Better Homes And Gardens Chicken Cobb Salad Recipe

Cobb Salad loaded with chicken, crispy bacon, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, avocado, blue cheese, and a simple but wonderful homemade dressing that brings it all together. This classic salad is really easy to make and always a showstopper!

overhead Cobb Salad on white serving platter

As far as American salads go, a Cobb Salad is sort of King. With so many varied ingredients, all laid out in beautiful rows, then drizzled with a delicious dressing – it's hard to beat. When we go out to eat, my husband will scour the menu for a Cobb Salad. But he always says that my recipe is the best. Make it and see for yourself!

What is a Cobb Salad?

Cobb salad came to be in 1937 at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant, by owner Robert Cobb, when he was hungry one night and combined everything he had on hand. It was an instant hit and word spread. Celebrities started coming in, requesting "Cobb's salad" and the rest is history. Sadly the original Brown Derby in LA doesn't exist anymore, but it's a classic creation offered on so many restaurant menus. Even better, you can easily make this salad at home and customize it exactly to your tastes.

This salad is known for its copious amount of fresh ingredients, where every bite is loaded with layers of flavor, from cooked chicken breast to salty bacon to sweet tomatoes to creamy egg. It's basically a chopped salad taken to level 11. The Cobb salad dressing is the real star and can be varied to keep your salad interesting every time you make it.

Cobb Salad Recipe

Like most classic recipes, this one comes in many forms – some very humble, while others are extremely fancy. We love our version.

Cobb Salad Ingredients:

Greens: This is the base of the salad. Traditional Cobb salad uses a combination of Romaine, iceberg, and watercress. We keep it super simple and just use Romaine, but feel free to use what you like.
Chicken: Roast chicken or grilled chicken are great. You could even buy rotisserie chicken from the store to save time.
Bacon: Perfectly crispy bacon that's chopped up or crumbled.
Hard Boiled Eggs: This is how we make perfect hard boiled eggs, to ensure there's no green ring!
Tomatoes: Cherry or grape tomatoes are our preference, since they tend to be the sweetest.
Onion: We love the pop of color that red onion gives to this salad. It's slightly spicy, but has such a mild flavor when eaten raw.
Avocado: Use beautiful, ripe avocados without any brown spots.
Cheese: Roquefort Blue cheese is traditionally used and since we love it, we stick with it. If blue cheese is not your thing, you can sub with feta.
Chives: Chopped fresh chives get sprinkled over the top, which adds additional flavor and also acts as a garnish.
Salt and Pepper: Simple seasonings of salt and pepper finish off the salad.

Cobb Salad Dressing

The recipe we're sharing today uses our homemade Greek Salad Dressing, but we've also served it with these homemade dressings and it's delicious with all of them:

Ranch Dressing
Italian Dressing
Balsamic Vinaigrette

close up rows of roasted chicken, avocado, cherry tomatoes, and hard boiled eggs

How to Make a Cobb Salad

Cobb Salad is actually good for meal prep or a great way to use up leftover chicken and hard-cooked eggs. If you don't have leftovers, fresh ingredients aren't terribly time consuming to prepare, and you can do it in advance of actually serving the salad. Here's the ideal order to prep it ahead of time:

Dressing: Our Greek Salad Dressing is amazing on this salad and it only takes a few minutes to whip up. You can make it and store it in the fridge up to 1 week before dressing the salad.
Cook the chicken: Roast or baked chicken breast with simple seasoning is great. Slice it or chop it right before assembling.
Hard boil the eggs: You need 3 hard boiled eggs for our recipe. This is our way of making perfect hard boiled eggs. Once cooled, go ahead and peel them, but leave them whole until ready to assemble. Then slice them, chop them, or quarter them.
Crisp the bacon: We cook our bacon in the oven, but you can certainly fry it in a pan, too. Cook it until crispy, drain any rendered fat, then chop it up once cooled.
Chop the vegetables and cheese: Do this last, so the vegetables are nice and crisp and the avocado doesn't turn brown.

If prepping in advance, keep everything stored separately, in airtight containers in the fridge so the components stay dry. And don't slice into the avocado or dress the salad until right before serving. If serving right away, place a bed of lettuce on a one large serving platter, or individual plates. Then top with rows of all the ingredients, garnish with chives and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Drizzle dressing over salad and enjoy!

salad with chicken, bacon, and hard cooked eggs on white plate

Cobb Salad Video

Enjoy this colorful Cobb Salad for a filling lunch or dinner, with your family or for a small dinner party. It's so pretty and delicious, everyone will love it!

Other Salads We Love

Arugula Beet Salad
Strawberry Spinach Salad
Simple Side Salad – we serve this with everything!
Wedge Salad (with Shrimp)

I hope you love this delicious and easy recipe – be sure to give it a review below! Also don't forget to follow Belly Full on Facebook , Instagram , Pinterest , and YouTube !

overhead Cobb Salad on white serving platter

Cobb Salad

Prep Time 20 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings: 6 as a side salad

For the Dressing

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon honey
3/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic , finely minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

For the Salad

6 cups chopped romaine lettuce , rinsed and dried
2 seasoned, roasted chicken breasts (sliced or chopped)
3 hard-boiled eggs (quartered, sliced, or chopped)
1 large avocado (sliced or chopped)
8 slices bacon , cooked until crispy, chopped
1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes , halved crosswise
1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
4 ounces crumbled Roquefort blue cheese
2 tablespoons chopped chives
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper , to taste

Make the dressing: Place all ingredients into a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Shake vigorously until well-blended and emulsified. Taste and adjust seasonings, adding more salt and pepper if necessary. Set aside.
Place a bed of lettuce on a white serving platter. Then top with rows of chicken, bacon, hard-boiled egg, avocado, cherry tomatoes, red onion, and blue cheese.
Garnish with chives and season with salt and pepper, to taste.
Drizzle some dressing over salad just before serving and allow people to add more, if they like.

Nutritional information given is an automatic calculation and can vary based on the exact products you use and any changes you make to the recipe. If these numbers are very important to you, I would recommend calculating them yourself.