Homemade Cobb Salad ♥ Summer Recipe

Today's recipe: The recipe for a classic Cobb salad made from the traditional Cobb salad ingredients: chicken, bacon, tomato, avocado, hard-cooked egg and blue cheese. Quick to assemble and impressive-looking. Low carb. Weight Watchers 7 points.

A Cobb salad just 'looks' so good, yes? And I was much pleased that a homemade (and much lighter) Cobb salad could taste so good, too.

Like many main dish salads, Cobb salad is an exercise in planning since it calls for cooked chicken, cooked bacon (Note to Vegetarians) plus hard-cooked eggs and a gorgeous buttermilk garlic dressing. THAT said, however, if the ingredients are already cooked, it assembles in minutes. And if they're not cooked, it took less time than I'd have thought to put the whole thing together start-to-finish -- about 30 minutes -- an effort yes, but definitely worth doing.

It's also a lesson in portion size management. Since a Cobb salad includes four proteins -- chicken, bacon, egg and cheese -- plus high-calorie avocado, the calories will really mount up unless small amounts of each of the four add up to just a single portion of protein. To my taste, this salad was extra satisfying and very filling -- even several hours later -- so will definitely make this again.

HISTORY of COBB SALAD The story goes that a hungry owner of the landmark Los Angeles restaurant the Brown Derby threw together this salad after raiding the restaurant fridge. His name was Bob Cobb and suddenly, one of the most famous salads was born. What makes a Cobb salad distinctive, however, is not so much its ingredients (after all, it's much like a BLT, much like a club sandwich) but its distinctive composition, rows of single ingredients rather than one big mash-up. Any mix of ingredients splayed out in even rows would be equally impressive!





COBB SALAD

Hands-on time: 10 minutes per salad (with cooked ingredients)
Time to table: 10 minutes
Serves as many as needed

PER SALAD
Lettuce greens
1 tablespoon Buttermilk Garlic Dressing

Toss the greens and dressing together. Arrange in a large flat bowl.

In rows, top the greens with:

1/4 a cooked chicken breast, chopped (I used grilled chicken but you could also poach the chicken as in this recipe for Lemon Chive Chicken Salad)
2 tablespoons cooked bacon (how to make homemade bacon bits)
1/2 hard-cooked egg, chopped (how to cook perfect hard-boiled eggs)
1 Roma tomato, chopped
2 tablespoons blue cheese, crumbled (I substituted feta because it was on hand)
1/4 a ripe avocado, cubed

TIP Arrange the lower-calorie ingredients (tomato, chicken and egg) in the longer inside rows and the higher-calorie ingredients (avocado, bacon, cheese) on the shorter outside rows.




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© Copyright 2008


Alanna Kellogg
Alanna Kellogg

A Veggie Venture is home of "veggie evangelist" Alanna Kellogg and the famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables.

Comments

  1. That a great looking salad and one that would easily do as a main meal!

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  2. There's a reason this salad is a classic -- the combination of salty (bacon), creamy avocado and blue cheese, tart tomato and rich (chicken), plus crunch. It's not about quantity; it's about texture. A little bit of each texture is all you need!

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  3. AnonymousJune 04, 2008

    I am so happpy to find your site. The salad looks wonderful but it is the asparagus recipes I have been looking for.I just picked fresh asparagus along with broccoli,lettuce, cabbage, greens, onions. Now I have new recipes to try. What a great day! Thanks for your visit to my site also.

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  4. AnonymousJune 05, 2008

    Your Cobb Salad inspired me for supper last night. I've always worried that a salad wouldn't be enough of a meal to please us, but that isn't the case with this one. The two of us couldn't even eat it all. Along with a crusty bread, warm from the oven, it was a perfect supper. Thanks so much for the inspiration!

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Thank you for taking a moment to write! I read each and every comment, for each and every recipe, whether a current recipe or a long-ago favorite. If you have a specific question, it's nearly always answered quick-quick. ~ Alanna