I know, it’s fairly rare you see a salad on this site. But, these salad cups are 100% comfort food – trust me! Plus, just look how darn cute they are 🥰
Parmesan Crisps
To make the parmesan cups you’re essentially just making parmesan crisps and moulding them into a cup shape. If you’ve never made parmesan crisps before, I promise it couldn’t be easier! Just add some freshly grated parmesan to a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Make sure the mounds are around 3″ wide and aren’t touching each other.
How long to bake the parmesan for?
You want the parmesan to obviously melt, but not so much it turns deep golden and gets too crispy to mould. It’ll burn pretty quick so just keep an eye on it.
Parmesan Cups
Once you’ve got the parmesan to a pliable state, you’ll want to form the cups. There’s a few different way to do this, but I find the easiest way is to press the parmesan crisp around the bottom of a muffin tray. Just grab a paper towel, place it on top and use your fingers to press the parmesan around the curve of the tray. The paper towel will act as a barrier between the heat, but will also soak up the grease.
Troubleshooting
Parmesan keeps snapping – If you’re trying to mould the parmesan and it’s too brittle, it means it was either baked for slightly too long, or you’ve let it cool for too long (you need to work quick). You’ll need to pop it back in the oven to loosen it back up. You can either leave it on the upside down muffin tray and place it in the oven. From there it will melt and wrap itself around the tray. Or, just place it back on to the baking tray and pop in the oven for a min or so. Parmesan stuck to the muffin tray – Once the parmesan moulds it can sometimes stick. But, as it cools it’ll loosen up. Just very carefully wiggle it off.
In all cases I recommend testing with one cup, just to get a feel for timings etc. Process shots: carefully lift parmesan crisp off tray (photo 1), add to upside down muffin tray (photo 2), use paper towel to carefully mould around tray (photo 3), remove paper towel (photo 4).
Caesar Salad Parmesan Cups
A Caesar salad is absolutely made for these cups, purely because of the parmesan aspect. You can make the salad anyway you fancy, I know people make Caesar salads in different ways. Personally I go for:
Romaine Lettuce (a must) Caesar Dressing (a must) Croutons (a must) Chicken (optional) Pancetta (optional)
Process shots: add dressing, lettuce and chicken in bowl (photo 1), toss to combine (photo 2), add into cups then sprinkle with croutons and pancetta (photo 3).
Serving Caesar Salad Parmesan Cups
I usually mix the lettuce and chicken with the dressing, then to serve I sprinkle over the croutons and pancetta, just to keep them nice and crispy! These are awesome for a gathering of any kind and make the perfect finger food! For more delicious edible cup recipes check out my Breakfast Toast Cups and Ham, Egg and Cheese Tortilla Cups! For more Caesar salad goodness check out my Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad and Crispy Chicken Caesar Salad! Alrighty, let’s tuck into the full recipe for these Parmesan Cups shall we!?
How to make Parmesan Salad Cups (Full Recipe & Video)
If you loved this Salad Cup recipe then be sure to Pin it for later! Already made them or got a question? Give me a shout in the comments below and pick up your free ecookbook on the way!
