# Classic Cobb Salad

Classic Cobb Salad — a medium recipe with 7 main ingredients, ready in about 30 min and serving 2. Check which of its ingredients are on sale at grocery stores near you.

- **Time:** 30 min
- **Serves:** 2
- **Difficulty:** medium
- **Tags:** lunch, chicken, healthy, american, gluten-free
- **Source:** https://savingrecipes.com/recipes/cobb-salad

## Ingredients

- 2 chicken breasts
- 4 slices bacon
- 2 eggs
- 1 head romaine
- 1 avocado
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes
- Blue cheese crumbles
- 2 tbsp olive oil _(pantry staple)_
- Salt & pepper _(pantry staple)_

## Instructions

1. Hard-boil eggs; crisp bacon; sear seasoned chicken and slice.
2. Arrange everything in rows over chopped romaine.
3. Dress with oil, vinegar, salt, and crumbled blue cheese.

## Tips

- Arrange in rows rather than tossing. It isn't only presentation — it lets people take what they want and stops the blue cheese coating everything.
- Start the eggs in already-boiling water and shock them in ice water afterwards. Cold-start eggs are harder to peel, and the ice bath prevents the grey-green ring around the yolk.
- Dress it at the table. Avocado and romaine go soggy fast under dressing.

## Substitutions

- **Blue cheese:** Feta, goat cheese, or grated cheddar. Blue is traditional but assertive — serve it on the side if it's divisive.
- **Chicken breast:** Rotisserie chicken, leftover turkey, or grilled prawns. Skip the meat and add extra egg and avocado for vegetarian.
- **Bacon:** Pancetta, or omit it — toasted nuts give similar salty crunch in a vegetarian version.
- **Romaine:** Any sturdy leaf: little gem, iceberg, or a mix. Avoid soft leaves like butter lettuce, which collapse under the toppings.

## Storage & reheating

Undressed components keep 3 days separately, and hard-boiled eggs keep a week in the shell. Assembled and dressed it doesn't keep at all — the avocado browns and the leaves wilt within an hour.

## Common questions

### What makes a salad a Cobb?

The specific combination — chicken, bacon, egg, avocado, tomato and blue cheese on lettuce, arranged in rows. It was invented at the Brown Derby in Hollywood in the 1930s.

### How do I get jammy rather than chalky yolks?

7 minutes for jammy, 9–10 for fully set. Cobb traditionally uses hard-boiled, but 8 minutes is a good middle ground.

### How do I stop the avocado browning?

Toss it in lemon or lime juice and cut it last. Keeping the stone in helps marginally, but acid is what actually works.


_Photo: Ser Amantio di Nicolao — CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cobb_salad_from_Silver_Diner.jpg)_