Vegan Cobb Salad

This vegan Cobb salad is loaded with color, texture, and flavor for a quick, easy, hearty, filling salad you can enjoy for lunch or dinner! Plus, it’s gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, and ready in just 25 minutes.

As the weather warms up, fully-loaded, hearty vegan salads like this vegan Cobb salad are game-changing. They’re quick and simple to prepare, crowd-pleasing, and filling enough to enjoy as a main. Plus, it’s easy to customize for a super satisfying salad, packed with nutrients that never bores.

What Are Cobb Salads?

A Cobb salad is an American, fully-loaded, main-dish salad originating in the 1930s in California. While the exact origins are contested, it’s thought it came about in the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant, named after its owner, Robert Howard Cobb, and was a salad pulled together with lots of leftovers in the restaurant kitchen.

Typically, a Cobb salad is made up of a bed of mixed leafy greens (lettuce - both iceberg and romaine, endives, watercress, etc.) topped with neat individual rows of tomato, avocado, eggs, chicken, bacon, blue cheese, chives, and a simple red-wine vinaigrette.

The combination makes for a texturally and flavorfully satisfying salad that will keep you full until your next meal.

How Do You Make a Cobb Salad Vegan?

There are simple ingredient swaps and plenty of vegan salad toppings you can rely on for a delicious vegan cobb salad that’s just as satisfying.

For example, in this case, we swapped in a vegan bacon alternative, substituted the chicken with a can of garbanzo beans, and love using any vegan creamy dressing, like vegan ranch. The results are out of this world!

Why You’ll Love This Vegan Cobb Salad

• Quick & simple: Just chop, assemble, add the vegan dressing, and enjoy!
• Budget-friendly: Rely on inexpensive produce and household staples for the base recipe, or switch it up with veggies you need to use from your fridge.
• Packed with texture & flavor: Making a super satisfying meal.
• Child-approved: I’ve found salads with lots of elements do better with kids and picky eaters.
• Versatile: There are tons of ways to adapt the toppings and dressing to your liking.

The Ingredients and Substitutes

• Leafy greens: Traditionally, a cobb salad relies on a mixed greens base, so I usually use a package of mixed leafy greens. However, you could just use iceberg or romaine lettuce.
• Tomatoes: Cherry or grape tomatoes work year-round, but vine-ripened and Roma tomatoes will work during tomato season.
• Cucumber: It’s best to use Persian or English cucumber in salads, as they are less seedy and have a thin peel that doesn’t require peeling.
• Avocado: I love the creamy texture ripe avocado adds to the salad. To check for avocado ripeness, there should be some give when squeezed.
• Red onion: Or shallots. For a less robust flavor, soak the onion in ice water for 10-15 minutes before adding it to the vegan cobb salad OR use green onions.
• Chickpeas: I used canned garbanzo beans (or white beans) to replace chicken, but feel free to add flavor and texture by using roasted chickpeas.
• Vegan bacon: Use your favorite vegan mock bacon or make homemade tofu/ tempeh bacon. Eggplant/carrot bacon or coconut bacon works too.
• Dressing: I love this veggie cobb salad with creamy ranch dressing (homemade or store-bought) or other creamy salad dressings, like a tahini or green goddess dressing. However, you could also use a red wine vinaigrette.

What Else Could I Add to Vegetable Cobb Salad?

There are plenty of vegan salad toppings you can experiment with in this hearty, versatile vegan, gluten-free salad, including:

• Dairy-free cheese (either shredded or crumbly vegan cheese)
• Radishes (chopped or thinly sliced)
• Corn (canned or grilled)
• Carrot (shredded)
• Beetroot (roasted and diced or shredded)
• Green beans (steamed or canned)
• Olives (any color, pitted)
• Seeds (toasted pepitas/sunflower seeds add crunch, protein, & healthy fats)
• Fresh herbs (like chives or dill)

To make a ‘kind of’ copycat of the Cheesecake Factory vegan cobb salad, use iceberg lettuce and add to the veggies with roasted beets, grilled asparagus, and cooked green beans. This version also adds a mixture of quinoa and farro and tops it off with toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds).

How to Make Vegan Cobb Salad

• 1) First, rinse and chop the tomatoes and cucumber, dice the avocado, and thinly slice the red onion. Also, drain and rinse the canned chickpeas. If the vegan bacon isn’t cooked, do that now, too.

• 2) Divide the leafy greens between two large bowls, then divide all the toppings between the two bowls. For a traditional Cobb salad, set them in neat rows. However, you can just toss them all in if preferred.
• 3) Drizzle over the dressing, and enjoy!

Recipe Pro Tips

• Use ripe, in-season produce: Any simple salad will massively benefit from the freshest, ripest ingredients.  
• To speed up prep: If you have them, a food chopper and/or mandoline can help to speed up the vegetable prep.
• Adjust the texture: Choosing how thin/big to chop and slice the ingredients will change the overall texture of hearty vegan salads and affect how much you’ll enjoy per forkful.

FAQs

Serving Suggestions

Depending on the size of your portion, this vegetarian cobb salad makes for a hearty main meal or side you can enjoy at picnics, potlucks, and BBQs alongside:

• Garlic bread
• Breadsticks
• Corn on the cob
• Roasted or grilled vegetables
• A baked potato/ hasselback potatoes
• A small portion of soup
• Vegan grilled cheese

How To Meal Prep Vegan Salads?

There are two main ways to meal prep salads. The first has you prepare all the various ingredients and store them separately in containers in the fridge, ready to assemble when needed.

Alternatively, you can make ‘salad jars’; this allows you to layer/stack ingredients to maintain the best texture (i.e., wetter ingredients like tomato and cucumber at the bottom).

There are a few things to keep in mind, though:

1. Always keep any ‘crispy’ ingredients (like croutons) separate so they don’t become soft before serving.
2. Only add quick-spoiling ingredients (like avocado) just before serving.
3. Add the dressing when serving to avoid the salad becoming soggy too soon.

For this salad, add the ingredients to the jar in the following order: A few tablespoons of vegan dressing, onion, tomato, cucumber, leafy greens, and vegan bacon. Shake the jar before serving, pour into a bowl, and add the avocado.

Storage Instructions

Most meal prep salads will store for about 4 days in airtight containers in the refrigerator.

Once assembled, though, this vegetarian cobb salad doesn’t store particularly well. The avocado will brown, and the salad will become soggy over time as it sits in the vegan dressing. For that reason, I recommend eating it within a day.

More Easy Vegan Salad Recipes

• Ramen Noodle Cabbage Salad
• Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad
• Easy Mediterranean White Bean Salad
• Cucumber Tajin Salad [or Snack]
• Vegan Smashed Chickpea Salad [Sandwiches, Wraps, Dip]
• Watermelon Mint Salad

If you try this easy vegan cobb salad recipe, I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments below. I’d also really appreciate a recipe card rating.

Photos by Alfonso Revilla