusts by Karen's Kitchen Stories

Garlic Rolls by The Spiffy Cookie

Ginger Garlic Quinoa by Magical Ingredients

One Pot Penne Alfredo by A Day in the Life on the Farm

Granulated Garlic & Onion Potato Cheese Soup by Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice

This is an updated post (new photos and instructions), first published in April 2014.

Caesar Tartlets with Sweet Garlic Butter Crusts

Yield: 8 Salads

Author: Karen's Kitchen Stories

These Caesar Salad Tartlets with Sweet Garlic Butter Crusts are a wonderful first course to any dinner.

Ingredients

For the Crusts

2 whole heads of garlic
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 cup / 2 sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

Caesar Dressing

3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and smashed
2 teaspoons fresh parsley
1 heaping teaspoon anchovy paste
4 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

For the Salads

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Freshly ground black pepper
1 head of romaine lettuce, washed and torn into bite-sized pieces

Instructions

To Prepare the Crusts

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Cut the tops off of the garlic heads and sprinkle with the olive oil.
Wrap in foil and bake for about 40 minutes.
Remove the garlic heads from the oven and allow to cool.
Remove the cloves of garlic with a small fork and place them into the bowl of a stand mixer.
Add the butter, cheese, and salt, and mix with the paddle attachment for about a minute. Add the flour and mix for another minute, until just crumbly.
Divide the dough among 8 four inch tart pans and press into the pans. "Dock" the crusts with a fork. Place the pans onto a cookie sheet and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until lightly browned.
Cool on the cookie sheet on a rack. At this point, you can wrap them in foil and refrigerate.

To Make the Dressing