Classic Cobb Salad Recipe with Chicken, Bacon and Avocado
Every cuisine in the world has its traditional salads. They can be simple or elaborate mixes of vegetables, mushrooms, herbs, meat and poultry, and all kinds of preserves. In American cooking, a very common one is the simple Cobb salad, which is an unmixed arrangement of different ingredients. It's made with leaves of lettuce or other salad greens, tomatoes, avocado, eggs, bacon and chicken breast, cheese and an olive oil based dressing.
Like most famous, widespread dishes, Cobb salad has many origin stories. One says the salad is named after Mount Cobb in California, about a hundred kilometers from Sacramento. Another says it was first made in the 1930s at a restaurant owned by Robert Cobb who, as the story usually goes, threw together leftovers and added bacon and a dressing. It's reminiscent of how Caesar salad came about. There are plenty of other plausible versions too.
Although the salad is often served tossed, its signature feature is the ingredients laid out in rows. That's how you recognize it. It's usually served on a large flat plate. The other ingredients are arranged in neat or decorative rows over a bed of torn salad leaves. Right before serving, the salad is drizzled with vinaigrette — a mix of olive oil and something acidic (vinegar or citrus juice).
Cobb salad is considered a classic with a generally accepted recipe. They say the recipe is built right into its name, or rather into the slogan “Eat this! The Cobb Salad”.
The first time I tried Cobb salad, I was a bit puzzled. First, it was simple and beautiful. Second, it was filling. There are many salads laid out in rows around the world, for example the salad with sun-dried tomatoes and the salad with red caviar. In Bulgaria the “redena salata” is popular — cucumbers, tomatoes and other fresh vegetables arranged in rows or mixed. The idea exists even among our own salads: often all the ingredients are laid out separately on a platter and tossed right at the table.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Lettuce or romaine 1 bunch
- Cherry tomatoes 6-8
- Bacon 100 g
- Chicken breast fillet 1
- Quail eggs 6-8
- Avocado 1
- Green onions 3-4
- Olive oil, wine vinegar, salt, sugar, Dijon mustard, black pepper for the dressing
Step-by-step recipe
- Cobb salad is made with fried bacon, pan-fried chicken breast and hard-boiled eggs — those are the ingredients that need cooking. You can swap the quail eggs for a couple of chicken eggs. The vegetables are no trouble at all. Wash the salad leaves ahead of time and put them in cold water so they crisp up again. Then pat them dry.
- If you're dressing the salad with a plain mix of olive oil and vinegar, you can make it just before serving. We'll prepare a more complex dressing in advance — it's tastier and works beautifully with salads like this. Peel a small red or white sweet onion and chop it very finely. Season with salt and pepper, add 1 tsp sugar and 1-2 tsp wine vinegar. Dijon mustard is great in the dressing — add 1 tsp. Stir the dressing base and put it in the fridge.
- Cut the bacon or pork belly into large cubes. Fry the bacon in a skillet over medium heat, stirring now and then. The bacon pieces should render plenty of fat and turn crisp and nicely browned. Transfer the fried bacon to a plate lined with a paper towel to drain the excess fat.
- Pour off most of the rendered fat from the skillet. Pound the chicken breast lightly with a flat mallet or the spine of a knife so the meat is an even thickness. Put the fillet in the skillet and fry until cooked through and golden. The chicken should cool a little and be just slightly warm.
- Cobb salad is easiest to serve on a large flat-bottomed plate. On a square plate the rows of ingredients come out the same length; on a round plate it's better to lay them out in arcs. Tear the washed and dried salad leaves into pieces and spread them evenly over the plate. You can use other greens, or even a salad mix — they're sold everywhere. Iceberg, cress and oak leaf lettuce all work well.
- Cut the fried chicken breast into thin strips or cubes. It's best to slice across the grain with a very sharp knife so the chicken pieces keep their shape. Lay two rows of bacon and fried chicken over the greens, on opposite sides of the plate.
- Halve the cherry tomatoes and lay them in two rows along the very edge of the plate. Season the tomatoes with a little salt. If you're using regular ripe tomatoes, cut them into wedges or cubes. Peel the quail eggs and halve them. If the recipe uses chicken eggs, cut them into large pieces. Lay the eggs in a row down the middle of the plate, leaving room for the avocado.
- Halve the avocado and remove the pit, as in the avocado salad recipe. Peel off the tough skin and dice the flesh. Place the avocado in the free space in the middle of the plate next to the eggs. For the blue cheese, Roquefort, Danablu, Dorblu, Gorgonzola or any other will do. Crumble the cheese with your fingers or dice it and scatter it over the tomatoes. Slice the green onions and sprinkle them over the Cobb salad.
- At this point the salad is essentially ready. All that's left is to dress and serve it. Do this right away, since the avocado can darken, and cold bacon and chicken in the salad aren't great. By now the sweet onion in the dressing has had time to marinate. Pour 3-4 tbsp olive oil over the onion and whisk the dressing with a fork. It emulsifies nicely. Drizzle the dressing evenly over the salad.
- Cobb salad is often served with sliced leek rings, olives, artichokes, and fresh or roasted sweet peppers. Sometimes the dressing is made spicy, which is delicious. If you like, instead of rows you can serve the salad on a large plate with each ingredient piled in its own mound on the torn lettuce. Cobb salad is served unchilled.
| Serves: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 230 |
| Prep: | 30 mins |
| Cook: | 15 mins |
| Total: | 45 mins |
| Category: | Salads |
| Cuisine: | American cuisine |
| Rating: |
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4.7
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