The Original Hollywood Brown Derby Cobb Salad
January 23, 2019
From Hollywood’s Brown Derby restaurant and named for its owner, Robert Howard Cobb, the Cobb Salad is the original chopped salad.
There’s some dispute about the recipe’s genesis. Was the first Cobb salad made by Cobb and theater mogul, Sid Grauman, while rummaging through the restaurant’s cooler for a late-night snack in 1939, or, by the restaurant’s executive chef Robert Kreis, who created it for the restaurant’s 1929 launch? Either way, the Cobb is one of America’s longest-standing salad favorites, inspiring dozens of different renditions. The original recipe consisted of a head of lettuce, watercress, avocado, tomatoes, cold breast of chicken, hard boiled eggs, cheese, crumbled bacon and some old-fashioned French dressing.
- Prep: 15 mins
- Yields: 6 Servings
Directions
1Chop lettuces in very fine pieces using a knife or a processor.
2Mix chopped ingredients together in one large wide bowl, or in individual wide shallow bowls. Add chives. Arrange tomatoes, chicken, bacon, avocado and eggs in narrow strips or wedges across top of greens. Sprinkle with cheese. Chill.
3At serving time, toss with ½ cup French Dressing. Pass remaining dressing.
French Dressing
1Combine all ingredients in a container with a lid. Shake well before using.
7 Reviews
Maggie
June 3, 2021
This is an excellent O.G. version of the Cobb — and a nicely balanced dressing. I could eat this once a week easily.
Make it a retro-Hollywood meal and serve this, followed by the Brown Derby Grapefruit Cake!
Regumbah
September 1, 2020
I have fond memories of the Brown Derby and of course the dressing but what I remember most is the lovely Irish gentleman that I met at the bar. He had donated trees to Israel and told me stories about the wild coastLine of western Ireland. He said I must see it and so I did. He also said that the Brown Derby was his kitchen… what a lovely man, what a lovely memory.
No ,I never got his name… pity…..
admin
July 13, 2020
I’m so glad you liked it. I think I’ll make it again soon!
S.Brown
July 13, 2020
Absolutely spectacular recipe. We left out the bitter greens as they’re just not our thing. My wife insisted that I make it again, and she can’t stop using the dressing on any salad we make. Thanks.
admin
June 8, 2020
Yes, it’s the original recipe, I, unfortunately, added the cucumber, should have left it out of the photo. Sorry!
J E Jester
June 7, 2020
Are there cucumbers in the photo but not in the ingredients? Is it in the ‘original?’
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Cindy Carney
January 1, 2022
For 35 years this has been one of my favorite salads I grew up in So California , Palm Springs to be exact and you can order this salad just about everywhere a few years ago I moved to a very rural town in NW Illinois and enjoying this salad was not an option so I found your recipe and have made it a half a dozen times and this is the most original copy of I’ve found.
I think you so much for sharing it with us.