Cobb Salad

Published on March 13, 2023 Cobb Salad with chicken, bacon, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, avocado, blue cheese, chives, and a simple red wine vinegar dressing. This traditional salad is loaded with goodness and always a favorite! Serve as a main dish or side dish! Cobb Salad is a classic salad recipe that has SO many delicious toppings and definitely isn’t boring. This colorful salad is a beauty and has so many wonderful flavors and textures. You will see Cobb salad on a lot of restaurant menus, but it is easy to make at home! You can serve this salad as a main dish, it is certainly filling. You can also serve it as a side dish in smaller portions. You really can’t go wrong!

What Is a Cobb Salad?

Rumor has it that the Cobb Salad was invented by Hollywood restaurateur Robert Cobb in 1937. Robert was hungry while working at his restaurant, Brown Derby, and created a loaded salad with all of the ingredients he had on hand. This salad is now a popular main-dish American salad that is served at restaurants everywhere. I am not exactly sure if this story is true, but the Cobb salad has been around for a long time and that makes A LOT of people happy. This salad is a legend!

Salad Ingredients

So what ingredients are in the famous salad? The Cobb salad is very similar to a Chef’s salad, but the Cobb has a mixture of lettuces, and also has avocado and tomatoes. Chef salads usually have ham too. To make this recipe, you will need:

Greens-Like most salads, you start with greens. The traditional salad uses a mix of greens: Romaine, iceberg, watercress, and endives. I only used Romaine lettuce because that is what we had, but feel free to use a mix of greens.Chicken-You can use grilled, boiled, or roasted chicken. If you are short on time, use rotisserie chicken from the store! If you aren’t a fan of chicken, turkey is also a good option, especially if you have leftover holiday turkey to use up. Bacon-Cook bacon strips until crispy and chop them up into pieces to put on the salad.Hard Boiled Eggs-Cut hard boiled eggs in quarters lengthwise or you can chop them up. Pro tip-use an Instant Pot to make hard boiled eggs. They come out perfect every time!Tomatoes-I like to use grape or cherry tomatoes and cut them in half. You can chop up regular size tomatoes.Avocado-Avocado makes any salad better. Make sure you use a ripe avocado. Cut the avocado into sliced or chop it into pieces.Roquefort cheese-Roquefort cheese, which is a sheep milk cheese from the south of France and one of the most popular varieties of blue cheese and the traditional cheese used in a Cobb salad. You can use any variety of blue cheese if you wish and if blue cheese isn’t your thing, feel free to substitute your favorite cheese.Chives-Chopped chives get sprinkled over the salad for a little flavor and pretty garnish.Homemade croutons– croutons aren’t usually a topping, but my homemade croutons are SO good. Feel free to add them for a nice crunch!

Dressing Options

The red wine vinaigrette dressing doesn’t take long to whisk up and compliments the salad nicely. The salad has a lot of flavor so you don’t need a lot of dressing. You can also mix it up and use a different homemade salad dressing or store-bought dressing. Here are a few ideas:

Blue Cheese DressingRanch DressingItalian DressingBalsamic VinaigretteBasil Vinaigrette

How to Make Cobb Salad

When you have all of your ingredients ready to go, it is time to put the salad together. You can make one big salad in a large bowl or platter or make individual salads.

Place the lettuce in a large bowl or on a large platter. Arrange the chicken, bacon, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, avocado slices, and crumbled cheese in lines over the greens. Garnish with chives and season with salt and pepper, to tasteIn a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, garlic, honey, mustard, salt, and pepper. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and serve immediately.

Make in Advance

There are a lot of ingredients in this salad, but don’t let that scare you. You can prep most of them in advance. This is a great meal prep salad because you can keep all of the ingredients in the refrigerator until you are ready to assemble. Keep all of the salad toppings in individual containers until you are ready to assemble and eat! It is a good salad to take to work, or have ready in the fridge for dinnertime.