Classic Cobb Salad

By
John Mitzewich
John Mitzewich
John Mitzewich is a food writer, recipe video producer, and culinary school instructor with more than 20 years of experience in the food industry.
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Updated on 11/28/21
Classic Cobb Salad

The Spruce / Nyssa Tanner
Prep: 15 mins
Cook: 20 mins
Total: 35 mins
Servings: 4 servings
Nutrition Facts (per serving)
1010 Calories
79g Fat
23g Carbs
57g Protein
Show Full Nutrition Label Hide Full Nutrition Label
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4
Amount per serving
Calories 1010
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 79g 101%
Saturated Fat 20g 101%
Cholesterol 315mg 105%
Sodium 1233mg 54%
Total Carbohydrate 23g 8%
Dietary Fiber 14g 51%
Total Sugars 5g
Protein 57g
Vitamin C 31mg 154%
Calcium 308mg 24%
Iron 6mg 32%
Potassium 1752mg 37%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

Learn to make a traditional American cobb salad that's chock-full of crispy bacon, seasoned chicken, mounds of blue cheese, avocado, and hard-boiled egg. This is a "composed" salad, meaning the ingredients are arranged on the salad as opposed to all the components being tossed together. 

Cobb salad is a full meal by itself. With four different proteins—bacon, eggs, chicken, and blue cheese—it is very nourishing and you don’t need to serve anything with it. 

Whether you use grilled or roasted chicken, or any other leftovers from cooked chicken breast is up to your personal taste. If you don’t want to roast chicken yourself, a great shortcut is to use a  rotisserie chicken. 

For the dressing, this recipe uses red wine vinegar and Dijon mustard, which is the classic version. Some recipes use buttermilk in the dressing to add creaminess. The avocados should be very ripe because, in combination with the blue cheese, they give the salad its creamy consistency. 

Cobb salad is named after Robert Howard Cobb, the owner of the Hollywood Brown Derby, a chain restaurant in Los Angeles. Originally it was a way for the restaurant to use up leftovers, but it soon became the restaurant’s most famous dish. 

Cobb salad can be prepared ahead of time: fry the bacon, wash and chop the veggies, dice the chicken, and whip up the dressing. Keep all the ingredients in airtight containers in the fridge to prevent them from drying out (if you are short on containers, you can store two ingredients in the same container, just keep them separate). Assemble or layer the salad just before serving and make sure that you use a very large dinner plate because it needs to fit a lot. 

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Ingredients

  • 8 slices bacon

  • 3 large hard-boiled eggs, peeled and coarsely chopped

  • 1 head romaine lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces

  • 4 cups diced cooked chicken

  • 2 medium ripe avocados, diced

  • 2 medium ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped

  • 4 ounces Roquefort cheese, crumbled

  • 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

  • 1/4 cup red wine vinegar

  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

  • 1 clove garlic, crushed

  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  • 1/3 cup olive oil

Steps to Make It

  1. Gather the ingredients.

    Classic Cobb Salad ingredients

    The Spruce / Nyssa Tanner

  2. Fry the bacon until crisp, drain on paper towels, and when cool enough to handle, crumble and set aside.

    bacon pieces in a bowl

    The Spruce / Nyssa Tanner

  3. Arrange a bed of lettuce on the serving plates. Arrange the eggs, bacon, chicken, avocados, tomatoes, and Roquefort cheese in straight rows on top of the lettuce, covering the surface completely.

    lettuce, chicken, tomatoes and bacon on a plate

    The Spruce / Nyssa Tanner

  4. In a bowl, whisk together the mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, salt, and pepper. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil continually whisking to form the dressing.

    olive oil, mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, salt, and pepper in a bowl

    The Spruce / Nyssa Tanner

  5. Drizzle the dressing evenly over the salad, and serve immediately.

    Classic Cobb Salad on a large plate

    The Spruce / Nyssa Tanner