Cobb Salad

Last Updated May 21st, 2023 at 11:55 pm by Lisa

The original Cobb Salad became famous in Los Angeles at the Brown Derby restaurant served with red wine vinaigrette French dressing loaded with chopped tomato, cubed chicken, crumbled bacon, diced avocado, chopped eggs, and topped with Roquefort cheese.

Now you can make this famous iconic salad at home exactly how it was made back in the day in the golden age of Hollywood, California...

How To Make Cobb Salad

Cobb Salad Dressing (Red Wine Vinaigrette)

The Brown Derby dressing for this salad is a vinaigrette recipe, similar to an old-fashioned French dressing.

• ¼ cup water
• ¼ cup red wine vinegar
• ¼ teaspoon sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• ¾ teaspoon dry English mustard
• ½ clove garlic minced (small clove garlic)
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¾ cup vegetable oil

Cobb Salad Ingredients

• ½ head iceberg lettuce
• ½ bunch watercress
• 1 small bunch curly endive
• ½ head Romaine lettuce
• 2 tablespoons fresh chives minced
• 2 medium ripe tomatoes diced (cherry tomatoes are fine)
• 1 chicken breast boneless, cooked, diced, skinless
• 6 strips of bacon cooked and diced
• 1 avocado diced
• 3 hard-boiled large eggs diced
• ½ cup Roquefor cheese crumbled

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Make The Salad Components

The first thing to grab is a large platter, oval, square, rectangle all work, or a shallow wide large pasta bowl. Another option is you can make the salad right in a large salad bowl and use serving bowls.

1. Mix French Dressing: In a small bowl whisk water, vinegar, sugar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, Worcestershire, dry mustard, garlic, olive oil, and vegetable oil. Store in the fridge chilled makes about 1 ½ cups. Shake or stir well before using. An easy way to serve it is in a cruet glass container.
2. Roast Chicken Breasts: Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper for easy cleanup. Place 4 split chicken breasts on a sheet pan, and season well with salt and pepper on both sides. Heat oven to 400 degrees, and roast chicken breast for 30-35 minutes until cooked to 165 internal temperature. Let chicken rest until cool enough to handle, remove skin and bones (freeze for chicken stock), and cut into large diced pieces. Alternatively, you can poach or roast skinless chicken breasts. You want to cube cold breast of chicken for the salad.
3. Make Hardboiled Eggs: And roughly chop. The method I like the best is to "steam boil" eggs. Add water to a large pan with a lid, bring the water to a boil, and set a steamer basket in the water. Carefully add eggs to the steamer basket, cover, and let steam at high heat for 12 minutes. Remove eggs to ice bath for 15 minutes, roll crack and the peels on a board, they slip RIGHT OFF! I love making eggs this way.
4. Make Crumbled Bacon: Cook strips of bacon in a skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 8 minutes. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Or buy precooked bacon and cook it in the microwave. Chop bacon on a cutting board into small ½" pieces.
5. Prep Veggies: Finely mince chives, chop tomatoes, and remove the watery seeds, they don't have any flavor anyway! Chop half of an iceberg head of lettuce, half a head Romaine, the endive lettuce, and a bunch of watercress using a knife on a cutting board. Slice the avocado into cubes, and hold the avocado half in a towel when cutting.

Take a look at my recipe to make Hard-Boiled Eggs Perfectly every time, and the egg shells slip right off...

And take a look at all my Diced Chicken Recipes in case you have extra chicken leftover. Roasting chicken is an easy way to get the most flavor and has a fast cleanup.

Assemble The Cobb Salad

1. Mix together the chopped iceberg, romaine, endive, and watercress, and place into the bottom of a large square or rectangle dish or individual salad bowls. Sprinkle some finely diced chives on top of the salad mix.
2. Arrange Toppings side-by-side in separate lines across the green salad in wide strips of diced tomatoes, cubed chicken, small pieces of crumbled bacon, diced avocado, and chopped eggs.
3. Sprinkle all over with crumbled Roquefort cheese and more chives for the garnishes.
4. Pour dressing at serving time.

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Special French Dressing

This dressing will settle, and that's ok. Just shake the container and pour, and it's all good! A true French vinaigrette will blend due to the proportion of oil and acid like vinegar, lemon juice, and other ingredients that help it emulsify and bind the dressing together such as Dijon mustard.

This recipe was whipped together in a hurry as the story goes, and not designed to mix into a perfect dressing like you buy in the store, and those are full of all kinds of extra things you really don't want to eat.

So I recommend either whisking it in a bowl, shaking it in a jar, or putting it into a glass salad mixing cruet container similar to this one.

Authentic Cobb Salad Tips

• Authentic versions of Cobb salad are prepared using four varieties of greens: iceberg lettuce, watercress, endive, and Romaine lettuce.
• Prepare all your ingredients and chill them; boiled eggs, diced chicken, and tomatoes.
• Make the bacon close to serving so it stays crisp. Or make it and crumble it into a small airtight container in the fridge.
• Cut the avocado last, as it discolors fast and you want it to look pretty on your salad.
• Watercress was available at my grocery store, but if you could leave it out or substitute arugula, or small bunch of chicory leaves also called Frisee lettuce.
• For the chicken, you can poach, roast, broil, grill, or bake the chicken or even use a rotisserie chicken from the store. You can also sub cubed cooked turkey breast.
• Be sure to whisk or shake the dressing if stored in a container before pouring it onto the salad, it will separate a bit and that's ok.
• Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp, 6-8 minutes, drain on a paper-towel-lined plate, or buy precooked bacon, and it's ready in minutes in the microwave.
• My parents, our family, and many friends loved the Brown Derby. I was born in Los Angeles and grew up eating this salad, and LOVE it the original traditional way. If you want to add some of the "new" twists on this salad that is great to make your own dressing or use Ranch Dressing. I have seen recipes where people add their own thing from turkey breast, grated cheddar cheese, to red onions, to this salad. But that is NOT the original recipe from back in the day.

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The Brown Derby Cobb Salad is so beloved California Food all over the United States. The original recipe was printed in the LA Times. My Mom clipped it out and made it often for our family on hot summer days in Southern California. We had it out by our pool, at the beach house, on dessert vacations and it always hit the spot...

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Brown Derby Cobb Salad History FAQ

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