Classic Cobb Salad with Chicken - Little Sunny Kitchen (2024)

This fully loaded Cobb Salad is packed with delicious, fresh ingredients and has the best dressing! Learn how to make a classic cob, and you can enjoy it any time of the year.

A well-made cobb salad is a work of art. Delicious layers of fresh ingredients are combined expertly to create a beautiful, delicious, and satisfying salad that can be enjoyed as a main dish or a side.

We’re adding diced chicken to this cobb salad, but you could add any type of cooked meat that you like. Anything goes when you combine crunchy romaine lettuce, crispy bacon, rich avocado, yummy veggies, hard-boiled eggs, and crumbled blue cheese with an amazing cobb salad dressing.

Try my Shrimp Cobb Salad – It’s similar to this one but with some extra yummy ingredients added in!

For something different, try this amazingly satisfying Steak Salad or my classic French Niçoise Salad recipe.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

1. No Cooking–Aside from crisping up some bacon (which you could totally do ahead of time) nothing needs to be cooked in order to make a Cobb Salad. It’s the perfect dinner for a hot night that doesn’t require heating up your kitchen.
2. Customizable–I’m giving you the formula for the classic, traditional Cobb Salad, but you can switch things up to suit your preferences. Use a different salad, add different veggies or cheese, or leave out anything you don’t like.
3. Satisfying – Nobody ever finished a cobb salad and said that they were still hungry. This salad is packed with protein and healthy fats to keep you satisfied all afternoon.

What’s in a Cobb Salad?

There are a lot of pieces to this salad, but they all make sense. This truly is salad perfection!

If you ever forget what goes into a cobb salad, remember this: Eggs, Avocado, Chicken, Onion, Bacon, and Blue cheese. Put them together and the letters spell EAT COBB. I love a good mnemonic device!

Complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.

Easy Cobb Salad Dressing

It’s easy to make your own tangy honey mustard dressing that perfectly complements the salty bacon and creamy avocado. You’ll need the following:

• Red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar: Either one works perfectly, so use whichever you have on hand. Dressing made with red wine vinegar will have a pinkish color to it.
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil: Every good homemade salad dressing includes some of this.
• Dijon Mustard and Honey: This is a honey mustard style dressing, but lighter than a typical creamy honey mustard.
• Garlic: Fresh garlic makes this dressing super tasty. Mince it finely before tossing it in.
• Salt and Pepper: Add as much as tastes good to you!

Cobb Salad Ingredients

• Romaine Lettuce: Crispy lettuce is the best kind for a Cobb Salad. You could also use iceberg lettuce or a combination of both.
• Chicken: I used the breast meat from a rotisserie chicken to create this salad. You can use any kind of precooked chicken that’s convenient, either chopped or shredded.
• Bacon: Crispy bacon makes any salad better. You can cook fresh bacon, or try pre-cooked back from the grocery store.
• Hard Boiled Eggs: Two eggs are enough for this family-sized salad, but you can add extra if you like.
• Avocado: This is one of the keys to a great Cobb Salad. Be sure that your avocado is ripe, and dice it into easy-to-eat pieces.
• Tomatoes and Onion: Halved cherry tomatoes and sliced red onion add color and flavor to your salad.
• Blue Cheese: Crumbled blue cheese adds a tangy, creamy bite. If you don’t like blue cheese, try Feta instead.

How To Make a Cobb Salad

1. Make the Dressing: This simple dressing is best made right before you need it. Mix all of the dressing ingredients together in a bowl with a whisk, or add the ingredients to a small jar and shake it up.

1. Make the Salad: Using a very large bowl or a deep platter, lay down the lettuce, then line up the rest of the ingredients on top of the lettuce in neat rows.
2. Serve: Right before serving, dress the salad, and toss gently to combine.

Recipe Tips

• Yield: This salad serves 4 as an entree or 6 as a side salad
• Chicken for Cobb Salad: I used rotisserie chicken here, but grilled chicken, boiled chicken breasts, or any other chicken can be used instead. Do what’s easiest for you.
• Make sure the bowl you use is big enough. You want enough room to add all of the ingredients and toss the salad before serving it.
• Try different dressings. Ranch, creamy blue cheese, French, or Italian dressings can all be delicious on a Cobb salad. The dressing in this recipe is a tasty and quick homemade honey mustard.
• Onion and Tomato Substitutions: Instead of red onion, try white onion or green ones. Any fresh tomatoes can be used instead of cherry tomatoes.
• Cheese substitution. If you don’t want to use blue cheese, crumbled feta is another good option.You could even use cheddar.

How to Wash and Dry Lettuce

The best way to wash and dry romaine lettuce for this salad is to use a salad spinner! I have this salad spinner from OXO and I use it all the time for romaine, leaf lettuce, spinach, kale, and any other lettuces I have that need to be washed.

Storing Tips

It’s best to make a cobb salad just before you plan to serve it. Lettuce-based salads with lots of toppings don’t always keep well if made ahead of time.

You can chop and prep the lettuce and toppings and keep them in the fridge for a day or so. Make the dressing and dress the salad before you plan to eat.

What To Serve With Cobb Salad

This Cobb Salad with chicken is a meal on its own, packed with protein, veggies, and healthy fat from avocados and olive oil. Add some homemade bread or copycat Olive Garden Breadsticks if you like.

Serve Cobb salad as a side dish with your favorite proteins. You can leave the chicken off of the salad and instead enjoy a Smoked Whole Chicken, a grilled Beer Can Chicken, or my Easy Roast Chicken. Cobb salad is also delicious with Steak or Shrimp.

FAQs

Put this easy Cobb Salad recipe on your list of summertime dinners! Be sure to Pin the recipe for later too.