Grilled Chicken Cobb Salad
Light and healthy, this grilled chicken Cobb salad is packed with yummy ingredients (bacon, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese!) with a homemade dressing that is simple and tasty!
I love a good main dish salad.
And I would say that many, many of our summer night meals consist of these types of salads.
Usually pretty quick and easy, these salads are filling enough for a main dish, but light and healthy enough to justify a big bowl of ice cream after dinner. Know what I mean?
I also happen to be a super fan of Cobb-type salads. I love the flavors. The variety. The add-in options (read: change it up a million different ways!). The pretty pockets of colorful ingredients.
So it’s not a huge surprise that this simple (but delicious) grilled chicken Cobb salad easily stole my salad-loving heart.
It’s fairly classic in Cobb ingredients: hard-boiled eggs (this is the only method I use to boil those little eggies), bacon (yum), juicy tomatoes, avocados (double yum), romaine lettuce, and blue cheese (don’t hate! it’s the best, but if you must, sub in Parmesan).
The chicken component, though, gets an extra dose of goodness by marinating quickly (or up to 8 hours) in a simple bath of buttermilk + garlic + salt and pepper.
Grilled, it is incredibly tender with the perfect amount of flavor for a salad that has a lot going on!
Drizzled with the super easy homemade white wine vinaigrette dressing and you have one terribly delicious salad.
You can make the presentation a tad fancier by serving the salad alongside (or slightly on top) of a piece of tender, juicy grilled chicken.
Or.
Simplify and chop up that chicken to toss in with the rest of the salad. There’s no wrong choice here.
As mentioned below in the “what to serve” section, to help my younger eaters get more excited about salad for dinner, I always serve main dish salads with a yummy bread.
These divine breadsticks are an easy choice. Drop biscuits would be wonderful, too. Pull apart Asiago bubble bread? Perfection.
But sometimes the easy route calls to me, and I grab refrigerated naan from Costco, lather the sides with garlic butter, and throw the bread on the grill with the chicken. Yuuuuuummmm!
What to Serve With This
- Divine breadsticks
- Fresh fruit
One Year Ago: Cuban Sandwiches {Slow Cooker or Pressure Cooker}
Two Years Ago: Chicken Taco Salad {InstantPot, Slow Cooker, or Stovetop}
Three Years Ago: Baked Orange-Glazed Meatballs
Four Years Ago: Glazed Lemon Yogurt Sheet Cake
Five Years Ago: Sour Cream Lime Tart {Or Pie!}
Grilled Chicken Cobb Salad
Ingredients
- 6 thin-cut boneless skinless chicken breasts, (or 3 thick chicken breasts cut in half lengthwise to form thinner cutlets)
- 1 cup buttermilk
- ½ teaspoon salt, I use coarse, kosher salt
- Pinch of black pepper, I use coarsely ground black pepper
- 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 3 medium hearts romaine lettuce, chopped
- 4-6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
- 4-6 hard-boiled eggs, chopped (see note)
- 1 cup chopped cherry or regular tomatoes
- 1-2 avocados, chopped
- ½ cup crumbled blue cheese, can sub Parmesan cheese
Dressing:
- 4 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 4 tablespoons olive oil or neutral-flavored oil like grapeseed, avocado, canola, vegetable
- 4 tablespoons mayonnaise, light or regular (see note)
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- Pinch of salt and pepper
Instructions
- Place the chicken in a shallow dish or gallon-size resealable bag. Whisk together the buttermilk, salt, pepper, and garlic. Pour the mixture over the chicken, coat well. Cover the dish or seal the bag and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 8 hours.
- Preheat a grill to medium or medium-high and grill the chicken (discard remaining marinade) for 3-4 minutes per side, until cooked through and an instant-read thermometer registers 165 degrees.
- Remove the chicken from the grill and tent with foil for 5-10 minutes before serving.
- In a large bowl add the chopped lettuce. Top with bacon, chopped hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, avocados and blue cheese.
- For the dressing, combine all the ingredients in a blender and process until combined (or whisk together in a small bowl).
- Drizzle the salad with about 2/3 of the dressing and toss lightly. Add more dressing to taste, if desired.
- Serve the grilled chicken topped with the salad (or serve it alongside). You can also chop up the chicken and toss with the other salad ingredients.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: adapted from April 2018 Food Network Magazine
This was deeeelicious! Thank you!!
The chicken turned out great! My kids loved assembling their own salads. I wasn’t crazy about the dressing, so I’d probably skip that step next time and just use a bottled poppyseed dressing. Thanks for another good recipe!
We have a heatwave in the UK at the moment and I definitely needed a main course salad that was minimal cooking and time in the kitchen! I also happen to adore Cobb Salad 🙂 I will admit that for speed, I bought cooked chicken and I just happened to have crispy bacon in the fridge, so all that had to cooked was the eggs and I used a blender to whip up the dressing. I quite enjoyed the chopping and setting out in lines (there are only two of us, so it was no big deal!). My husband loved it too and asked to have it again for lunch as we have enough ingredients left over.
Basically Mel, we LOVED it so thanks for posting this perfect recipe!
Caro
x
So happy you loved this one! Thanks for letting me know!
We had this for dinner last night and it was quite possibly my favorite dinner of the summer! Cobb salad just gets me every time! Thanks for all the amazing recipes!
Thanks, Marci!
Mel, I made this for dinner last night and both of my 11 year old twin boys said, “Mom, I thought I was going to hate it, but I loved it! This was so good! Make it again.” :-). It was also easy for me to make a vegetarian version for me, so it was a crowd pleaser. I used chicken thighs baked in the oven, as that was what I had, but followed the receipt for the rest. Thank you for another great recipe!
I love that! High praise from your boys! 🙂
This salad is such an hit! I’m not a big salad fan at all but this one I loved!! Thanks for such great recipes always!
Thanks, Esther!
Would it be weird to sub red wine vinegar?
Nope, not at all!
I always try to serve some boring side salad with dinner because everyone eats it and then if someone is not thrilled with the main dish, there is something available. If I don’t, I am sure to hear one of the seven say “Can I just have like a salad or something?” (quoting a movie, not just being rude, haha)
So, for summer, I want to move more in this direction of main dish salad. I put this on the menu for this week. When you serve salad for a main dish, do you serve it in a large platter like you have shown in the picture, or do you give everyone individual bowls, or do you just put the lettuce and dressing in a bowl and let people top their own? There are nine of us, so making 9 individual salads seems like too much work. But, I am seeing nine people serving from one bowl being a mess and the egg/avocado being a little mushed by the time everyone gets theirs. What do you think?
Hey Amy – I always put it in a large serving bowl or platter like shown in the pictures because I’m not about to serve individual salads (and I only have 7 to dish up!). 🙂 But I definitely think if you’ll have eaters picking and choosing through ingredients or just want the presentation not so messed up by the end, you could have all the ingredients in separate dishes and they could “build their own” salad on their plate. Something like that?
I am excited to make this for a family dinner tonight! I didn’t see any directions for the dressing though. How do you recommend blending the dressing ingredients together?
I just saw the comment below! Sorry for the double question!
Sorry I somehow left the directions out for the dressing! I usually blend it up in a blender.
I adore Cobb salad! Thanks for the recipe. Do you find this dressing comes together best in the blender or is whisking/shaking it usually sufficient?
Hey Staci – I usually blend in a blender, but it should be fine whisked up in a bowl.
Yum!! Made this tonight for our family and it was a huge hit. All four boys went back for more, and the two year old even had thirds! I made hard boiled eggs earlier in the week for breakfast and cheated a bit with precooked chicken so it was really easy. Your recipes never disappoint!
Love the shortcuts, Laura! Thanks for commenting to let me know!
I made this tonight for dinner, but I feel like I am missing some life tips or hacks. I feel like it took me forever to make dinner! (Hard boiled eggs, cooking bacon, marinating/grilling chicken, washing and chopping veggies/toppings) Can you share any tips or shortcuts you use for these types of salads? Sorry if it is a silly question.
Hey Megan – I don’t think it’s a silly question at all…I don’t know that I have any secrets, except for maybe looking at the recipe and planning some of the components to make ahead of time (even the day before) – like hard boiling the eggs, making the dressing and refrigerating, etc.
This looks amazing and wonderfully simple! I don’t usually post before making a recipe but I couldn’t resist letting you know that this salad looks divine and easy enough to put together on a weekenight.
Thanks, Jennie!
Ohhhh , I so needed this today. Thanks, girl. 🙂
If you were to make this as a main dish, how many people would it feed? I am trying to get new ideas to feed the sister missionaries…
I would say about 5-6 servings, especially if you have some type of bread side dish.
This salad looks delicious – I can’t wait to try it! And your pink and gold plates are gorgeous! 🙂
Thanks, Sam! They are my “wedding” china I finally bought after 16 years of marriage and I love them so much.