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Cobb Salad is a hearty and versatile green salad topped with chicken, crispy bacon, avocado, egg, tomatoes, and blue cheese and served with your favorite dressing.
What is Cobb Salad
Salads are an excellent choice as a summertime lunch or dinner (or enjoy them all throughout the year). Round out your meal with our popular Bread Twists or Dinner Rolls.
Cobb Salad is a hearty, protein-packed salad that is bursting with flavor. A good homemade cobb salad typically boasts hard-boiled eggs, chicken, bacon and lots of yummy veggies. It is typically served as a main course but can also be served as a side salad at potlucks or to complement a lighter meal. Because of the good amount of protein, this salad is very filling and can keep you full for hours!
Cobb Salad Toppings
One way to easily remember the toppings that go on a Cobb salad recipe is the acronym “EAT COBB”:
- Eggs – hard-boil eggs on the stove, drain the water and allow the eggs to chill. Then slice or chop into bite size pieces to serve.
- Avocado – slicecreamy avocado and arrange on top of the salad
- Tomato – Cherry tomatoes are ideal for this recipe, or you can use medium tomatoes for beautiful slices on top.
- Chicken (grilled or breaded) – Use pre-packaged chicken tenders or grill up some chicken using a little olive oil and salt and pepper.
- Onion (green or red) – Red onion adds such a beautiful color to the salad, while green onion adds a delicious mild flavor. For the best of both worlds, toss both into the salad if you want!
- Blue and cheddar cheese – I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t like, so again, throw a little of both onto your serving platter.
Unlike other salads, Cobb salad ingredients don’t vary much. They almost always have the same ingredients. That’s why they are a popular menu item at restaurants because no matter where you go, it will pretty much be the same across the board (maybe with some variation in dressings). You almost can’t mess it up. But if you have other ingredients on hand that you like, add them in!
What Lettuce Should I Use?
A typical Cobb salad recipe is usually built on a bed of romaine lettuce, but you can use a mixture of watercress, iceberg, and romaine or whatever you happen to have on hand.
The Chicken
The chicken that is prepared for a Cobb salad can either be grilled or breaded. Grilled chicken is more “authentic” than breaded, but both ways are delicious. For grilled chicken, we highly recommend using the chicken recipe from our Satu’li Bowls Copycat recipe. If you want to use breaded chicken, you can use pre-breaded chicken from the grocery store or you can make your own by using our oven-fried chicken recipe. You can also simply use a rotisserie chicken and shred it over your salad.
Cobb Salad Dressing
A classic Cobb is traditionally served with some type of light red wine vinaigrette. However, there are many different dressings that you can use and it will still taste great. You can keep it simple by using a splash of red wine vinegar or a little balsamic vinegar or you can make your own dressing from scratch. Or try mixing some Dijon mustard with olive oil, red wine vinegar and some lemon juice for a simple dressing. Here are some of our favorite salad dressings that complement Cobb Salad:
- Red wine vinaigrette
- Balsamic vinaigrette
- Ranch dressing
- Blue cheese dressing
- Creamy lemon and basil dressing
Hard Boiled Eggs
Making hard boiled eggs for this recipe in the Instant Pot is a breeze and only takes 15 minutes start-to-finish! We like to cook up a bunch at once, use what we need for this recipe, and save the rest for later. Follow our easy step-by-step method.
The Cobb salad was originally created by restaurant owner, Robert Howard Cobb. It is believed that he simply had the midnight munchies and went to the kitchen to cobble up a salad with whatever ingredients he could find, thus creating the popular salad on a whim. (source: Wikipedia)
Cobb salads are made with a specific combination of ingredients including chicken, bacon, avocado, egg, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, and blue cheese. Chef salads are usually made with more “garden” ingredients such as carrots, broccoli, cucumber, etc… and can vary greatly depending on the chef that is preparing it.
Cobb salad is an excellent choice for those practicing the Keto lifestyle. Just serve with grilled chicken and check the carb content on the dressing of your choice.
Yes! It is low in carbs, gluten-free, and has several nutrients from the ingredients that are added in. If you add in chicken then you also have protein and healthy fats.
More Hearty “Main Dish” Salads
How To Make Cobb Salad
Classic Cobb Salad
Ingredients
- 2 cups chopped romaine letuce
- 1 chicken breast grilled or breaded, cooked and sliced
- 2 slices bacon cooked and crumbled
- 1 hard boiled egg peeled and sliced
- 1/2 avocado sliced
- 1/2 cup cherry or grape tomatoes halved
- 1/3 cup Cheddar cheese shredded or cubed
- ¼ cup blue cheese crumbles
- green onion for garnish
- 4 tablespoons salad dressing (see options above)
Instructions
- Cook or grill chicken and prep remaining ingredients.
- Place lettuce in a single-serving salad bowl or plate. Distribute the remaining ingredients over the lettuce in sections or rows.Serve with dressing of your choice.
I know I won’t be disappointed when I order or make a cobb salad. Making them at home is best. I can add more or less of what I like. Everyone loves a cobb salad.
I never get sick of this salad! It has a little bit of everything & leaves me filled!
This looks so pretty and has everything I love in it! The chicken sent this salad over the top! We eat a lot of salads during the summer!
Really enjoyed doing and having this recipe! Thanks a lot for sharing your cobb salad, It taste really amazing and fam really loves it as well!
I love ordering this at the restaurant. It’s filling, healthy and packed with great flavor. I loved your recipe and that I can have it at home anytime I want! Thanks for this easy to follow and super yummy Cobb Salad recipe!