Why Cobb Salad Is the Best Salad

As a kid, I loved salad. No, not the kind packed with fresh vegetables and lightly dressed with a perky vinaigrette. My ideal salad was a little bit of lettuce topped with cheese, some kind of meat and loads of croutons, all held together by a creamy dressing. Healthy? Not really. Delicious? Absolutely.
You used to see salads like this on many restaurant menus, typically labeled as chef’s salad. But if your parents took you to a fancy restaurant, it might have been called a Cobb salad. And once I got a taste of the Cobb, I immediately put the chef’s salad in my rearview mirror.
While the chef’s salad is a mishmash of deli meats, cheeses and iceberg lettuce, the Cobb salad is composed, with ingredients that are sliced, chopped or grated and arranged in stripes over a bed of mixed greens. The lettuce was usually chopped romaine, but endive and watercress made their way onto the plate, too. Regardless of the types of lettuce, they all got topped with lines of crispy bacon, crumbled Roquefort cheese, shredded cheddar, hard-boiled eggs, avocado, chopped chicken or turkey and tomato.
Now that summer has definitely arrived, salads are back in the dinner lineup, and taking center stage. Since it has been decades since I’ve made a Cobb salad, it seems like a no-brainer to revisit this old favorite.
The Cobb salad was invented in Los Angeles in the 1930s. Legend has it that Robert Cobb, owner of celebrity Hollywood hangout the Brown Derby, was looking for a midnight snack one night in 1937 and composed this salad out of bits and pieces from the walk-in refrigerator.
I don’t know if the story is true, but it captures what I love about this hearty salad. Yes, you can certainly stick to the traditional ingredients, or you can cut up whatever you have in the fridge, line it up on top of a bed of lettuce and enjoy. Lining up the ingredients is non-negotiable. It makes the salad seem special and, I would argue, taste better.
Toss romaine with 5 tablespoons of the dressing in large bowl until coated; arrange on a very large, flat serving platter. Arrange the chicken, cherry tomatoes, cheese, bacon, avocado and eggs in rows on top of the lettuce. Serve with remaining dressing on the side.