Have you tried to get the family to eat more salad with no success? With this easy Cobb salad bar, salad eating becomes fun!
Family Cobb Salad Bar
A few years ago, I was eating a big bowl of salad for lunch when my daughter said: “Mom, why does salad always have green stuff? I mean, I like a lot of the things in this bowl, but I don’t like the green stuff!” You know what? She was right.
Enjoying salads without lettuce became a great way for us to eat more veggies. While the idea of a “salad bar” isn’t new, creating a build-your-own salad bar at home was for us. It had to be Cobb salad: it's one of my favorite salads, so much so that I have turned it into a pizza, and even a Cobb Salad dip.
What to Put on a Cobb Salad Bar
You can assemble your own salad bar with classic Cobb salad ingredients, but honestly, the sky is the limit. Here are tasty things to put on your salad bar:
- Greens (lettuce, spinach, cabbage, kale, etc).
- Ham
- Cooked bacon
- Shredded cheese
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Avocado
- Cherry tomatoes
- Ranch dressing
- Olives
- Shredded chicken
- Canned salmon or tuna
- Sliced or shredded carrot
- Chickpeas
- Sliced red onion
- Cucumber slices
- Corn kernels
How to Assemble a Cobb Salad
As I’ll show you in the video below, preparing this Cobb salad bar is as simple as cutting the ingredients into bite-sized pieces and then placing them in individual bowls so everyone can build their salads. My kids know I have one rule: you must choose 3 items from the selection, with cheese being considered a 4th option.
Best Dressings for a Cobb Salad Bar
I always have homemade dressings in the fridge, so I grab one or two and bring them to the table. My favorites for this Cobb salad bar? Ranch dressing and the Classic Dressing for Cobb Salad. Other tasty ideas are blue cheese dressing, Greek yogurt ranch, or this simple Balsamic Vinaigrette.
Cobb Salad Bar
Watch how it’s made:
Ingredients
- 2 romaine lettuce hearts, chopped
- 1 cup ham, chopped
- 1 cup chicken, chopped (about 1 breast) (optional)
- ½ cup blue cheese crumbles, or cheddar
- 6 strips bacon, cooked crispy and chopped
- 4 hard boiled eggs
- 2 avocados, peeled, pitted and sliced
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
- Dressing: your choice of blue cheese or Ranch
Instructions
- Chop the greens, slice the veggies, and cut any other ingredients into bite-sized pieces.
- Assemble everything bar style on a table. Kids get to build their cobb salads. The key is to have the lettuce chopped like slaw or give the option to not use lettuce at all for kids.
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Melissa says
I have 2 pick eater at home. Try to add veggies is challenging. Last night I served this cobb salad bar that has some of their favorite things (I mean, who doesn’t love bacon, right?) and they also added some “green” stuff on their plates. Laura, you made this mom super happy! Thank you!