A mix of crisp greens, chicken, and avocado with blue cheese and hard-boiled eggs, all chopped fork-size.
Invented in 1937 at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood by owner Robert Cobb, who reportedly assembled it late one night from leftovers in the walk-in. The ingredient list (chicken, bacon, egg, avocado, blue cheese, tomato, chives, romaine) became fixed almost immediately and has barely changed in 90 years — the rare American restaurant dish with a documented original recipe.
1937 Brown Derby, Hollywood — Robert Cobb threw it together late one night from walk-in scraps. Chicken, bacon, egg, avocado, blue cheese, tomato, chives, romaine. Recipe has barely moved in 90 years.
Chopped romaine in a wide bowl, with rows of toppings laid in stripes: grilled chicken, hard-boiled egg, bacon, avocado, tomato, blue cheese, often chives. Red-wine vinaigrette goes on at the table. The structural rule is that everything is chopped to fork-size; no slicing, no shaving. You toss it yourself before eating, which is the whole point.
The chop is the technique. Uniform fork-sized cuts mean every bite carries multiple components — you can't end up with a forkful of just lettuce or just bacon. Larger pieces (a half avocado, a sliced tomato) defeat the design. Restaurants that plate it with whole leaves and big ingredient chunks have lost the plot; it stops being a Cobb and becomes a chef's salad.
Variations
Brown Derby's plate kept rows of stripes the diner tossed at the table; modern restaurants pre-toss; California-Cobb riffs swap blue cheese for goat or add grilled corn; Mexican-Cobb adds cotija and black beans.
On the Palate
Where Cobb Salad sits in the American flavor cloud
Ingredients
How it's made
5 steps · 30 min
- 14 min
Chop lettuce and arrange on a large platter.
- 24 min
Dice cooked chicken breast, avocado, tomato, and hard-boiled eggs.
Watch outCut everything to a uniform fork-size dice — that even chop is the whole trick, so every bite carries chicken, egg, avocado and bacon at once, not a forkful of just one thing.
- 35 min
Cook bacon until crisp and crumble over salad.
Watch outCook the bacon all the way to crisp before crumbling it in — chewy underdone bacon goes limp in the dressing and loses the crunch that plays against the creamy avocado and egg.
- 45 min
Top with blue cheese and red wine vinaigrette.
- 55 min
Toss gently before serving.
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