Cobb Salad

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.

Quick Summary

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 with chicken, blue cheese, avocado, bacon, tomatoes, and hard boiled eggs in a large bowl.

I love making salads because they are pretty, fresh, and delicious. I don’t do boring salads, I always make salads that are loaded with lots of goodies.

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!

Cobb salad in large glass bowl with jar of dressing on the side and tea towel.

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:

Easy Cobb Salad with chicken, bacon, avocado, cheese, tomatoes, and chives in large bowl.

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 taste
  • In 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.

More Salad Recipes

Cobb Salad in Bowl with salad dressing in jar
Email Yourself This Recipe
Just enter your email and get it sent to your inbox! Plus, you’ll get NEW recipes from us every week!

Cobb Salad

This classic Cobb Salad is great for lunch or dinner! You can prep all of the ingredients in advance which makes this salad great for an easy meal!
4.71 from 17 votes

Ingredients
  

For the salad:

  • 6 cups chopped Romaine lettuce, can use a mix of Romaine and watercress
  • 2 chicken breasts, grilled and chopped
  • 8 slices cooked bacon, chopped
  • 4 hard boiled eggs, cut in quarters lengthwise
  • 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 2 avocados, sliced
  • 4 oz crumbled Roquefort cheese
  • 2 tablespoons chopped chives, for garnish
  • Kosher salt and ground black pepper, to taste

For the dressing:

Instructions
 

  • 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 taste
  • In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, garlic, honey, mustard, salt, and pepper. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and serve immediately.

Nutrition

Serving: 4g, Calories: 817kcal, Carbohydrates: 17g, Protein: 45g, Fat: 64g, Saturated Fat: 15g, Cholesterol: 295mg, Sodium: 1041mg, Potassium: 1377mg, Fiber: 8g, Sugar: 6g, Vitamin A: 7045IU, Vitamin C: 24.1mg, Calcium: 222mg, Iron: 3mg
Keywords Cobb salad, salad

Have you tried this recipe?

Leave a comment below and share a photo on Instagram. Tag @twopeasandpod and hashtag it with #twopeasandtheirpod

Get the best of the best!
4 Recipes Guaranteed to be New Favorites

Maria

I'm Maria and my husband is Josh. We share a love of cooking, baking, and entertaining. We enjoy creating recipes that are simple, fresh, and family friendly. We love sitting around the table with good food, good conversation, and good friends and family! Our kitchen is always open!
Read More

Summer Fall Spring Winter Gluten-Free

Other recipes you may like

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Comments

Leave a comment

  1. 5 stars
    Wow…This is amazing recipe, promise i really like it. I cant wait to make like this recipe also… 5 star for this. Thanks for sharing. I love it.

  2. 4 stars
    This recipe is so easy and so good!  I used Applewood smoked bacon, which was the only thing I had to cook.  I bought chicken and boiled eggs from the deli.  It’s a beautiful presentation, also.

  3. This was a great Cobb salad, I love blue cheese but substituted feta for the family. Also used a bottled red wine vinaigrette. Delicious!

    1. 5 stars
      Made this as written for friends on a large platter and it was beautiful and scrumptious! I made the dressing recipe bc I am a fan of homemade dressing. Served it with a pimento cheese w/veggies appetizer and iced sweet tea. (a couple of Southern flavors for CA friends)

    1. Sure, you can toss it if you like! Just depends on how you like to eat your salad:)