You may have noticed that I post a lot recipes for main course salads. This is because most days, I pack a very large salad for lunch. I am someone who requires rather a lot of food. I work with small children and I expend a lot of energy. I don’t eat gluten so I can’t just eat a sandwich and I do not like microwaves, so I don’t pack leftovers to warm-up. This summer I have been eating a very large cobb salad for lunch almost everyday. If you have children, you should consider trying to feed them this salad. I have been working at a summer camp where we eat lunch with the kids and the kids I work with think that this salad looks really delicious.
I am a fan of cobb salads. They are old-fashioned and hard to mess up, like a BLT. You can order them anywhere in the country and they will be pretty good. I am not however, a fan cobb salads that come with a huge serving of grilled chicken on top. Cobb salads are BIG…I do not need a giant serving of meat on top of my cobb salad. With the exception of those served at excellent Vietnamese and Greek restaurants I find grilled chicken breasts to be universally dry and tasteless. Restaurants that specialize in comforting American food often offer grilled chicken to appease dieters…but if you feel so guilty about eating meat, you might just want to consider eating a bunch of delicious vegetables instead and save your meat indulgence for the occasional normal sized serving of duck breast or pulled pork rather than a huge portion of sawdust-like grilled chicken. Well that’s just me.
Cobb salad traditionally eatures leftover poached or boiled chicken (like what you might have leftover from making a homemade chicken broth) not grilled chicken. A demure amount of shredded poached chicken is delicious on a cobb salad if you have it on hand. The recipe was invented by a hungry restaurant owner who raided his diner’s fridge and made a salad from leftovers, so you should improvised based on what you have around!
COBB SALAD
- Half a head of Romaine Lettuce rinsed and cut into ribbons (other kinds of greens work too!)
- 1 small plum tomato minced
- 1 small avocado peeled. pitted and cubed (not traditional but very good!)
- a handful of crumbled Roquefort, gorgonzola or some other blue cheese
- a slice of fried, crumbled bacon
- one hard-boiled egg peeled and minced
- Some leftover cooked chicken (I often skip this)
- minced fresh chives
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar ( I sometimes use balsamic or raspberry vinegar)
- 1/4 teaspoon sugar
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp pepper
- 3/4 tsp worchestershire sauce
- 1/4 tsp dry english mustard
- 1 small clove garlic minced
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 3/4 cup mild oil
Big Sis Little Dish 
I happened to be “working from home” and it happened to be almost lunch time when I read this post. I had JUST enough time to boil the last few eggs and cook up the rest of the bacon before I had to dash off to an appointment! I had JUST enough Boston lettuce leftover from who-knows-when and some shredded cheddar cheese from the other night’s quesadillas and voila! I had cobb salad for lunch. (No tomato, though, which was sad.)
THANK YOU for inspiring this! And the girls had the other two hard boiled eggs for dinner. (I think that’s the only part of a cobb salad they would eat.)
Ah, but you haven’t had my grilled chicken! It is never ever dry. It is all about timing and temperature, something many people lapse on when it comes to chicken but yet they wouldn’t dare dream of slacking off in these departments when cooking a steak. Meat is meat and should not be handled with less care than other kinds. I could skip the blue cheese though, never developed a taste for that one. Love all other strong cheeses though! Yum!
Its so true! Why are people so lazy about cooking chicken properly!? I think its because its a cheaper meat than steak, but that is no exuse!
xo
Erin