Fried Chicken Cobb Salad

When the weather turns toward spring, I start craving salad.  Especially meal-worthy salads.  You know, the ones with crunchy greens and enough meat and cheese that you don’t have to make anything else for dinner?   Well, this Fried Chicken Cobb Salad is a house favorite.

The origins of Cobb salad are a bit murky, what with several different stories and varying details.  They all seem to agree, though, that the Cobb salad was named after Bob Cobb, the manager of the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood in the 1930s.  The original seems to have had greens, roast chicken, bacon, boiled egg, blue cheese and red wine vinaigrette.  Later versions in California added avocado.  

Variations on the original Cobb salad abound.  Ina Garten makes one with lobster.  Jennifer Aniston apparently ate a Cobb-ish salad on the set of Friends all the time.  Hers had egg whites, turkey bacon, and chickpeas.  I once worked in a restaurant where we served an excellent Chicken Artichoke Cobb Salad.  It was insanely popular.  Evidently even Chick-fil-A makes a Cobb salad.  I bet it’s tasty.  Anyway, I think this Fried Chicken Cobb Salad is an easy, yummy, one-bowl wonder, and the perfect meal salad.  

Cobb salads are essentially chopped salads.  Those tidy rows of ingredients are photogenic for serving, I admit, but not especially practical for eating.  Go ahead and line the toppings up for presentation if you like, but put it all in a bowl big enough to toss the salad with the dressing before trying to eat it.  (Tossed chopped salads are pretty, too.)

Sturdy greens are best for a Cobb salad, and I use either romaine or iceberg.  Boiled egg and crumbled bacon are a must, as are tomatoes.  You’re going to need some sort of cheese.  I’ve used shredded cheddar here, but blue cheese is delicious, too, and I often use feta if I have it.  I don’t usually add avocado to a Fried Chicken Cobb Salad, but I do sometimes add diced cucumber.  Fresh corn in season is a great addition, and I love to add okra–pickled or fried–if I have it.  But the real star of the show is fried chicken.

So do I do anything special to produce the perfect fried chicken for my Fried Chicken Cobb Salad, you ask?  Yes I do!  I waltz right up to the fresh prepared food section of the grocery store, and I buy as many fried chicken fingers as I think I’ll need.  I can’t recommend this method enough.  

Dressing is really a matter of personal taste.  The original Cobb salad was dressed with vinaigrette, and that’s still a great option.  Honey mustard dressing is quite good here, too.  But my favorite is homemade buttermilk dressing.  It’s very much a ranch-style dressing with a fresh light taste, and it’s so easy!  

Eat your vegetables!  ❤️

Print Recipe

Fried Chicken Cobb Salad

Ingredients

Per individual salad, or per person if making a large salad to share:

• 2 cups chopped romaine or iceberg lettuce
• 2 fried chicken tenders, sliced in bite-sized pieces
• 2 strips crisp bacon, crumbled or chopped
• 1 hard boiled egg, coarsely chopped
• ½ cup diced tomato
• ½ cup shredded or crumbled cheese
• Optional ingredients as you like: chopped or pickled sweet onion, sliced pickled okra, fried okra, diced avocado, diced cucumber, roasted sunflower seeds or pecans, etc . .
• Dressing(s) of choice

Instructions

• Add the chopped lettuce to a plate or large salad bowl.
• Arrange the other ingredients on top of the lettuce. You can create rows or sections or toppings, or you can pile it all on top.
• Individual salads can be served as is. Large salads can be topped with dressing and tossed to combine just before serving.